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This is an excerpt from the Last Word of MEGA’s July 2025 issue
“When I was starting out in my career, I hid the fact that I was a single mom,” shares a corporate executive. Now in her early 40s and an Assistant Vice President at a real estate and banking firm, she looks back at the experience as unnecessarily difficult, yet unavoidable. “I was very aware of the stigma in the Philippines about single moms. In the office, we’re perceived as unstable or unreliable. So I worked to the point that my competence couldn’t be questioned or challenged. I had to be excellent in every way. When I was able to put myself in that position, that’s when I told everyone that I was a single parent. It felt like years of having to hold my breath.” For the lady AVP, this calculation paid off, but at great personal cost: suppressed emotions, constant fatigue, missed opportunities for personal relation- ships, a decline in physical and mental health.
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In contrast, some men—and even women—navigate the corporate world in a much different way, with a firm belief in meritocracy and a passing acknowledgement of the industry’s flaws. An investment banker in an executive role shares his observations. “Although the industry is very “politically incorrect,” it is generally a meritocracy. It’s a very challenging industry that requires both social and technical skills. A lot of the people in the industry are also very well-connected, so nepotism isn’t really observed. As a result, someone’s gender doesn’t really become a factor in most banks. In fact, you will see a lot of women leading the local investment banks.” This investment banker also experiences his share of obstacles: long hours and working weekends (and even holidays), shelling out his own personal resources just so a job gets done—the list goes on. However, it is worth asking, “What does ‘politically incorrect’ even mean in this context? Is it a simple acceptance of whatever is considered ‘normal’? This description seems to point at something amiss and still accepting it: ‘It is what it is.’”
Both examples are extremely nuanced and made me reflect upon the experiences I’ve had early in my two-decade-long career, now that I am a corporate executive myself: There had been good, honest men, like one of my mentors, who was integral in setting my development trajectory through being generous with knowledge and an unwavering belief in my work. Conversely, there have been ruinous, high-ranking women who have taken credit for or sabotaged my projects. Then there were also male colleagues who made off-hand sexist jokes that eroded my credibility, but who were also helpful and collaborative. There was also a well-respected woman Senior Vice President who asked me to have lunch with her, so we’d be seen by other high-ranking executives. She did this to demonstrate her confidence in me, thus signaling my value in the organization I then served.
In all these situations, quiet calculations were made, the actions implicit and replete with meaning. Oftentimes, trying to make sense of structures and power dynamics is confusing. Trying to simplify and make sense of everything feels like a fool’s errand. But it can’t be discounted that there are indeed oppressive systems that place women at a disadvantage that lead to serious ramifications. Case in point: As I climbed the corporate ladder, I’d get asked, “So who did you sleep with?” Why is this even asked or assumed? Can’t a woman simply be intelligent and hardworking?
Read the complete essay on double standards in the workplace in MEGA’s July 2025 issue now available on Readly, Magzter, Press Reader and Zinio.
Images from MEGA ARCHIVES, photographed by JERICK SANCHEZ
