The Philippines being a Patriarchal society expects women to live their life in accordance with the will of man. However as years pass, women has slowly been asserting themselves in different fields: in the family, in the society, in schools, and both in private and public corporations. Hence, the Philippines now claim that there has been an existing equality mostly amongst Filipino men and women.

Albeit, being liberated from the clutches of the Spaniards for more more than a hundred years, remnants of one of their significant contribution in the corruption of our culture still remains, and that is as we all know, Catholicism.

It has been said that it is often the case that women are the ones who are religious. They are the ones that could usually be seen in churches, the ones praying the novena, the ones who participate in processions in deification of Mary and the ones who have been doing community work for the sake of the poor.

A perfect example of the latter could be the recently canonized saint- Mother Teresa. A psychological and social perspective could of course shed light to explain such. Women, by virtue of their biological make up are more inclined to use their emotion more than detached and objective logic. Although it could be significantly argued that there are indeed women Philosophers, Skeptics, Logicians and the like; one can still argue that women in general fit the characteristics of the aforementioned. Religion, being an endeavor that mostly appeals to the emotion due to its concept of faith, fear of hell, pursuit of the everlasting happiness of heaven, religious experience and the like could be significantly attributed to the emotive factor of humanity. Although this argument could still be contested by the fact that a number of contemporary thinkers believed that there is still a so-called rationality in emotion. However I will no longer go ahead and elaborate on such.

Women are also the ones, by virtue of our culture who are taught to pray by their mothers and are expected to be the “servants of god”. Being the specie that provoked Adam to sin, it seems that women are unconsciously paying their fictitious debt in virtue to the “social reality” that has slowly been inculcated to the Filipino Society. You see that girls are sent to exclusive schools being run by nuns; girls being taught to make god the center of their lives hence the triumph of Harris’ book (I Kissed Dating Goodbye) and the promotion of the idea of god’s will. Women labeled as immoral when they loss their virginity before marriage and a hundred more arguments that one could add in the list.

As such, throughout my life as a skeptic, freethinker, and an atheist, a number of people usually asked me. You are a woman, why are you an atheist? Or to my spiritual friends, they often give me the blank stare, as if trying to think for words to say. My reason for atheism is quite simple. I justifiably believe that there is no such thing as a universal truth, that every knowledge that is known to man is nothing but increasing and decreasing degrees of probabilities. Religion, being a “form of knowledge” in its own right is nothing but an institution that works in virtue of the synchronization of psychological and social expectations of people, who desire a being that could save them from the state of nothingness brought forth by their lives. It is nothing but a subjective reality institutionalized. It is nothing but a fabricated cushion that Homer way back from the time of the Greeks created to give a meaning out of their war-infested state.

Let us go ahead and fast-forward the implications of Christianity to the contemporary Filipina. Christian women are taught that god is her lover, that her life must be lived in accordance to the happiness with her lover. That any romantic relationships must be made in accordance with the will of god. That skepticism must be eliminated and one should only seek god in times of doubt. That women are taught to humble themselves and seek to follow the authority. Let us just limit these list to these four arguments and let us seek to know what detrimental implications these have brought women.

Women are taught that god is her lover. Similar to the parable of the ten virgins, women are expected to be prepared for god. She is expected to be perfect for her groom and anticipate the day that they will finally be together. As such, what would be the implication? That women must tailor their lives primarily through Christianity, that any endeavor that she wished to do that would not please her groom should be prevented. That she should make her self pure and as spotless as the snow. This then paves the way for the seemingly silent and reserved behavior of women. That they do not dare attempt to make a move that will displease her lover. Although this argument could be said as not the literal perception adopted by women, such is being embedded in their subconscious, making them naturally act as if they are made to be such. The manner in which are women are raised and how their parents, their teachers, and the society treat them makes them feel more that they are made to obey and please men. Dress the way their lover wants them, communicate the way their lover wants them, pursue a career that their lover wants them, follow your father, fear your father, follow the priest, confess with the priest, give 15% of your salary as donation to the pastor, attend the Sunday service with your family and the likes. The life of the Filipina by saying that it is put in a box is an understatement, I believe that the life of the Filipina is reduced to fit a matchbox and is flushed deep beneath shits of priests. I remember I have this classmate from the Graduate School, she used to be a nun. Her life was lived with lesbian nuns seemingly able to reach bliss through the use of their fingers and tongues. From her mouth did not flow words of praise but of putang ina’s. Her first boyfriend was a priest, and after leaving the church for a couple of years, they broke up.

You see, the more that women are forced and are brainwashed by the society to be the lover of god, the more that they are losing their identity, the more that they resolve to acts that could further destroy them, the more that they are significantly reducing themselves to mere puppets. I remember my professor way back during my college days in Feminist Philosophy. She said: “Hanggang lalaki ang diyos, hindi magtatagumpay ang feminismo sa Pilipinas”.