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    The Second Sister

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    Renee Serrano
    The document summarizes the lives of two sisters from a large Filipino family in the 1960s. Ruth, the eldest daughter, took on responsibility as the breadwinner and lived up to expectations as the "ideal girl", though it's unclear if she fulfilled her own dreams. Evangeline, in contrast, lived independently and unapologetically according to her own desires and opinions, which led others to view her negatively as "loud" or a "bitch". However, the concluding paragraph argues that women are socially conditioned to make themselves smaller while men are praised for the same qualities, and that women like Evangeline who assert boundaries threaten the patriarchal status quo.

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    The Second Sister

    Uploaded by

    Renee Serrano
    54 views1 page
    The document summarizes the lives of two sisters from a large Filipino family in the 1960s. Ruth, the eldest daughter, took on responsibility as the breadwinner and lived up to expectations as the "ideal girl", though it's unclear if she fulfilled her own dreams. Evangeline, in contrast, lived independently and unapologetically according to her own desires and opinions, which led others to view her negatively as "loud" or a "bitch". However, the concluding paragraph argues that women are socially conditioned to make themselves smaller while men are praised for the same qualities, and that women like Evangeline who assert boundaries threaten the patriarchal status quo.

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    The document summarizes the lives of two sisters from a large Filipino family in the 1960s. Ruth, the eldest daughter, took on responsibility as the breadwinner and lived up to expectations as the "ideal girl", though it's unclear if she fulfilled her own dreams. Evangeline, in contrast, lived independently and unapologetically according to her own desires and opinions, which led others to view her negatively as "loud" or a "bitch". However, the concluding paragraph argues that women are socially conditioned to make themselves smaller while men are praised for the same qualities, and that women like Evangeline who assert boundaries threaten the patriarchal status quo.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    54 views1 page

    The Second Sister

    Uploaded by

    Renee Serrano
    The document summarizes the lives of two sisters from a large Filipino family in the 1960s. Ruth, the eldest daughter, took on responsibility as the breadwinner and lived up to expectations as the "ideal girl", though it's unclear if she fulfilled her own dreams. Evangeline, in contrast, lived independently and unapologetically according to her own desires and opinions, which led others to view her negatively as "loud" or a "bitch". However, the concluding paragraph argues that women are socially conditioned to make themselves smaller while men are praised for the same qualities, and that women like Evangeline who assert boundaries threaten the patriarchal status quo.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 1

    The Second Sister

    Being in a big family of nine—including both of their parents— life was not the kindest to the
    Reodiques especially noting that it was the 60's and they live in the Philippines. They had to
    share anything and everything; beds, plates, books, clothes, whatever fits and whatever works.
    You know what they say, though; "the smaller the house, the closer the family."— and it's true,
    for their case. Beds were crowded but cozy and everything else. Despite having just enough to
    get through the week, they were content. They were happy.

    To understand Evangeline, I have to tell you about her older sister, Ruth— my grandmother.
    Like every eldest daughter in a Filipino (or Asian, rather) household, she's the breadwinner.
    Being her parents' most sickly child did not stop her from achieving things her parents and
    everyone else around her would be proud of. Moreso, she's a beautiful woman. The type who
    always flashes a smile no matter what. She always joked about receiving tons of flowers and
    love letters from her many suitors when she was young. It was true, though. She's an ideal girl,
    the first sister. That being said, she's the first in everyone's eyes. Ah, yes. Ruth. She always
    works so hard, always has everyone's back. To top it all off, she basically lives in their local
    church for how religious and god-fearing she is. Ruth is the woman every old fashioned mothers
    wished their kids to be. I just don't know if she ever became the person she wants to be.

    Evangeline, however, is the exact opposite. She is almost always in perfectly good health but
    never made too much effort doing things she didn't want to. They deemed her lazy. She takes
    up space in a way that she knows damn well how to voice out her every opinion, every thought,
    and every emotion she felt necessary to express. They called her loud. Unlike Ruth, she didn't
    smile a lot— only when she felt like it. Because of that, she always looked unapproachable, and
    because of that, people always thought she was a bitch. She had previous lovers but never
    married. She and her siblings joked about it, but it is obvious they assumed that it was because
    no one can put up with her attitude and her strong personality. Religiousness was never her
    thing as much as it was her sister's, but she prayed once in a while. Evangeline always moved
    at her own pace, never letting anyone dictate the life she wanted for herself, never even thinking
    about what anyone other than herself thought. She lives in her own self-built universe.

    Aunt Evangeline was never "too much", women are just shaped by the world to be too little. We
    are trained to worship men for being strong willed and opinionated and call women too loud for
    being the same. We appreciate men who openly express their emotions and call women too
    sensitive for doing the same. We are used to praising a man who can bring himself with much
    confidence but when a woman does it, she's too self-absorbed. Women are forced to make
    themselves smaller than they are in this world ruled by the patriarchy. If not, they're too much.
    They're undesirable. The world is too used to making space for men that when a woman takes
    up space—as every living person should—she is automatically viewed in a bad light. Opinions
    are meant to be voiced out and emotions are supposed to be expressed. Learning all this
    growing up, I finally understood. Women like my Aunt Evangeline are often criticized because in
    the eyes of the patriarchy, nothing is more terrifying than a woman with boundaries.

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