Addressing the mother gap: Why Filipino feminism needs motherhood studies

Abstract

Despite the Global North's status on motherhood scholarship, the Global South continues to dub motherhood as feminism's ‘unfinished business.’ One thing remains: motherhood continues to be a gendered identity that shapes and influences women's subjective experience. Building on the works of mother scholars and feminist philosophers, I defend the inclusion of motherhood scholarship in Filipino feminist theorizing. I argue that its absence in the Philippine feminist scholarship contributes to the decontextualization and exclusion of motherhood dialogue from Filipino feminism. To do this, I map the women’s movement in the Philippines to show the evolution of the woman question in Filipino feminism. Then, I examine the Filipino construction of motherhood, position these debates within feminism, and argue for activism rooted in motherhood discourses. Through this conversation, feminist theorizing on motherhood enables us to examine the ways that motherhood and mothering serve as sites of both oppression and liberation for Filipino women.