High-heeled warriors: The obvious truth

Are you a Filipino woman between the ages of 22 and 44? We’ve heard some things about you that we’d like you to confirm.

You are educated, ambitious, optimistic. You make your own life choices. You let go of your inhibitions and seek to immerse yourself in new experiences. You are entrepreneurial and an individualist. You’re creative and expressive, and you see marriage as a way to maximize your potential and express your self-identify. 

Is this an accurate portrait of you? And if it isn’t, would you deny it openly? (Viz. “I am uneducated, have no ambition, and leave decisions to other people who know more than I do!”)

The above are findings of a psychographic study about Asian women conducted by Universal Networks and Synovate unveiled the results of a psychographic study about Asian women. The survey (entitled “High Heeled Warriors”) concluded that the traditional roles of Asian women — daughter, wife, mother — are not obstacles to their personal ambitions. They can have it all, as Helen Gurley Brown put it in the 1960s. They do not have to choose which role to put on; they simply do everything.

Universal Networks is the global channels division of NBC Universal; these channels include DIVA Universal, Universal Channel and E! Entertainment Television, which air locally. According to Christine Fellowes, Universal Networks’ managing director for Asia Pacific, they undertook the research in order to better understand the female market. 

And well they should. Previous research by Silverstein & Sayre has established that there are one billion women in the global workforce earning US$12 trillion. They make or influence 64 percent of all purchases, controlling US$20 trillion of consumer spending worldwide. Collectively, women have a greater impact on the world economy than Brazil, Russia, India and China put together.

For context, the United Nations Population Fund estimates that the population of earth will hit 7 billion by Monday, Oct. 31. There’s a fact for Halloween. If half the population is female, that’s 3.5 billion females in total. If one billion are working, let’s hope the other 2.5 billion are in school.

For added context, one of Universal Network’s most popular products is Keeping Up With the Kardashians. 

The High Heeled Warriors survey looked into aspects such as education, finance, travel, technology and fashion to find out how women in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Manila express themselves differently. “Which women?” we asked Ms Fellowes, noting the overly rosy picture painted by the survey. She explained that the study was conducted among female TV viewers in the four cities — women who would tend to be educated and gainfully employed. Extended focus groups, home visit ethnographies, and leading third party findings were used in the research.

“We’re not interested in what women want, because that’s so last century,” Ms Fellowes said in her introduction. “We’re interested in why they want it.” Later on she noted the power that women have in the Philippines, citing the fact that we’ve had two women presidents. 

Recent history has certainly shown us that women are capable of anything men can do, including fighting off violent attempts to seize power and being investigated for corruption.

One of the most interesting sections of the survey covered the ways Filipino women use technology. To the surprise of no one in the room, the Filipinos were the most connected group in the survey. They sent more text messages, had more Facebook accounts (meaning more of them had Facebook, not that they maintained several accounts) and spent more time online than their Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts.

The High Heeled Warriors study supported existing statistics on female consumer habits. How groundbreaking is it? It is called “High Heeled Warriors,” and the motif of the presentation was pink. Of course, high heels are an obvious metaphor for women in the workforce; it’s the obviousness we have a problem with.

Speaking of obviousness, there is one fascinating fact about the Asian woman that we can glean from the survey results. After running her household, running her office or business, and running her personal life in those metaphorical stilettos, she is very, very tired.