Illustration by Andrea Mendez-Ochoa
by Jasmine Nguyen
“Small, weak, submissive and erotically alluring…eyes almond-shaped for mystery, black for suffering, wide-spaced for innocence, high cheekbones swelling like bruises, cherry lips….she’s fun you see, and so uncomplicated.”
What could this quote be describing? A doll? Some cartoon characters? Hello Kitty? No, this quote from a 1990 article in Gentlemen Quarterly by Tony Rivers is unfortunately about Asian women.
As an Asian woman, I’ve always struggled with the stereotypes that have long plagued women in the Asian American Pacific Islander community.
The one stereotype in particular I hated being compared to was the infantilization of Asian women and the idea that we’re all submissive and cute workers.
If I act too sweet and enjoy cute things, am I furthering the idea that all Asian women are submissive angels who need white men to save us?(Kim “Miss Saigon”; Mariko Yashita, “The Wolverine”). Or when I happily agree to help with something, it’s not because I’m a good person; it’s obviously something with my DNA.
Many women in the AAPI community have experienced similar situations where they’ve felt reduced to just their skin color and looked down upon because of the racial stereotypes that come with it.
Jennifer Kim, a second-year media studies major, recently experienced an uncomfortable situation because of her race.
“When I was at a small party with my other female Asian friend, we were standing by each other and this guy comes up behind us, puts his arms around both our shoulders and is like, ‘aww, my sweet Asian girls,” Kim said. “ It wasn’t straight-up racism but it made me feel like he had reduced me down to my race.”
Jessica Conte, a professor of Asian Pacific Studies at CSUDH, has had many experiences where she felt looked down upon because she was an Asian American.
“It’s not just the idea of being submissive, I think it’s also the idea of being less important, that your ideas are less valuable,” Conte said, recalling a time when she worked for a certain organization and found herself continuously being skipped even when her name was on the agenda.
When Conte would explain to her other co-workers (who were mostly white men), they would just say they didn’t notice they were constantly skipping over her.
The stereotype that Asian women look younger than their age or are inherently more childish is something that Conte still deals with to this day.
“A lot of other faculty members assume I’m a student,” Conte said. “Once even I didn’t have keys to my office, and a faculty person had me show ID to prove that I was faculty. It was honestly a degrading situation on many levels.”
Many people argue that it’s just a part of Asian culture for women to be seen as more submissive and that the stereotype is derived from that, not racism. And yes, while that can be true, especially in Confucian societies in Asia, that doesn’t negate the fact that many Asian women weren’t raised in those societies.
I don’t know about other families, but in my Vietnamese and Thai family, every single woman is strong-willed and outspoken. There are still some traditional aspects that we follow that I don’t agree with but overall I was raised by my mother and other family members to never be afraid to speak my mind.
So, yes, I’m an Asian woman who loves cute things. I live and breathe adorable stuffed animals and use fun stationery.
But submissive? Come on. I spend most of my time writing opinion pieces. I’m not exactly the most docile person when my writing is mostly me yapping about nonsense that pisses me off.
