The Asian Female
Note
The Asian female in my mind is not an elusive image. She has long, dark hair that's silky smooth. Her skin is milky pale and equally smooth. She has a demure laugh and long legs, but is shorter than her man. She might even cover her mouth when she laughs. She carries a leather handbag and wears blouses with tasteful ribbons. The length of her shorts is modest. She is smart but not in a threateningly liberal way, just smart enough to be popular and to desire a career in something like communications. She's a virgin who isn't a prude. She's the girl who wears her glasses at exactly the right, charming moment. She gives more than second chances. And I know her so well because she's been compared to me on many occasions.What does it mean to be a woman in Asia? It is, first of all, very different from being an Asian woman in the west.
Singapore attempts to delicately balance feminism with the cultural unit of the family wherein women are expected to be maker of the household. "On the one hand, women are encouraged to become educated to pursue a career and support the economy. On the other hand, they are expected to also maintain their traditional domestic roles as wives and mothers." (Kim 56) As a result, women's empowerment reaches only insofar as the nation-state can maximize productivity. The patriarchal government believes that the lives of its people are best improved economically, and the notion of women's rights is subsumed under this umbrella. Patriarchy is accepted, tolerated, and confirmed on the basis of results. (Edwards and Roces 40)
To this end, "East Asian pop has a hegemonic hold in Singapore through its status as the dominant form of local popular culture that expresses the shared values of Confucian femininity and identity." (Kim 244) The expected gender performance to uphold is that of an ideal East Asian femininity that is itself aligned with western ideals of "thinness, fair skin and modernity" (Kim 106) while preserving an eastern difference.
It is a western perception of Asian beauty that I am expected to perform. It is a Chinese familial framework that I am expected to uphold. The Asian female is unnatural to me. She was someone whose role I assumed, though I never played it quite right. I despise it.
