It is indeed undeniable that we live in a society with conflicting views, beliefs, and opinions on every sort of interest or disinterest which likewise subsumes us in a culture of ideological contradiction; notwithstanding, if it is patriarchal, exploitative, illusory, demoralizing (and so the count continues) in nature. But all these cultural (de)constructions made us wonder to resist and to reverse radically or otherwise for a much more rewarding notion of liberal consciousness that zeroes in in the disparaging debate between men and women. The outburst of this 'gender revolt' and 'sex roles revisioning' of women against men have caused a 'social splitting', 'sexual distancing,' and 'values melt-down' that disillusion one to be suspicious and paranoid about the other. The consequence however is felt in the family, in relationship and even in friendship.

But predictably, the urgency of the time has given birth to a self-contradicting ideology, which also fashions itself into subsequent christenings and celebrations of feminism. This new ideological bandwagon has finally confronted and questioned the 'male gendered' structure of micro and macro societies in its all encompassing aspects.

With the pressing and depressing problems beset still by a repressive capitalism and a domineering patriarchy, Feminism today (specifically Materialist-Feminism) is faced with a gargantuan task:

...of constructing and using a theoretical positions...on the power relations implied by gender and simultaneously on those implied by class, race and sexual identification; an analysis of history and society; an analysis of cultural production and an analysis of the complexities with which at a given moment in history (Newton, 1992:xix).

This could have been an uphill battle of critiquing on the one side and a Pandora's box of analysis on the other side. Added to this view is the utopic tendency of some sectors on feminism that consummate a blurred and foggy orientation from theory to practice. To single out, the French Feminists seem too heightened to hypothesize and to theorize on a Mt. Sisyphus' level of intellectual discourse that has secluded a cloudy and airy la langue of intricacies on feminism. 'This holds for Helene Cixous's intricate puns and Luce Irigaray's infuriating passion for the Greek alphabet, as well as for Julia Kristeva's unsettling habit of referring to everyone from St. Bernard to Fitche or Artaud in the same sentence (Moi,1995:96). These bizarre and eccentric concoctions of linguistic and semiological reductionism to obscurity on feminism may in some degree dissipate a practical understanding (if ever they wanted really to be understood!) or more so, a translation to 'reality'. Furthermore, there is this 'mirror...mirror on the wall complex' symptomatic in radical feminism. This 'complex' on the one hand finds a feminist oozing with confidence and conspicuous arrogance, talking in front of the mirror asking this question: 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the most powerful, subjugating, dominating...being of all? On the other hand, the mirror unhesistantly answers back, 'Oh my dear, darling one, no one could ever be but man. With this in the end, having been unsatisfied and frustrated, she crashes the mirror with her vengeful hands and altogether curses men. This genre of vulgar feminism has been excessively determined to obliterate men, the law of the Father, the phallus and other endless, bottomless manifestations of this cursed creature.

In a positive light however, this should not be seen or be misconstrued as a repudiation of this feminist ideology, but instead as a widening of horizon in understanding why it exists, persists and persuades within the female psyche in particular and throughout the present cultural milieu in general.

The history of feminism maybe loosely summarized as a rampage from silence. This is characterized by an outbreak of critical unperturbedness which, in spite of a repressive regime, has began to make an outcry-a loud voice of assertions though without a number of listeners. It is a voice, a mode of uttering, and a response in its own right (Min-ha,1989: 83).

David Wood explains that silence is not a limit but rather it exceeds the limit that surpasses it and therefore speaks of something else that is meaningful and profound. 'It is that the sense and significance of there being something that cannot be said is itself an effect of language (1990:24).'

In simple terms, women's silence implies a message, a language of discontent and a critique in its antithetical form. Silence means something and the absence of words does not mean irrationality or meekness of conformity for the part of women. In the long run without civilly confronting this silence, it might well blast out of proportion. Just like the beginning of feminism which rattles and stammers in its every wording and uttering of ideological discourse. Going back to the scarcity of listeners, few (both men and women) had dared not to listen because the outcry has outraged them. From this, the few that rapidly contaminate the many suffered a return to chastity. Their minds become bastions of virginity in terms of accepting a seemingly dogmatic preaching of the feminists. They resisted the deafening outcry and palpable shrieking of ideologues. They loathe this impending nightmare inside their house, because feminism has encroached the importance of family and thereby divided the wife and the husband. Some relationships have begun to break down because of petty assertions of both men and women. The wife labeling herself as a feminist would not dare be outwitted by the husband from simple conversations to out of proportion, Picaso-like argumentations. The husband on the other hand would not dare eat his full-blown ego nor dare accept a plea from a nagging wife. They (the few and the many) admonish the shadow of feminism right under their noses, straight before their doorsteps. Finally they, because of their close mindedness, hypervaluate this virginity. To paraphrase Arnold Azurin's line, this hypervaluation is characterized as 'extravagant valuation attached to their minds which possess some kind of an emotional and social booby trap to the male and female psyche (1997:157).' Thus to reposition the stance of the silence and virginity of WOMEN (not only theirs but also of MEN), it should be placed within the confines of a meaningful dialogue.

This dialogue will nonetheless serve as the desilencing and devirginizing effect between a confrontation of men and women. A dialogue in this instance is like a fusion of horizon or a textual reading appropriate to reach an unparalleled equality and to bring out mutual understanding.

Hans-Georg Gadamer accentuates the importance of dialogue within the context of understanding and of interpreting the other, whether it be a text, a piece of art, or human being. "By entering into dialogue, we must have the good will to try to understand each other (Wood,1990:157). In this context, feminism has to be merited in its strength and content. This ideology must enter into a dialogue with the ideology it wants to deconstruct. Like a woman bantering meaningful conversation with man and vice-versa. But expect to have misunderstanding too. Gadamer even admits this: 'I would not want to say that the solidarities which bind human beings together and make them partners in dialogue always are sufficient to enable them to achieve understanding and total mutual agreement (Michelfelder and Palmer,1989: 57).' Although, this might incite an inexhaustible dialogue there is a point to mean the importance of understanding the other, than not to incite at all. Gadamer claims that understanding is a projective activity and that we can think of that projectivity in terms of an openness he calls a horizon (Wood, 1990: 123). Hence, this openness or fusion of horizon is like de-viginizing the closure wrought by feminism and by feminism in itself. Moreover, it gives a de-silencing ambiance to meet the misgivings, hatred, bitterness and other not so good effects in order to reconstruct these effects differently.

In a textual reading, there must be a convergence of understanding or its extreme, misunderstanding. This side way or double-edged consequence is important because just like texts, human beings must always be open. Men and women must remain de-virginized in order not to succumb into stagnation. In this point, there is always an equal footing between the reader and the text, man and woman, husband and wife...It is because both assume a single turn and a simultaneous turn all at the same time. The difference however is to remain critical and contradictory also at all times.

To summarize, feminism as a movement and as a critical theory, is a public discourse that should not be kept in silence in this 'kind' of society. People are held captive in the spiraling debates about ideological discourses on feminism. But a critical question endures: Where are all these debates leading to? For man and woman cannot live in society with a damaged culture, fragmented values, divided suspicions that confront the essence of the their existence as human beings. In spite of all these, there is a higher rationale or irrationality (for some) that binds a WOMAN and a MAN, which does not lodge on gender, on nuisances and differences but on meaningful relationship that is mutually and equally inclusive through a dialogue called LOVE...

References:

Azurin, Arnold. 1997. Reinventing the Filipino: Sense of Being and Becoming Filipino. (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press).

Michelfelder, Dianne and Palmer, Richard. 1989. Dialogue and Deconstruction. (Albany Sunny).

Min-ha, Trinh T. 1989. Women, Native, Other: Writing Post-Coloniality & Feminism.

Moi, Toril. 1995. Sexual/Textual Politics; Feminist Literary Theory (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press).

Newton, Judith and Roselfelt, Deborah. 1992. Toward a Materialist-Feminits Criticism (London: Routledge).

Warnack, Mary.1996. Women Philosophers (London: Everyman Publishing).

Wood, David. 1990. Philosophy at the Limit (London: Unwin Hyman).