Asian American Feminisms

Overview

Asian-American women are triply marginalized in the United States as Asian Americans, Asian-American women, and as Asian-American women workers. Throughout history, Asian women (and more specifically, Chinese women) have been eroticized and fetishized as “exotic” to fulfill the expectations of white men. Exoticism is the sexual objectification of Asian/Asian-American women through the act of viewing the cultural and physical differences of their bodies as spaces for erotic desire and sexual exploitation. This particular view was informed by the misogynistic attitudes of Europeans towards Asians, which subjugated them to demeaning images of the “Oriental”. As a result of the combination of these oppressions, Asian-American women have been exploited for domestic and sexual labor, rendering them invisible to the larger society and to other feminist movements.

The Asian-American feminist movement in the United States is still in its nascent phase due to a large absence of influential voices that advocate for gender consciousness in the community. Despite the need for awareness of Asian-American women’s marginalized identities, more movements have focused on issues of race and civil rights rather than gender. As Rachel Leng convincingly argues, an Asian-American feminist movement is mandatory for the deconstruction of Asian women as exotic and eroticized beings subjugated to cultural and patriarchal pressures. Furthermore, a foundational system of educating people on Asian-American feminism is crucial to dismantle oppressive stereotypes currently existing. According to Esther Ngan-Ling Chow, Asian/Asian-American women must realize that their issues of sexism and gender stereotypes are not competing with larger activist movements focusing on race. They must come to terms with their multiple identities to confront the multi-dimensional oppressions that confront them.

Steffu Hu, who was crowned Miss Chinatown in 2012, represented the ideal blend of the East and West, China and America.

Key Voices

Rachel Leng talks about the need for Asian American Feminism. She examines the evolution and propagation of gender and racism throughout popular stereotypes of Asian American women. She emphasizes how Asian American women fight against being marginalized regarding their social discrimination in terms of race and have a meaningful racial unity but leave out gender, class, or sexual orientation as a whole. There is a vast lack of gender disparity issues. Asian American women struggle with having a traditionally patriarchal ethnic society where they can express feminism because it is criticized by Asian American men and looked at as an act of subversion threatening their racial group. The mainstream feminist movement does not go hand in hand for what Asian American women are fighting for. Though other movements like Pacific Asian North American Women in Theology has raised awareness about racism, sexism, and identity within their community. Rachel talks about how we need to prioritize Asian American women’s issues by having Asian American feminism in the US educational system so that we can help Asian American women to talk about their struggles of race, gender, and identity and their history and oppressive stereotypes. She says to end racist and sexist’s stereotypes in the US culture the Asian American feminist movement cannot be rejected.

Maxine Hong Kingston’s book The Woman Warrior talks about how Asian American women are caught between two cultures. In Kingston’s book, she provokes a controversy between what Asian men think is racists but what Asian American admire because it agreed with their experiences with sexism. Leng talks about Kingston’s book expresses how Asian-American women wrestle with gender and ethnic identities. Asian American women have to struggle with holding onto their cultural identity and combine that with their life in America where gender roles are dramatically different in a family structure.

Relevance Today:

In 2018, two psychologists Shruti Mukkamala and Karen Suyemoto conducted a study evaluating the experiences of Asian American woman in regards to discrimination. Mukkamala and Suyemoto included both open-ended surveys and in- person group interviews with women who self-identified as Asian American. In total, 107 women participated in the study.

The results concluded that all, but four individuals in the study, reported to have experienced some form of discrimination. Mukkamala and Suyemoto evaluated each individuals answers and identified 15 'types of discriminations.' Six of these 'types of discriminations' pertained to both race and gender. These 6 'types of discrimination' will be further analyzed to approach the Asian American experience in an intersectional lens.

Intersection of gender and sex 'types of discrimination':

Exotic- objectified and sexualized, believing that Asian woman have some sort of special sexuality
Not a leader- stereotypes portray Asian woman as incapable to be a leader- but only can bring value to the work place as a 'worker bee'.
Submissive- Asian woman are assumed to be passive, quiet, agreeable, and are unable to stand up for themselves. Comes from the notion that Asian woman are controllable and deferential
Cute & small - Asian woman are expected to look and act a certain way; their physical image being highlighted irrelevantly
Invisible - Asian woman's voices, experiences, agency and/or power is often ignored/ minimized
Service worker- assumptions that all Asian woman work at low-level gendered jobs such as a nail salon

As this study was produced in 2018, we see the microaggressions and discrimination that Asian American women experience are very much present today. The usage of declaring Asian Americans the 'model minority' hides the oppression and struggles that many individuals- specifically woman face. It is critical to continue discussing and listening to the Asian American Woman's experience through an intersectional lens and being apart of the ever developing feminist movement for this community.

Check It Out

Mochi Magazine

Asian American Feminism

Podcast

Works Cited

Chow, Esther Ngan-Ling. “The Development of Feminist Consciousness among Asian American Women.” Gender and Society, vol. 1, no. 3, 1987, pp. 284–299. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/189565.

Espiritu, Yen L. “Race, Gender, Class in the Lives of Asian American.” Race, Gender & Class, vol. 4, no. 3, 1997, pp. 12–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41674834.

Leng, Rachel. “Calling All ‘Dragon Ladies,’ ‘China Dolls,’ and ‘Lotus Blossoms,’” Unzipped: Duke’s Journal of Gender and Sexuality, Vol. 3, Issue 1, Spring 2013, pp. 15-26.

Mukkamala, S., & Suyemoto, K. L.. "Racialized sexism/sexualized racism: A multimethod study of intersectional experiences of discrimination for Asian American women." Asian American Journal of Psychology, 9(1), 2018, pp. 32–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aap0000104

Yamamoto, Traise. "In/Visible Difference: Asian American Women and the Politics of Spectacle." Race, Gender & Class, vol. 7, no. 1, 2000, pp. 43. ProQuest, http://library.tcu.edu/PURL/EZproxy_link.asp?http://search.proquest.com/docview/218839280?accountid=7090.