Being Asian Doesn’t Make Me ….

More like white women. It does statistically mean I will fall more within their range than any other women of color. Asians are punished less, in schools and by police. It’s part of the cultural stereotype.

But it hides a far more insidious comparison, one that most people don’t even realize. And it revolves around Asian sexuality. Isn’t it funny how Asian men are seen as emasculated or feminine or some other way softer? Even though we have ninja movies, karate movies, we know about Genghis Khan, mobs like the Triad and the like, we don’t see Asian men as testosterone-laden threats. And it shows up in arrest numbers and incarceration numbers. Cops just don’t generally pull over clean cut Asian dudes. Not like the black guys that drive.

At the same time, Asian women are highly sexualized. And not in a good way. We are desired because we look like prepubescent boys for far longer than any other ethnicity. Men go to Asia not just to fuck and marry little girls, they’re are those that just want a woman who looks like little girl. The mount of human trafficking of Asian women is out of this world. It seems the entire world of men are obsessed with women who look like little girls. And my Asian sisters bear the brunt of this desire.

Don’t get me wrong, other ethnicities are sexualized as well. Think of the media’s portrayal of the lush, overblown Latina. Or the strong, loud black woman who will break you with her punanai. But there is an insidious sickness when male eyes turn toward Asian women, you know those of us who look like we’re twelve even when we’re thirty. Subservience isn’t just expected, it’s demanded. And having a child-like or a real  girl child as your sexual partner means you can treat them as children all the while fucking them to death. In many parts of the world, Asian girls are discarded as unwanted only to be swooped up by the predators who know just who to  tap. I’ve heard there are entire travel industries set up for Western men to go a pick up a young Asian girl, whether in fact or in looks.

And when we finally get a voice to stalk about some stuff, are we heard on our own? No, we get lumped in with the white girls. Now, I’m not dissing my light skinned sisters, but seriously? Do you even know what it’s like to not know math in a group of math overachievers? And I say that tongue in cheek. But you have no idea how many stereotypes I have to wade through each day just to get to my preferred endeavor with words.

I get why so many of my feminist brothers and sisters tend to lump us in with the white girls. In many ways, we escape the stigma of having darker colored skin. As we’ve seen recently, being black in America can be a dangerous thing. Asian women  and men generally escape this portion of the discrimination our country seems to want to mete out. But I gotta tell you, as Asian women, we only get the benefit of being lumped together with the white girls… until we don’t.

We’re largely ignored in the larger feminist dialogue. So we’ve become the invisible women wanting to know when it’ll be our time to shine, to have our fears voiced and our concerns addressed.

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