Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Women Positive Sites at UP Diliman

In my twenty years of stay in this university I haven't been aware that there are women-positive sites till I saw this UP DGO brochure. Guess what? we have 17 women-positive sites at UP Diliman campus. Very interesting for me was that statue of a naked woman washing her hair at the UP checkpoint. Little did I know that it means washing away all prejudices and other biased perspectives because one will be entering a democratic and freedom loving university, one may not be able to experience that space if one is having a biased perspective. Another interesting historical site was that wall sculpture at the left side (right before the checkpoint). It depicts of two naked bodies, a man and woman, and the symbols of learning (books etc.) bordering their sides. This means that both men and women are equally capable of higher learning. One can also take a look at the recent scuplture at the Women's Studies Center named "dakila" (wisdom or great teacher). Perhaps, this is a quizzical image of a woman (fully dressed up and with an image of a sun emanating from its head) compared to the nude women sculptures at the entrance of the Faculty Center. Interesting contrasts. But one needs a women-sensitive mind to be able to decipher what makes one a work of art... For more women-positive sites, you can tour around UP and take a notebook and a pen and guess the other 14 sites I failed to mention here.