Katrina Stuart Santiago's article is blind to its own stereotype

My take on Katrina Stuart Santiago's article on @GMANews regarding Claudine's NAIA 3 scuffle:


Katrina Stuart Santiago: It’s in this sense that Claudine’s anger, her taray, is to me refreshing.

It's refreshing because the author thinks women do not normally do this. Or she thinks people think women dont do this, shouldnt do this. Since Claudine is a popular media personality, let us mention other popular media personalities whose taray the author could find refreshing:

Anabelle Rama,





Lolit Solis,





Amalia Fuentes.




It's not about age, right? It's about their femaleness.

Or if you want to go younger, here's Cristine Reyes.




KSS: Granted that she was scolding employees who also had no control over the situation, granted that lashing out would not mean getting their bags back any faster, much might be said about releasing frustration in the face of inefficiency. Yes, these are unfortunate employees faced with such anger, but that is not so much Claudine’s fault, as it is the company’s which knows only too well that those in the lower rungs are the ones who will suffer. We might call Claudine out on verbal abuse, but then again what are the limits to complaining about bad service? No cuss words? No threatening that employees will lose their jobs? No screaming? How to measure anger?

How to measure anger? Anger does not get violent. Rage does.

Claudine has every right to be angry at inefficient service. But to be verbally abusive? Why should that be okay?

Why is the author asking about the limits of getting angry? Why is she even contemplating about using cuss words? Threatening to get employees fired? Does she think there should be no limits just because it is a woman getting `angry?'

By her line of argument, the below kind of anger is possible.




But wait, she says she draws the line on physical abuse.


KSS: Was she wrong for being that angry? That’s a judgment of one anger over another. I draw the line at physical abuse.

Because she doesnt consider verbally / mentally / psychological demeaning remarks as abuse. That's a form of myopia no medical doctor could resolve.


KSS: That Claudine was this angry – and again we don’t know exactly how angry – despite being a celebrity tells me that she was ready to face the consequences of her actions.

Ermmm..or that she has poor self-restraint much?



KSS: As I will draw the line at calling her ill-bred, which is what’s on the interwebs, as if we do not know of the class biases of such a judgment. And how can we not be in crisis by the fact that if we are using notions of breeding for this story at all, then we should be pointing the finger at Tulfo. He who saw the situation and decided that documenting it was in order. He who could’ve decided otherwise and just gone on with his life, let the story happen as it would on these shores, via tsismis and blind items, may be a small story in the showbiz section that would prompt Claudine and Raymart to maybe make a short public statement about the incident.

I will draw the line and halt with any what-ifs and not control the NAIA 3 situation in my head.



KSS: ..why couldn’t this woman be as angry as a man, be as aggressive as the other men in this video are? Why do we demand differently of a person as aggrieved if not even more so? And then we judge her as ill-bred and tactless, as basagulera and nakakahiya, because she dared kick ass.....And yes, this is about women going against other women because many of us think like our men; that is a tragedy in itself.

Wait a minute. Why single out Claudine's aggressiveness and violence? In the first place, why are the men's aggressiveness and violence deemed okay enough that it is okay for women to be equally so? Because they're men? Who said aggressiveness and violence is okay for men or for women? Ergo, if men can sleep around, why can't women? Who thinks it is okay to sleep around anyway? Just because men are doing it does not make that shit right.

Katrina Stuart Santiago might not notice it but she is thinking like a dude too.



KSS: Which reminds us all that we can’t handle a woman doing exactly that, as we fall back on stereotypes to describe her. We will be blind to the fact that at the core of hitting Claudine with words that hurt is a demand on the woman to be the good ol’ stereotype of soft spoken and mahinhin.

Ermmm....why is the author generalizing women as mahinhin and soft-spoken? That was how Star Magic packaged Claudine Barretto's career. That is not how today's hot item Marian RIvera is packaging hers.




KSS: We want the woman who waits for the man to defend her, yes? And in which case the ones who get angry enough to shout, those who know to fight back, we prove that we cannot handle those women.

No, we can. Maybe the author can't.

I personally cant equate anger with violence. But rage and violence go together like peanut and butter.



KSS: That this means being unable to appreciate it when a woman shows us we can be bigger than the Maria Clara stereotype we’ve been stuck with all this time goes without saying. That we fail to appreciate Claudine kicking ass the way she has? That is our bigger tragedy. - GMA News


The tragedy is that women think acting like a dude means empowerment. It does not. It simply means women are acting like dudes

AKA

Being abusive is okay as long as its women doing it to men.

And I dont know of anyone who is solely pointing the finger at Claudine but clearly, Katrina Stuart Santiago's article is.