Posted 2:25 AM by e*star

Racism...Sexism...Racism AND Sexism...mixed in with a little bit of Exoticism.

After reading some of the past posts, comments, etc... on this topic, I've begun to understand my own complex with these issues (feminism, exoticism, racism, etc.) even better. Having said that, I want to say, here, that a lot of what I have to say on these issues are basically conclusions I've come to on my own, from my own experiences. I believe that much of what each of us as individuals have been exposed to have almost everything to do with the people we are today. Having said *that*, I am in no way judging or disqualifying the viewpoints of others which happen to differ from my perspective--specifically the other Asian female co-writers on Tiger Cafe. I am simply offering my own insight. Take it or leave it as you will... I am rather pleased with the camaraderie we as co-writers share on Tiger Cafe and am so thankful I can "come to the table" comfortably sharing my experiences and thoughts. Keeping that in mind, please take what I say with a grain of salt. :)

I mentioned a lot of my background in my latest Tiger Cafe entry. I did this to set the preface of what I thought about inter- and intra-racial dating. I mentioned my experiences growing up in a predominantly white environment. Again, I have an inclination to set up even more "background information" on my own behalf to be able to present my perspectives on this topic, yet again. Forgive me. :)

In addition to the being in the racial minority, there was yet another manner in which I was a minority. There was even more to the strange environment I grew up in. I grew up with three brothers, all older than I. Let me clarify: they were, and are, all *at least* nine years older than I. I had no sisters. Sometimes, I feel silly in presenting this as a major factor that shaped the way I am, today, but all I can offer as a justification is that my nuclear family is a very, very tight unit and therefore was a huge influence in my childhood and even adolescence. When I was growing up, I saw that my three brothers, who were 13 months and 2 years apart from each other, had themselves as familial peers, and I wanted so much to have the same thing. Identify with them. I was related to them in the same way they were related to each other, right? Our mother carried me in her womb like she did they, didn't she? They were the closest "peers" I had...yet they were so far.

Because they were so far, I made it extra hard on myself. I rationalized, My parents should have the same expectations for me as they do them. As the different-sex sibling who was nine years behind, I was too eager to play catch-up. Why didn't they invite me to go with them to the movies? Why couldn't I stay out late at night? Some of the answers to these questions were easily answered by the age gap I shared with my brothers, such as the prohibited R-rated movie and staying out "late" at night. Other questions had a blurred age- *and* sex-gap rationale to it, even from the very beginning.

Why wasn't I expected to mow the lawn like they were expected to? Why did they "play catch" with each other but never wanted to teach me how? Why were my brothers expected to be doctors, and I wasn't? While I asked my Mom and Dad some of these questions as a child, very few of the answers they gave me sufficed. Some of the questions that I had in my mind in my childhood, I answered myself even while still in my childhood.

I was a girl.

This made me very, very sad.

I still remember being of age 5 and not liking being a girl. Wanting to be a boy. If I were a boy, more would be expected of me. Being a girl meant my potential was limited. If I were a boy, I could reach for the stars. Be successful. The presidents of all the companies were boys. The President of the United States was a boy. I, because I was a girl, couldn't mow the lawn. Girls were weak. I couldn't play catch because even though it looked fun, it just wasn't a "girl thing to do". (I always recount the time I was given a Barbie by a family friend. The same day it was given to me was the same day it got thrown in the closet and never touched until one trash day. It was the only doll I had ever owned. My mom always thought I was a "strange girl" for never being interested in dolls.) Unreasonable Asian parent expectations aside, my brothers were going to be doctors. The same was just not expected of me.

I remember, succinctly, not being happy with these lowered expectations in comparison to my brothers. However, I also remember, succinctly, not accepting these lowered expectations. All I knew was that I knew what my expectations were of myself, and that I saw no reason that I should be different from my brothers. If I wanted to be like them, I saw no reason that I couldn't be like them. Eventually, my parents caught on. They were and still are devout Christian, but they were also pretty progressive for being such devout Christians. They never ceased to push me as much (if not even more) as they pushed my brothers. To this day, I thank them.

Come middle school. The Lions' Den.

Through adolescence, in addition to the inequities in expectations of success between the sexes I initially saw at home, I saw the differences in *gender* in middle school. What was it, really, to be "sexy?" And, why were girls expected to be "sexy?" Having already discarded the differences in ability between boys and girls, I was baffled by this new role that seemed to be forced upon me. The goal, which was popularity, "seemed" to be attained by gaining acceptance from guys. And I achieved this by being "sexy?" I wondered, "Why should I please guys?" All I knew was that I never saw my brothers having the need to pay such close attention to their looks and how their looks attracted girls. Why is *my value* based upon the opposite sex, not on what I can achieve, myself? Specifically, not like how my brothers achieved *their* value--their own hard work and merit.

I struggled with this. I struggled with it hard, then.

I have never stopped struggling.

Continuing in middle school and high school, I wondered, Why was it that the *guys* could be popular by being really funny? The class clown. The witty one. The "cool cat." But, it was the prettiest blonde-haired, blue-eyed *girls* who were the most popular. All they had to do was bat their eyelashes and "be cute." Amazingly cute. "Being funny" wasn't "feminine." You could be kind of funny, but not too funny. It just wasn't girly enough. Neither was being aggressive, or overly assertive. Then, you'd be a bitch. I thought, What was the challenge in that? Being cute doesn't take any brains. You didn't have to earn it. As a girl, I observed, you had to be born lucky. Lucky with good looks. Lucky with a great body. My destiny lay in the hands of how the opposite sex viewed me. I felt trapped. I felt that no matter how hard a woman worked, she was inevitably forced to be a whore in some way. Discard her aggressiveness to please men. Only men could be aggressive. She was a slut if too exploratory with the very sexuality men valued in her. But, men got high-fives for their sexual "conquests." If the woman was too pretty, less was expected of her and she would not be taken seriously, because God forbid a woman be born with both looks and brains.

For a couple years, specifically during 8th grade and the beginning of 9th grade (end of middle school and the beginning of high school), I slipped into a mild depression. I was not happy with what I was given--limited potential. The mild depression had a lot to do with my wavering between learning to accept some premises while discarding others. Looking back, I realized I discarded more premises than I accepted. Through high school and even up til this very day I fine tune my personal theology on what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. What I will succumb to, even utilize to my full advantage, and what I will discard in totality.

Forgive me as I preface, here, even more aspects of my adolescence and young adulthood.

Regurgitation (from my previous post):
1) I grew up in Wisconsin.
2) One of two Asians in my graduating senior class.
3) I was very attitudinal, which actually attained me respect and a decent amount of popularity.

I will elaborate even further that while I was popular in the "popular crowd" sense, I was not popular in the "sexual", "boy-girl" sense. I was not asked on dates. If I was, it was not very often, at all. In fact, I had a hard time even having a homecoming date. A prom date. A winter formal date. Everybody in my crowd went to these dances except me. When I went, it was always my asking the guy. To my "injustice", I observed, the less popular people, even the far less popular people went to these dances when I stayed home (from not having the nerve to ask yet another guy to be my date), or they had dates far before I had my date.

Asian fetish had not yet reached Wisconsin.

It was still, good 'ol midwestern Wisconsin. In every way.

Anyway, my experience with racism affected my conception of beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder--no matter how jacked up that perception of beauty is. It is in the eye of the beholder, and the "beholders," for the majority of my life, did not accept my looks as beautiful. I accepted it as fact. I was not beautiful. I was to get by on my merits alone and push those, in spite of my looks. In fact, I got to being proud of how I looked. I forced myself to accept it and love myself for who I was. I rationalized, People who were "pretty" were inevitably weak, because they need the extra "edge" of people being nice to them. They can expect people to do things for them because they wouldn't survive anyway, I reasoned. In the end, because they are not equipped enough to handle the ways of the world because everything was handed to them on a platter, I would win because all along the journey of life, I was forced to learn the skills of the trade, and would trample over them. Somehow, amidst my Christian beliefs, my ego provided for a Darwinist theory.

This was how I rationalized why I was not beautiful.

It wasn't until junior or senior year where guys thought I was attractive. At least, it was only then when *I noticed* that guys noticed I was attractive. In my own, non-blonde, non-blue-eyed way. But still, I felt like the taboo. The taboo attractive girl. I knew it was because I wasn't white. It was just that my popularity had some sort of spillover effect, or something. Who knows.

I didn't care.

I liked that somehow people were coming to their senses. But I made myself not care--to get back at them. To show them that even when they cared to notice me in that way, I still didn't need them. That I wasn't about to let my sense of self-worth be left to them. That I was in control. Of everything.

Like I said before, through adolescence and the maturing process in general (even in undergrad), I knew what norms in society I thought were acceptable and what things weren't. I discarded *a lot* of the societal norms. I went so far as to think of certain, pertinent social concepts as "right" and "wrong." Femininity in its own right is a beautiful thing and it is what each woman makes of it--but once it is synonymous with characteristics that are second-class (a subjective term in itself) or non-diversified across an entire population, albeit sex--it should not be considered feminine. People have come to view gender, what is associated with one's place in society, to be one and the same with one's sex. But, this is the very core of what I have discarded a long time ago. I would *not* accept the degree of a woman's appeal to men to have anything to do with *her* worth.

What it is that I've discarded and deemed unacceptable in regards to sexism overlaps and is even finely intertwined with racism. This is what I think exoticism is--sexism and racism intricately woven into each other as relevant to the Asian female. There is a lot more I can say about this, but I'll leave it at that, for now.

I will say right here that yes, I am a feminist. Depending on the ears upon which that statement has fallen, the listener may cringe at that very term. I don't think feminism is a dirty word. I don't think it ever should be. I think there are many different types and branches of feminism. There are feminists who would like to align the duties of child-rearing with a woman's role--their being feminist merely celebrates this "role" they so adamantly advocate. In my opinion, being a feminist means celebrating the equality of the sexes. NOT that there are "no differences" between the sexes, therefore they are equal--just that because both should be given equal consideration despite these differences and taking into account those very differences and accomodating them, equally.

So. This is my view of feminism. If your view is different, I am not saying that you are not feminist, that your views are not as worthy--this couldn't be farther from the truth. I respect *your* opinion, whatever it is. This is merely my voicing my own. This is what I've derived from my own life's journeys. :)

Moving on. Racism served as a sort of contorted catalyst for my experiencing the "Ugly Duckling Syndrome." I became comfortable with my being "ugly," as preference for blondes in my environment would have it, but then when I came to Los Angeles for undergrad (following on the tails of the "opened eyes" of my peers in high school) it suddenly just pounced on me. I was suddenly somewhat desirable on such a larger scale. But big surprise--it was because I was now surrounded by tons and tons (literally) of Asians. A lone female freshman at UCLA...pure MEAT. YAh. I'll admit it. Nonetheless, this was ugly duckling syndrome. My "swan-ness" revealed itself oh-so-suddenly. I had no idea what was going on.

I had my fun, but I never forgot what it was like to not be so easily desired. But, I didn't handle it well. I tried to do both. I had a split personality. I had *a lot of* fun--I went to frat parties and clubs. Oh, so many clubs. I danced many nights away and enjoyed my fair share of attention--on the go-go box or whatnot. But it was so fleeting. So, so fleeting. On the other hand, I pushed all boys away. I was asked on many dates but only went on a couple. Inside, I felt ashamed that I got attention purely by my looks. It is not like I felt I didn't deserve it--in fact, my ego was dangerously ballooning time and time again but at the same time, I kept popping it with my own needle. I thought, Why do I deserve to be desired more than the next girl? She could be so much more interesting than me. So much more compatible with this guy, who is asking me out--wasting his time on me because he picked me purely on my looks. I *judged* all the guys who asked me out--in my opinion, they were shallow because they barely knew me. They would barely know who *I* was. They only knew how I looked. I thought, Whoever picked up on me wouldn't be able to handle me. Frankly, my ego was out of control. It was not good.

Exoticism...or lack thereof...

I must reveal, here, that I haven't had any significant, long-lasting dating experience like Sandy where I had an epiphany and realized that the piece of scum I was dating was actually just that...a piece of scum. I will leave that cameo completely to Sandy. :) I have had a few run-ins at clubs who would single out Asian women, and really--they were no different than any other type of slimeballs that you would, well, meet at clubs. They just had that--the Asian preference, *whatever* the reason was. In the end, I have *not* had a lot of personal experiences with exoticism, but somehow I still think I have a lot to say about the topic. Hah. Call me self-enlightened. ;)

The first 17 years of my life, I was in a time and place where my being Asian was deemed my disadvantage. My strike. My dishonor. Beauty was viewed through one lens, and that lens saw only European features as beautiful. Not Asian features. Not African features. Not Hispanic features. Like I said, not Asian features. This, specifically, impacted me directly.

Suddenly, things Asian started to become "in fashion" and "trendy." Do you remember the time when Abercrombie and Fitch started placing Chinese characters on their T-shirts, sweat-pant legs and baseball caps? I remember. I was completely psyched out, but in a bad way. I was all confused. Suddenly, Indian sari's and Chinese silk became popular home-decorating materials. Gold trimmings where everywhere. The Asian influence was in. One time, I visited some old friends in their dorm rooms at the University of Wisconsin when we were Sophomores during a Christmas break, since our breaks were disaligned with each other. I saw cheesy Asian decorations like poorly-made changing screens, cheap-looking bamboo picture frames, poorly-written and inauthentic Chinese calligraphy on the walls. I was absolutely baffled.

Why, you ask? Sometimes I wonder myself why I was so shocked.

All I knew was that my entire, entire life, I was "not cool" because I was Asian. I thought, Who the hell are you are to tell me *when* my culture is in fashion? You, as white culture, had no respect for who I was and for my ethnic origin my entire life, but you would dare bastardize my culture and make it "trendy" whenever YOU decided it was time? Why was it up to white culture to decide when anything that has to do with me is finally valid? All in all, I felt that none of them had the right to "celebrate" my culture if they were the ones who were also responsible for making me feel like an outsider because of the very same reason--that my culture, my origin, was not theirs.

Factor in my encounters with men with Asian fetish. I had always considered Asian fetish to be a short-lived, more recent phenomenon. Like a trend. A phase, like the grunge era--where people just suddenly thought that for a period of time, maybe 5 years, it would be fashionable to date an Asian woman. This was my conception of the Asian fetish--and like my old friend's new decorations, I was not about to allow for my origin or culture to phase in and out like rolled up pant legs in the '80's. I would not be a trend. I would not be seen for my race. My race would be seen to *compliment* ME. But, you, if you were really interested in me, would find out who I am as a person. You will not single me out *because* of my race so you could use it as a pawn how and when you chose.

I am a chump. I am all for just having us all "get along." So the minute that any gender-based/race-based generalization infringes on the happiness or well-being of anybody, man or woman, is the minute I get upset. Mind you, I am *angst-ridden* all the time, since it happens every gosh-darn minute. I am also a feminist. How I've embodied feminism in my own way is not to utilize my looks to get what I want and what I perhaps don't even deserve. The moment I've given that up (my looks in order to schmooze) is the moment that I have devalued myself as an individual, thinking human being worthy of achieving through her own merits and have therefore enabled men to objectify me in such a way and be suspicious of my own abilities.

Like I said in a comment in an earlier post--I would be lying if I said I didn't identify with the Catch-22 of liking attention paid to my physical attributes. I dress up. I never *intentionally* dress frumpy to see how men would react and "see who my true friends are." Haha. Ludicrous, I know. But, in order to not let other people use these very physical attributes to "box me in," I leave the physical purely at the physical, and would not let it cross over to my using it to attain other things, such as by flirting. Lately, I've had a lot of practice keeping a casual yet professional attitude at my workplace. I've definitely learned how imperitive it is. :)

Keep in mind, I know that sometimes I am an idealist who often mistakens myself for a realist. This makes for very unreasonable expectations at times. Combine all my stances on racism, sexism, and combine those to formulate exoticism, you have the very complex mind that is mine. Yes, I know that realistically, men generally hit on women whom they are at least first physically attracted to. Men, in general, have preferences. But in my little ideal world, as little emphasis as possible would be placed on the physical. That my man might see the person, inside, that I've worked so hard to become. He might *appreciate* that I am Taiwanese, but not stake me, along with countless other Asian females, out purely because of that. That he might appreciate the *individual* that I've worked so hard to become. He would also appreciate the scars as well as the soft tissue that has replaced the once-open wounds. And then, learn to take care of me.

*e