The Philippines is one of the world's biggest labor-exporting countries, with nine million migrant workers around the world, equaling 27% of the Filipino population.

UMBC's department of Gender & Women's Studies presented the 3rd annual Korenman Lecture, a Social Sciences Forum event on November 5, 2009 at 4:30 p.m. in the AOK Library Gallery.

The guest speaker was Rachel Parrenas, Professor of American Civilization and Sociology at Brown University. Dr. Parrenas' topic was "The Gender Revolution in the Philippines: Women's Migration and Social Transformations." The lecture discussed how the migration of women to other countries in search of work has proved as a victory for feminism. Parrenas said that this movement results in the reconstitution of gender division in the household. Mothers are able to acquire the power of being the income earner, whereas men assume the position of nurturing.

She stated that society sees women's migration as a tragedy, because it results in the separation of children from their mothers, which is deemed as abandonment. However, Parrenas argued this point by stating that even though migrant workers left their children behind, the children were left in the adequate care of their fathers or other members of the family, and the ideology stated that men were incompetent nurturers.

In an interview with Parrenas she told The Retriever Weekly that her interest for this topic was sparked by the fact that she is a product of a migrant family herself. She spoke about countries such as Romania, Poland, and Sri Lanka, in which migrant mothers were depicted negatively and blamed for the delinquency of their children due to "abandonment," the disintegration of their families, and even the raping of a child by her father (in Romania) due to the mother's absence. In 2007 the government of Sri Lanka made a law prohibiting the migration of mothers with children younger than 5 years as a movement towards naturalizing mothering.

Dr. Parrenas ended her lecture by giving accounts of data she collected from interviewing subjects who were products of migrant families. The statements they provided seemed to be alike; all the subjects stated that they felt as though they had been denied adequate intimacy from their mothers because of the distance barrier. Socially, they were more accustomed to fathers being the disciplinarian and one to provide financial stability while mothers nurtured and provided emotional stability. Parrenas declared that the transformation in gender ideologies is the root of the gender revolt in the Philippines.

The event was co-sponsored by the Social Sciences Forum, Office of the Provost, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Honors College, The Department of American Studies, The English Language Center, The Language, Literacy and Culture Program, The Department of Modern Language & Linguistics, and The Department of Sociology & Anthropology.

This event was a success with over a hundred people in attendance, the majority being students.

More information about Dr. Rhacel Parrenas, her books or the Department of Gender & Women's Studies at UMBC, can be found online.