Reshaping Perspectives: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Filipino Women’s Representations in the 20th- and 21st-Century Philippine Literature

Abstract

Since the beginning of recorded history, women have experienced oppression from men, contributing to the emergence of feminist movements and feminist literary theory, which examines gender inequality, oppression, and women’s agency. Although feminist literary criticism has gained recognition in the Philippines, studies examining Filipino women’s representations across historical periods remain limited. Hence, this study examined Filipino women’s representations in selected 20th- and 21st-century Philippine literary texts through Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, specifically Lirio by Peter Solis Nery and Sinigang by Marie Aubrey Villaceran. The findings revealed that all five language registers were evident in both texts and functioned as markers of power relations among characters. Filipino women negotiated power through various linguistic and communicative strategies, including association with nature, shouting, silence, assertive language, submissive language, politeness, sympathetic language, and indirect language. Women in the 20th-century text were represented as religious, excluded, and overdependent, whereas women in the 21st-century text were portrayed as submissive, emotionally complex, and morally empowered. Across both texts, women were commonly represented as performing domestic and caregiving roles, voiceless, oppressed, objectified, and living within patriarchal social structures, while also demonstrating empowerment. Overall, the findings indicate both continuity and change, with the 21st-century text presenting more nuanced forms of female agency and resistance while patriarchal ideologies remain evident in both texts.