A feminist analysis of colonial representations of Visayan women at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition

ABSTRACT

Significant works have been published on American colonial photography in the Philippines, which primarily focus on the depiction of Filipinos in general and not on the images of Filipino women, specifically Visayan women. Using an intersectional feminist lens, this article examines how Visayan women were portrayed at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition through colonial photography by comparing their representations with those of Visayan men and indigenous Filipino women in terms of gender, ethnicity, religion and social class. It interrogates how the Americans utilized photography not only as an imperialist instrument but also as an effective means to propagate their gender ideology in the newly acquired colony. While indigenous Filipinos were generally represented as savages, indigenous women were doubly so owing to their implied inferiority to men. And while Visayan women were depicted as ‘the most civilized’, their representation in photographs still promoted a certain type of gender ideology that circulated the idea of male superiority over women, portraying them as how the colonizers perceived them, thus reinforcing the power of the colonizer over the colonized. This study also challenges photography’s claim to objectivity by comparing Visayan women’s images in colonial photography with their actual roles in society.

KEYWORDS:

• Feminism
• Visayan women
• 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition
• colonial photography
• intersectionality

Acknowledgements

This paper was originally delivered during the 2021 Annual Philippine Studies Conference entitled ‘Kaagi: Tracing Visayan Identities in Cultural Contexts’ at SOAS University of London held on 22–26 June 2021 via Zoom and is part of the author’s PhD dissertation entitled ‘Kababaihan, Potograpiya, at Kasaysayan: Isang Pagsusuri sa Imahen ng Kababaihan sa Potograpiyang Kolonyal sa Harap ng Imperyalismong Amerikano’ [Women, Photography, and History: An Analysis of the Images of Women in American Colonial Photography], University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, 2021. I wish to thank Dr. Rowan Pease, Dr. Cristina Juan and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, as well as Louise Evans for their valuable input and assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Postponement for a Year’, The Washington Post, 3 May 1902.

2 One issue with colonial sources is the tendency to treat people belonging to different ethnic groups as a homogeneous group. In this case, most sources used the term ‘Visayan women’ but it was mentioned that the Visayans exhibited at the Exposition came from Iloilo (SVV 1904). While the term Visayan women was used in this paper, it is important to note that there are various Visayan subgroups such as the Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilonggo, etc.

3 The Philippines was colonized by Spain for more than 300 years prior to American occupation, with the religious orders being powerful since they were the ones who were credited for ‘pacifying’ the natives. Thus, the Spanish concept of morality became dominant in Christianized areas such as the Visayas, and part of this moral doctrine was the imposition of the European mode of clothing where body parts, especially among women, had to be covered in order to be considered ‘civilized’.

4 Act No. 74. January 21, 1901. ‘An Act Establishing a Department of Public Instruction in the Philippine Islands and Appropriating Forty Thousand Dollars for the Organization and Maintenance of a Normal and a Trade School in Manila, and Fifteen Thousand Dollars for the Organization and Maintenance of an Agricultural School in the Island of Negros for the Year Nineteen Hundred and One’. https://bit.ly/3m4Jpfh.

5 An Italian cardinal who was the first apostolic delegate to the US, and who dedicated the only church on the Exposition’s grounds (Newell 1904).

6 Convent school girls who went to beaterios and followed rules similar to those of the nuns except that they were allowed to have activities outside of their homes (Veneracion 1992, 7).

7 Older women who served in the church to offer flowers, collect donations from church-goers during masses and serve the friars (Salazar 1989).

8 A book about the exchange of letters between two sisters which serves as a rule book for women on how to behave as ‘decent’ women.

9 A sacred cloth woven by the T’boli people, specifically by the women, in communities around Lake Sebu, Mindanao Island (Corre 2000).

10 The term babaylan was used in Palawan, Tayabas, Laguna and Samar, while the term babaylana was used in Capiz, Antique, Iloilo, Cebu and Negros; baylan was used among the Mandaya (Mangahas and Llaguno 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This research paper was made possible thanks to the 2017–2018 Research Fellowship for Southeast Asian Scholars from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) at the University of Michigan (U-M).