Game in the Brain

Emerging from a purely domestic figure, the woman’s place in 19th century Spanish Philippines is centered around family. The role of a woman in then was pretty much the same, as women in the earlier ages: tasked to nurture children, take care of the household, plan for the future, and transmit the values they feel is essential in the survival and success of the next generation.

Suffice to say, that the very center of all families then and up until now is the mother. Consider the technological disadvantage and obstacles that comes part of raising a family, and the highly specialized roles they play in raising a child compared to how parents are now- motherhood was the only defining virtue a woman had in the time before the industrial revolution.

So looking at my story, consider a woman who is barren, a stranger to her parent’s family, and a pawn of her husband’s family. If that wasn’t hard, consider a legacy of a “Modern” woman’s virtues (the woman’s mother) independent, indomitable, and passionate as it is played in mindsets frozen in times medieval, xenophobic, and closed minded. I’m figuring, the very strengths that modern women have now, that I see in the women of my family, having to be in a world where the only thing they are defined with is their ability to bear bawling little brats.

This analysis, is one of the things I’m thinking of as I’m writing my notes and struggling to make sense of it all and what I’m trying to say. Universally, how it is to struggle for an identity beyond that one that is given to you and not the Identity one chooses.

What sucks in stories like these is that I have to give a memorable and distinct name for the protagonist-lady that is not too telling. People who know me well could already guess the name that comes to mind (clue: I drew her a couple of times and she has a lot in common with this character).