Women answer back

Press, 25 January 1986, Page 11

Women answer back

NZPA-Reuter Manila Women hit back yesterday at the election campaign taunt by the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, that a woman’s place was in the bedroom. “Maybe he’s met only women of very limited range,” said a Manila University department chief, Doreen Fernandez. Mr Marcos, said that model women should "confine their preachings to inside the bedroom.” Mr Marcos, whose wife, Imelda, is one of the Philippines’ most powerful political figures, told an election rally that his

political challenger, Mrs Corazon Aquino, had stepped out of line by challenging men. Dr Mita Pardo de Tavera, head of the women’s human rights group, Gabriela, said: “Coming from a man whose wife is always on the frontline and who wants to run the country, he should have told her to confine herself to the bedroom long ago.” Mrs Marcos, aged 56, a former beauty queen who is Minister of Human Settlements and Governor of Metropolitan Manila, pitched in with the charge that Mrs Aquino, who will be 53 on Saturday, does

not wear make up or nail varnish. She has also dismissed Aquino as “that widow.” Cory’s Crusaders, a proAquino women’s group which claims a membership of 100,000, said they felt publicly insulted and said that Mr Marcos’ economic policies had forced women into prostitution and servitude overseas. “Now he has the gall and the vulgarity to recommend that women confine their preachings to the bedroom... for him they are no more than slaves and objects of men’s pleasure.”