Deniece Milinette Cornejo is the CEO at Demico Global Solutions, Chairman at the National Congress for Young Filipinos, National Project Director at Miss Tourism Philippines, Regional Development Council Chairman at Junior Chamber International Philippines, a Goodwill Ambassador, Senior Vice President for Southeast Asia at AI Trades, Ambassador at the International Martial Arts Academy, and President at Association of Women’s Rights Advocates.

Here we talk about gender equality within the Philippines.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Your work for women’s rights tends to remain important in Canadian society and to, probably, most non-religious or secular people throughout the country.  What differentiates the SEA region’s concerns with gender equality compared to North America and Western Europe or the “West’s”?

Deniece Cornejo: I am inspired and grateful to learn that my work is able to contribute to our society. In the Southeast Asian region, recent years show that the number of women holding public office has increased, especially in local government. So far, only in the Philippines has female representation in national government risen above 10 per cent. When women do manage to enter the political arena, they often find themselves marginalized in a male-dominated culture, with real power remaining in men’s hands. The few individuals who have attained the highest political offices (such as President in the Philippines and Indonesia) have done so because they are the daughter or wife of a famous man. There was a time when it was difficult to become advocates of women’s issues, for this would risk alienating their male colleagues or the male electorate. Today, more and more advocates have risen from the comforts of their own homes. Be it in the West or Asia, greater female involvement in politics is impeded by the way candidates are recruited as well as inculcated attitudes that see women’s primary role as that of wife and mother. Gender stereotypes that favor males over females are often reinforced in school textbooks and are sometimes encouraged by religious teachings. Against this backdrop, it is clear that discrimination against women, especially in the economic sector and in the case of violence against women, is still persistent in every country.

Jacobsen: What issues on gender equality and women’s rights has the Philippines gotten right and wrong on gender equality? 

Cornejo: One issue the Filipinos got right on the grounds of gender equality is that advocates are lobbying for more opportunities for women. This implied that we are fighting for more jobs, more freedom, more budget allocations and for more acceptance as an equal in the society. One misconception that Filipinos always have when it comes to discussing gender equality is that when we say “women’s rights,” they automatically think that it means less rights for men. I want to emphasize that more rights for one gender does not mean less rights for the other side of the scale. It’s not a pie. No receives less when the share or division is fair. It’s a situation where both male and female receive equal opportunities and advancement of interests.

Jacobsen: What has the West gotten correct and incorrect on women’s rights? 

Cornejo: As I mentioned before, our Western neighbors practice a more liberal and democratic thinking where everybody is free to express their thoughts at their own will with less hindrances. The disadvantage is with more liberalism comes judgement and ridicule. I believe the answer for this question is the same as the above because whether we are in the Western or Eastern arena, the society is plagued with the same misconceptions on women’s rights. I believe both hemispheres of the globe are lobbying for access to similar opportunities.

Jacobsen: What may be a means by which either region – SEA and previously defined West – learn from one another?

Cornejo: The most effective means I deem fit is to engage in a meaningful conversation especially during the ASEAN Summit, G7 summit and the like. If they may invite us a seat at the table for discussion, it will be incredibly monumental. It is during these international conferences or conventions that the most powerful countries come together to discuss matters like this. This could be an opportunity to exchange healthy dialogues on the issues of advancing the interests of women.

Jacobsen: How can the Roman Catholic Christian faith provide a unique framework for gender equality? How can the hierarchs of the Roman Catholic faith learn from the laity, and vice versa?

Cornejo: The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country. I suppose the Church can refine their views to make the theories and ideals of equality more accessible and understandable for everyday Filipinos. The time is fast-changing and if adjustments could be made, it would be easier without necessitating rallies or demonstrations.

Jacobsen: How can a secular or non-religious framework provide a unique vision of gender equality? How can the secular leading intellectuals and social organizers learn from ordinary secular people, and vice versa?

Cornejo: The non-religious sector of our society can address issues and present their vision of a modern approach to equality by, as most political sectors do, establishing or supporting organizations whose mission and vision they identify themselves with. I previously mentioned how an organization like the UN women has inspired me to found an organization of my own, the AWRA (Association of Women’s Rights and Advocates) that seeks to spread awareness and prevent violence and all forms of abuse against women. The answer to this always begins at the grassroots level. It is by supporting these organizations at a humble manner or by educating ourselves and by taking the initiative so we can ask the right questions that the secular intellectuals and ordinary people can learn from one another.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Ms. Cornejo.

Cornejo: Once again, thank you for your time as well. It has been an honour and privilege to give you my thoughts on this matter. I believe the quest for accessing equal opportunities for women does not end here. The fight continues even after this interview.

Photo by Cris Tagupa on Unsplash

Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).

Here we talk about the founders and beliefs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As you noted the anti-Catholic nature of some of the framers of the American Constitution, you provided some insight into the ways in which the nature of the deism of the brightest American minds of the time represented something more akin to non-religion or a nearly modern notion of secularism in America with the base separation of church and state. 

My suspicion: if in an alternate universe in which Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species (by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) in the era of the framers of the American Constitution, then the established-as-deists would have identified and affirmed an atheist viewpoint of the world because biological, organic life must have seemed utterly incomprehensibly complicated and functional without the modern and fundamental theoretical basis for all life sciences. 

You and I live as modern secular and freethought people with due credit to the deists and pantheists of the previous generations. I decline any sentiment or argument as anti-Catholics or anti-religious-people – to individual religious believers, hierarchs, intellectuals, scientists, theologians, or similars, but affirm anti-Catholicism and anti-religion – to abuses of power, belief structures, beliefs, ideological stances, institutional orthodoxy, institutions, purported authority and inspiration of holy texts, supernatural and magic powers, and the like – and also affirm non-religion as in secularism within a more modern interpretation.  

When did anti-Catholicism and anti-religion wane amongst the framers or their descendants leading more into non-religion if there was any distinct set of moments or period in time? How were the seeds of modern atheist and non-religion movements set at the founding of America? How did the massive influx of religious immigrants change the landscape of America – its demographics? What amendments to the American Constitution have been important to the establishment equality of freethought and secular American citizens?

Dr. Herb Silverman: I agree with you that many eighteenth-century Deists might have been atheists had they been familiar with the work of Charles Darwin. However, Darwin’s theory of natural selection only explains that we have a variety of species, including human animals, because they adapted to their environment. Evolution says nothing about how life began. Many Deists would probably still have believed in a Creator who started the process, and then let nature take its course.

Later scientific discoveries would probably have turned these Deists into atheists. We now know that our universe did not begin with a Creator, but with a “Big Bang” approximately 13.8 billion years ago. We still don’t know how life began, although abiogenesis is a reasonable hypothesis. This is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. It’s interesting that Bible believers refuse to believe this hypothesis about life arising from non-life, though they believe that the first human was made from dirt and the second human from the rib of the first. Did God run out of dirt?

Since we don’t know for sure how life began, I understand why some people attribute life to a Creator. I can’t prove they are wrong, but I can prove that those who regard the Bible as a scientific book are wrong. I’m an atheist because I see no evidence for the existence of any gods, not because I can prove there are no gods.

You mention that you affirm non-religion. I do, too, but I would rather say that I affirm nontheism, meaning no gods. There are religions without gods or supernaturalism. As an atheist, some people assume I must be anti-religion. Not so. By one measure, I might be the most religious person in America. You see, I have not one, not two, but three different religions: I’m a member of the American Ethical Union, with Ethical Culture Societies; I’m a member of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, with atheist rabbis; and I’m a member of the Unitarian Universalist Humanists. All three religions are nontheistic and are active participants in the Secular Coalition for America.

When our nation was founded, not just anti-Catholicism flourished. There were 150 attacks against Baptists in Virginia between 1760 and 1778, many by leaders of local Anglican churches. In the seventeenth century, Massachusetts hanged people for being Quakers. The first “War on Christmas” was initiated by Puritans because the Bible did not sanction the holiday, and they believed Christmas was invented by Catholics and pagans, who engaged in too much merriment and drinking. The Puritans promoted Protestantism, the religion invented to protest Catholicism.

At America’s founding, 98 percent in the colonies were Protestant, but the divisions among Protestant sects and between Protestants and Catholics were intense. Some people were Protestant in name only, while others were fervent believers in their sect. Only 17 percent in 1776 attended church, so not many were passionate about their religion. Such indifference might indicate a large number of freethinkers in the colonies, including Deists and maybe even atheists.

Some of our framers, including James Madison, wanted the “no religious test” clause in the United States Constitution to apply to all states. That failed to pass. Initially, eleven of the thirteen states had religious tests, stipulating that only Christians, or in some cases only Protestants, could hold public office. A notable exception was Pennsylvania, founded by the Quaker William Penn. He decreed that Pennsylvania would be a “Holy Experiment” in toleration. All sects, including freethinkers, were welcome. Penn also founded Philadelphia, my birthplace, which is known as the city of brotherly love. Philadelphia is Greek for “brotherly love.” Philadelphia had the only Catholic church in the colonies that was protected by the authorities.

The influx of immigrants throughout its history has made America more religiously diverse. For that reason, there has always been an anti-immigrant constituency who feared the religion of the immigrants, and how that could change the values of the country. Initially the opposition was to Catholics, and today it is to Muslims. We have an opportunity now to show the world how people of different faiths and none can coexist and thrive. Founder James Madison argued that the best way to promote religion was to leave it alone. Previously, those who wanted to encourage religion had enlisted the government’s help. Without government support, America now has 360,000 houses of diverse worship.

Today Protestants, Catholics, and other Christians put aside some of their theological differences to work together on important political issues, and grab media attention. I disagreed with everything the Christian Coalition, founded in 1989 by Pat Robertson, stood for (preventing women from having access to reproductive health care, promoting that evolution is just a myth, contending that our country was founded as a Christian nation, opposing LGBT rights, demonizing atheists and secular humanists). Nevertheless, they helped change the culture, and made politicians take notice. The Secular Coalition for America is a counter to the Christian Coalition and its successors, and SCA member organizations are working together to keep the country secular, not theocratic.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, the right to practice any faith or none. Some people, including politicians, wrongly say that we have freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. This is, of course, nonsense. You can’t have “of” without “from.” Giving people the right to believe also guarantees the right not to believe.

Finally, the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been important to secular Americans. It says that constitutional rights guaranteed by the federal government must apply to all states, regardless of state laws. The amendment passed in 1868, after the Civil War, and granted citizenship and equal rights to slaves who had been emancipated. This amendment was also the basis of my winning court case when I learned that the South Carolina Constitution prohibited atheists from holding public office, a clear violation of the 14^th Amendment because the U.S. Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.

Photo by LAUREN GRAY on Unsplash