How my all-girls Catholic school failed me as a feminist
Every week, PhilSTAR L!fe explores issues and topics from the perspectives of different age groups, encouraging healthy but meaningful conversations on why they matter. This is Generations by our Gen Z columnist Angel Martinez.
One of my favorite games to play with someone I just met is guessing which high schools we both came from. If we’re in our early twenties and from Metro Manila, the assumption is we ascribe to the same set of stereotypes as our fellow graduates, even if that makes us conyo, mayabang, or maldita. I always take pride in being like the final boss of the video game, in the sense that no one can ever trace me back to my “indie, underground” all-girls Catholic high school.
I can’t deny that there are advantages to coming from an all-girls school—even research says so. For instance, girls are supposedly more confident and assertive in learning environments that aren’t steeped in gender norms. We are all free to be leaders, to pursue whichever career piques our interest. Such safe spaces also allow us to lean into our femininity and forge stronger friendships. (Cue images of us lying down on our classroom floor like starfish and shouting “Sinong may napkin?!” during that time of the month.)
But it seems the idea of empowerment went directly against my school’s ethos. Nestled deep inside a Quezon City subdivision, our administration took pride in flying under the radar. As an institution run by nuns, they never wanted to draw attention to themselves or make any strong statements. An ideal graduate would, hopefully, behave the same way: straight, silent, meek, subservient. Prim and proper. Virtuous vessels for procreation, in the image and likeness of the Virgin Mary.
I know this because throughout the eight years I spent there, I wasn’t like that at all—and the whole time, I was made to believe I was the problem.
Like in any other school, teachers were not always kind. When I was in the fifth grade, my Computer teacher called me stupid in front of the whole class because I couldn’t fix her microphone. Six years later, my Accounting professor gave me an 84 out of nowhere, when she never showed up to class. But where others would have accepted their fate, I’d write an extensive incident report, compile all the necessary papers and computations, and hand them over to my parents, who would speak on my behalf.
I was always respectful, even when in the right. But I was barred from opportunities anyway. I was a go-to topic in the faculty groupchat: They would give away my hard-earned slots in contests to their favorite students, and change the criteria for awards so I wouldn’t make the cut. One teacher found out I was running for class vice president and convinced someone else to compete against me because she didn’t think I was fit to become a leader. Apparently, I was too “outspoken.” Who beefs with a teenager like that?
Something they don’t tell you about coming from an all-girls Catholic high school is how oppressively small your world can feel while you’re inside. But life is far more expansive than the four walls of any institution. There is so much to see and learn and know, as long as you stop shrinking yourself to fit in.
Constant exposure to this dog-eat-dog environment does a number on you, for sure. I couldn’t see yet that I was a victim of their regressive standards so my vitriol was often directed towards fellow students. When you grow up thinking one girl’s gain is your loss and vice versa, hypervigilance takes the fun from the learning process and turns it into pure competition. Backstabbing, name-calling, and rumor-spreading become part and parcel of everyday life.
It was only when we graduated and accidentally reconnected that I realized all of us suffered under the same system—that they wished they had gone through the motions of adolescence differently, too. “You know, I always wanted to be your friend, Angel,” they would tell me. “It’s a shame that we never got closer.” Guilt would fill my chest after their admissions: I spent so much of my formative years resenting them that I refused to see that they were also just girls like me. We were all so young.
Turns out, the passivity our school expected from us as students would not serve us as we transitioned to adulthood. Unlike our more liberal counterparts such as St. Scholastica’s College and Miriam College, we weren’t encouraged to engage in current affairs or show conviction in any political stances. Teachers surveilled our social media like it was a side hustle, infiltrating our private X (then Twitter) accounts so they’d have evidence to surrender to the guidance office.
Dress codes were strictly enforced, but not for the reasons you’d think (uniformity, cleanliness, literally anything else). We were told to observe modesty to avoid attracting unwanted attention from men on campus. Unsurprisingly, when grooming allegations against some of our male teachers surfaced during the pandemic, admin stayed silent. Rumor has it, the accused were granted a quiet exit.
Long story short, I survived and have not been back since, not even to claim my yearbook. They also have not reached out, not even to congratulate me like they do with their other alumna. There’s this unspoken agreement that we do not claim each other. But I will say that in some twisted way, where I came from made me the feminist I am today. They showed me the kind of woman I didn’t want to be—a reverse blueprint of sorts.
Real feminism means standing up to injustice rather than suffering in silence, especially when the source is an authority figure. It’s realizing that Catholic values and beliefs can be weaponized to impose outdated notions of womanhood—that even female-dominated environments can be responsible for promoting patriarchal ways of thinking.
Real feminism means acknowledging that fellow women are rarely, if ever, the enemy; that larger structures only seek to divide us so our attention is focused on conformity rather than resistance. It’s granting everyone the opportunity to thrive, in accordance with their own set of skills and talents; and cultivating potential in everyone, regardless of whether they fit the mold of the "ideal woman."
Most importantly, real feminism does not exist in a bubble or an echo chamber. We are concerned with what takes place around us because the personal is political, and none of us are truly free unless all of us are. Something they don’t tell you about coming from an all-girls Catholic high school is how oppressively small your world can feel while you’re inside. But life is far more expansive than the four walls of any institution. There is so much to see and learn and know, as long as you stop shrinking yourself to fit in.
Generations by Angel Martinez appears weekly at PhilSTAR L!fe.
