Oxfam has gone a long way from the time it had Twiggy, then a 17-year-old British model, as its champion in pushing for women’s rights. Now 75, Twiggy is still thinner than most grannies of her generation, yet she remembers all too well how Woody Allen, the man who shacked up with her adopted Korean daughter to the consternation of wife Mia Farrow, had harassed her into naming her favorite philosopher in a TV interview six decades ago.
Telling Allen she wasn’t too keen on philosophy at her tender age but shot back at the harassing Allen by asking him who his favorite philosophers were, and Allen couldn’t reply even as Twiggy pressed him. So, there. A condescending interviewer got his comeuppance. Twiggy wasn’t intimidated and neither should the women of this country who had long been considered as chattel, with the men in their lives controlling both hearth and home, where the word of husbands is etched in stone and the counsel of wives drenched in water.
This episode mirrors the inequality, the structural chasm that divided the sexes in the 1960s. It was only in 1918 that women got the vote in 1918, with American women granted suffrage two years later. For comparison, more than 50,000 men were practically castrated by a British law forbidding the practice of homosexuality, with Alan Turing falling victim to it, and Oscar Wilde, the loquacious Irish writer, accused of grooming kids during his brief life. The wars fought by UK and US suffragists, much like the battles waged by Eleanor Mars and Clara Zetkin, Dolores Ibarruri, Frieda Kahlo, the Indian women who continue to suffer from bootlegged male dominance and continuing gang rapes due to religious myths, and the traditional subordination of Japanese, Chinese and Korean women to men, show that, until dismantled, inequality may become the reason for permanent revolution. Women hold half the sky, the Chinese say, but they did not add that men control all of hell.
On Mar. 10, 2025, Oxfam Pilipinas, Oxfam Canada and at least 11 organizations supporting the campaign to advance sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice (SRHRJ), held a panel discussion and media forum at the Tobias Room of Citadines Roces Hotel in Quezon City precisely to remind the Philippine government, the church and all those opposed to abortion, divorce and the ban on adolescent marriages that 52% of registered Filipino voters are women, which translates to 28.05 million, and tell them as well about the success of the seven-year sexual health and empowerment (SHE) project in six conflict-ridden regions in the Philippines, five in the Visayas and Mindanao and one in Luzon.
At the same event, Oxfam Pilipinas launched a book: “SHE Rises: Stories of change from people and communities of the Sexual Health and Empowerment (SHE) project.” Oxfam’s global briefing paper on gender justice, “Personal to Powerful: Holding the line for gender justice in the face of growing anti-rights movements,” was also released. Oxfam operates in 79 countries, where it implements projects that focus on inequality, women empowerment, opposition to adolescent marriages, delivery of reproductive health services and opposition to human rights abuses. Curiously, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPFA) has failed in its goals for the past 30 years, the hex starting from China itself, where countless crimes have been committed by the state, from the one-child policy to its deliberate policy of not pursuing cases of marital abuses.
Oxfam’s briefing paper illustrates the exasperation of the global institution to tackle the huge problem of lobbying with countries that are quick to hear complaints but end up deaf to any viable solution. Lack of political will is one obvious reason but the principal factor here is an economic system that thrives on oppressing, exploiting and abusing women, with cases of femicide, mutilation and arranged child marriages not being covered by backward judicial systems. Religious dogmatism also plays a huge part in maintaining the subjugation of women, with some countries banning education for females and justifying instant divorce without rhyme or reason. In truth, organizations like Oxfam have been demonized, their missions scuppered as intolerant, racist regimes take over various countries. John Adams was right as “democracy commits suicide,” not in the darkness at noon but in the polling places, as disinformation, outright lies and bloody propaganda brainwash millions. The US is a prime example. Artificial intelligence has created artificial minds.
“A range of right-wing, religious, and conservative actors around the world are capitalizing on persistent crises, to reorient state power towards a reassertion of racist and sexist profit-driven systems that favors the wealthy, privileges men, and harms and disadvantages women and LGBTQIA+ people in the name of ‘traditional’ family values. This diminishes governments’ capacity to protect, respect, promote, and fulfil bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice. As world leaders prepare to review their commitments to the BPfA, the consolidation and mainstreaming of these anti-rights movements risk eroding the hard-won gains of feminist, LGBTQIA+ activists and movements, ultimately breaking the social contract between the state and people,” the Oxfam global briefing paper lamented.
In the Philippines, Oxfam noted that the SHE program has succeeded largely because Filipino women have shaken off the shackles of helplessness and are organizing themselves to support sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice (SRHRJ), especially now that reactionary segments, political dynasties and even religious groups have thrown the monkey drench into a sustained program for the promotion of SRHRJ. The idea of self-help is laudable but the greater issue is how to gain collective support, attain sustained financial backing from local government units (LGUs), or sex education courses in schools. Aside from this, Oxfam should look into online child abuse, the commercialization of child sex by pedophiles and the tragic collaboration by poor parents who believe cyberspace sex is not a crime. Much has been done but more has to be achieved. As the Cubans say: Venceremos!
