The Attack on Feminism: Is Anti-Feminist Sentiment a Valid Basis for a Fil-West Relationship? 

I noted in an earlier chapter that, by and large, westerners who marry Filipinas are ideologically conservative.  A minority could even be called “reactionary”.  I also pointed out that such men typically deviate from the conservative school of thought in that they are typically proponents of liberal (legal) immigration and intercultural (“mixed”) marriages. Given these deviations, I often debate whether I’m confusing classic western conservatism with a newly invigorated form of Libertarianism.   

One reason I’m unwilling to abandon the conservative label is that, at least in America, conservatives are much more likely to take issue with the “feminist agenda.”  And, after several years of exchanging emails with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of western men involved with Filipinas, I can safely say that a majority of those men are anti-feminists.  Some, intensely so.    

The importance of the anti-feminist philosophy is implicit in the results of my own polling.  I posed the question, “What is the PRIMARY reason you are interested in a Filipina wife?” to my site visitors.  The options I provided were based on my own exchanges, up to that point, with site visitors.  I listed the six most common reasons given to me by these visitors, which were:  

(1)  They (Filipinas) are more traditional, family oriented,  

(2)  They are less demanding partners,  

(3)  They are more beautiful, charismatic, or feminine  

(4)  Difficulty in establishing domestic relationships  

(5) Age difference not important to Filipinas  

(6  General recommendations of others with Filipina wives  

There were 1,005 respondents.   

An overwhelming 42% of respondents selected (1), indicating that they believed Filipinas to be more traditional and family oriented than the women of their own country.  33% selected (3), which focused on the beauty, charisma, or femininity of Filipinas.  These two categories combine for 75% of all votes cast, and both can be construed as basically anti-feminist.  Thus, 3 out of 4 men interested in Filipinas considered the stereotype of Filipinas as traditional, feminine wives to be the prime motivation in their resolve.   

A perusal of various Internet penpal sites and Fil-West proponent literature on the subject seems to confirm my own findings.  Again and again, it is stated or implied that marriage to a Filipina provides the western man with a way of avoiding the dangers of a feminist wife.   

The suggestion is that Filipinas are raised in a culture that still promotes the femininity of women, whereas women in western nations are, due to a feminist agenda, raised in a culture that is decidedly anti-male.  Pointedly, the more emotional proponents of this philosophy often replace the term “feminist” with “feminazi” to indicate just how evil they believe the feminist agenda to be. For believers, feminism seeks to psychologically emasculate men, to reverse traditional male-female roles in the family, or to create a gender-blind society.   

In my mind, two questions should be addressed when discussing this phenomenon: one, is aversion to a feminist agenda (whether real or imagined) justifiable impetus for marriage to a woman from another culture, and two, do men who marry for this reason achieve what they hope to achieve? In other words, how removed are Filipinas from feminist influences?     

My belief with regard to the first point is that aversion to a feminist agenda should not be the prime motivation for a westerner to marry a Filipina.  Note that I am not affirming or contesting the existence of a feminist agenda, since my position would be the same in either event.   

A man should marry a woman for who she is, not for she is not.  Perhaps you, like many men I’ve corresponded with, believe the women of your own country are “brainwashed” by militant feminists.  Perhaps you believe that such women are incapable or unwilling to be “traditional” wives and mothers.  Without passing judgment on the legitimacy of your concern, my position is that marrying a Filipina under these circumstances is marrying a woman for who she is not, as opposed to marrying her for who she is – an individual with her own philosophy, values, perfections and flaws.   

Imagine a romantic dinner with your beautiful fiancée.  She leans across the table and asks, mischievously,  “How did you know I was the right girl for you?”  In response, you lean over, until your lips are within a couple of inches of hers, and say, softly, “Well, basically, you were a woman, and you weren’t American.”   

Not exactly the stuff of movies, is it?  How do you think that would make your fiancée feel?   

It could be argued that a man has the right to choose the kind of wife he wants, and if he clearly knows the kind of wife he does not want (one from his own country), he should use this knowledge to his advantage. In this scenario, that implies looking abroad for a potential mate.  Fair enough.  But one still has to ask why a man would turn to the Philippines, of all the nations of the earth, to achieve his goal.    

Here are some good reasons…   

(End of book excerpt – if you’d like the entire text, please consider ordering The ASAWA Guide to Fil-West Relationships.  Thank you!)

All original materials on this website (www.asawa.org, www.filipinawives.com) are copyrighted by the author, Bob Lingerfelt, 1997 -2007  with materials on file at the U.S. Copyright Office.  No reproduction is authorized, in any form, without express permission of the author.