The Gender Constructs on Women in Indigenous Society in Amador Daguio’s The Wedding Dance

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of gender constructs on women as portrayed in Amador T. Daguio’s The Wedding Dance. The story follows Lumnay, whose inability to bear a child compels her husband, Awiyao, to remarry in accordance with the cultural expectation to produce an heir. The analysis focuses on how plot, characters, and imagery reveal the impact of gender constructs on women in the narrative. Guided by Simone de Beauvoir’s Gender Theory and supported by Viktor Shklovsky’s Formalism, Judith Butler’s Gender Performativity, and Adrienne Rich’s Cultural Feminism, this study employs a qualitative discourse analysis. Plot analysis uses Freytag's Plot Structure, textual evidence, and cause-and-effect relationships to analyze gender constructs in the plot, while character analysis explores characterization and motivation shaped by gender constructs, and imagery analysis identifies imagery category, lines, imagery description, and Cordilleran Cultural Traditions, to investigate gender constructs. The findings suggest that Amador T. Daguio’s The Wedding Dance contains gender constructs. Through a plot analysis, it reveals that the short story’s narrative, particularly on the aspect of traditional practices and cultural expectations dictating the lives of the characters, affects even the most intimate marriages in the context of the story’s setting. Additionally, the character analysis manifests that the societal norms present in the story perpetuate gender constructs on women through studying the characterization and motivation of the characters. Furthermore, some imagery in the short story outlines firmly entrenched gender constructs, such as masculine authority and a feminine silent struggle, through the aid of an in-depth imagery analysis. The findings of this study may deepen the understanding of how literature reflects and perpetuates gender constructs on women, particularly in the context of Philippine indigenous culture. Such insights can encourage critical discussions that challenge restrictive gender expectations and promote more inclusive narratives for women in literary studies for future researchers.