According to the elementary rules of mathematics and logic, equals are such as to be absolutely commutative: If x = y, then y = x. No serious student of the law, however, will claim for the “equal protection” clause of the Constitution the rigid application of equality in mathematics and in logic. In respect to women, “equality” has had a rancorous history. It has polemic and rhetorical uses as well, uses that do not necessarily contribute to clarity of thought. (Is that still a valued commodity these days?) Women have asserted their equality with men. They have gone so far as riling against such settled rules of convenience as “the masculine form of pronouns shall, unless otherwise indicated, refer to women as well” or the term “man” shall include “woman”. Even “mankind” has become a bad word, because it makes “man” dominant. “Humankind” is the politically correct term. They have not had much success, however, with Pope Benedict XVI in respect to the translation of the Roman Missal. Attempts to “de-genderize” God have been flatly rejected by the German Shepherd of the Catholic Church! (And rightly so, I think; so God will still be invoked as “Father in Heaven” and not “Father or Mother in Heaven”!) There will be little debate though that unreasonable distinctions based on gender should now be consigned to the dust-covered chest of historical curiosities. What are the outermost reaches of this claim, however? Infinite—that is the outright answer of not a few. That the Catholic Church refuses to ordain women, for example, is an execrable violation of equal rights. (In the first place, there is no such thing as the “right” to be ordained!)

Yesterday, CNN announced that the US armed forces hierarchy was looking into the policy that kept women in uniform out of actual combat. The fact is that over a hundred women of the US armed forces have lost their lives in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. I have no problem with that policy at all. I think it is chivalrous; I think it is reasonable. But it does raise the question of equality and challenges its champions to declare the boundaries of their claims. If you claim for women who are in uniform a shield from actual combat engagement— something that men in uniform cannot claim for themselves—then you are drawing a line. It then becomes interesting—but also terribly important—to see just through which terrain that line goes. Women who enlist for the army and take the oath of soldiers place themselves under the same moral and legal obligations as do their men counterparts. But practice, translated into operational policy, exempts them from some risks that men in uniform must face. Will women then be willing to accept an operational policy that excludes them from some rank or the other? Without the gift of prescience, I know the answer: No. Is it not obvious that something is the matter here?

The legal situation in the Philippines with respect to the treatment of men and women is terribly skewed at the moment. You do not do justice to one sector of Filipinos by working injustice on another. Republic Act No. 9262 is one example. Men who abuse—physically, verbally, emotionally or financially—their spouses, their ex-spouses, their former girlfriends or women with whom they may have one-night-stands—are liable under the law. In fact so protective are the provisions of the law that it is not really putting a woman in danger, for example, that is the crime, but putting her in a situation where she fears, whether the fear be rational or not! In fact, such fundamental civil law doctrines that a breach of a promise to marry is not actionable have not been left untouched by this example of legislation-gone-wild! When breach of a promise to marry inflicts psychological distress on a woman so desperate to be married, some eager prosecutor might just find the legal premise for the prosecution of yet another hapless victim of this lopsidedness. Very few know that one of the absurd provisions of this law is rendering punishable a man’s threat to harm himself—commit suicide— for example, even when he does so in sheer exasperation over a woman’s capriccios or endless nagging. What signal is the law sending—that those who threaten better see to it that they take it all the way to finish, or face the wrath of the law?

That women should be protected against abusive men—who still abound—cannot be debated. For example, the availability of protection orders under this law is only to be commended. But where are the protective provisions for men who are as conceivably victims of abusive and exploitative wives? Why should victimhood be a feminine concept when the fact is that men are ever so often as shabbily and cruelly treated as the women that the laws now endeavor to protect? And when men resort to their own devices—self-help in the language of the law—would they not face the threat of prosecution, once more?

The Magna Carta for Women is yet another example of affirmative action gone awry. When a woman flaunts her disregard of the moral principles espoused by a sectarian establishment of which she is a student or an employee, she is not to be denied admission or continued employment, says this law this piece of legislated inanity. So it is that when a student enrolled in a Catholic school—when she could have very well enrolled in any other—decides to show the world that Catholic moral teachings mean nothing to her at all, the Catholic school will nevertheless, by law, by obligated to admit her and grant her the benefits of Catholic education. The only reason for this irrationality is that the person involved is a woman!

There is inequality in both respects: in the assignment of burdens and in the concession of privileges. Labor laws grant women privileges they do not grant to men. They shield and excuse them from certain burdens in view of their femininity, but also grant them prerogatives and legal standing once more because of their gender. But I thought we were talking equality here? If women wish equality—as they have so loudly proclaimed—then let them not accept privileges, immunities and excuses conceded to them because of their womanhood. I do not advocate this, but this is the logical entailment of the advocacy of the rabid champions of equality.

Even legislating that some years from now, the proportion of women to men in the workforce must be equal is simply wrong and unfair, for if it does happen that less women are qualified, it will then be the case that qualified men will be denied the opportunity of employment because they are men—and for no other cogent reason, and women who do not qualify or who barely qualify must be taken in, because they are women. This is not equality at all, and in a country in which equal protection of the laws is a sacred constitutional precept—that has recently caused the Supreme Court to flip over twice—this should not be acceptable, even to women.