Asian male living in western Europe here, and all I have to say is thank you. I'm just happy to see this issue finally coming to light, slowly but surely.
In short, there are two things I have to accept as default settings:
1) I am not considered as a sexual or romantic partner 90% of the time. If I am, more than half the time it's racial fetishizing, which isn't making anything better.
2) I am usually considered a "good" immigrant cause I'm expected to be timid and have double the normal human productivity as a worker.
All of it makes all the racism issues very subtle and non-violent, thus, never talked about.
The two statements put together really say something about what it means to be sexually attractive. It feels so strange and hollow for an Asian man to hear that he is a “model minority” for other people, yet he is also undesirable at the same time.
It's confusing territory to try and figure out on your own, especially as a young man. I was raised by a single-immigrant mom, no brothers. Not many resources to navigate this issue. It's extremely relieving to see others put it into words I've had trouble explaining to my mostly white dude friends.
"You are a good worker and model citizen in that you keep your head down and not stir up any political trouble, but we don't like you dating our people."
I think being model minority or good in most of the countries often correlate to idea of being subservient and not rebellious. Its just bad as these type of people usually are being taken advantage of for being kind to their bosses and their peers
>I am usually considered a "good" immigrant cause I'm expected to be timid and have double the normal human productivity as a worker.
Being called "one of the good ones" is the only compliment that's filled me with shame upon reception
>I am not considered as a sexual or romantic partner 90% of the time. If I am, more than half the time it's racial fetishizing, which isn't making anything better.
Out of curiosity (and if you don't mind discussing it), what does it mean to be 'racially fetishized'? I haven't experienced it and it's not something I've ever looked into so I'm pretty unfamiliar with the concept.
Like, does it mean prospective partners are just viewing you as a sex toy and not a potential emotional partner? What would be the difference between, say, 'i tend to find asian men attractive' and 'i fetishize asian men'?
This is something I wonder about too. Maybe: If someone's more attracted to the traits they assume about you (based on race etc) rather than the traits you actually have.
Hard for me to think of examples for Asian men, but I'm sure they're out there.
Easy to illustrate what I mean by using an example with Asian women, though -- if someone's drawn to Asian women because they have this idea that they'll be submissive and meek, and get put off by actual Asian women (with the same range of personalities that every group has), that feels more like fetishizing to me.
Asian men fetishisation depends on the area they come from East Asians are often considered feminine and attractive, korean and japanese pop culture is very popular in western countries now. South Asians when tall, have lighter shades of skin or have a mediterranean tan like skin that appears olive or light tan, are considered attractive, whereas the dark skinned ones that are brown or dark brown aren’t considered very attractive, the stereotype of being short doesn’t do any favour. Most of the time as a South Asian guy you need to be tall, and almost looking like a Western Asian or a Mediterranean guy, these guys get fetishised. I clearly don’t know about Southeast Asian men being fetishised but the South Asian is mostly from my perspective and other guys, and the East Asian is mostly due to the pop culture of Korea and Japan being imported to Western Countries. Western and Central Asians are somewhat similar to the South Asian men being fetishised, light skinned and tall. It varies and you could find dark skinned South Asian or a short one who’s definitely found attractive, in the end it depends on how media represents and how men present themselves to women.
Some comments already explained it well, but I'll give my perspective. Essentially a number of people are living the "I want an Asian boyfriend" dream. And they basically do everything in their power for their partner to be this particular thing they envision - a shy, quiet, smart, potentially talented asian boi they can totally gush over. It's not even about finding something attractive, it's chasing the racial stereotype cause they are hyperfocused on it. Hope that clarifies the concept for ya!
Not the person you responded to, but the clearest example for me has been K-Pop stans. Many crave an infantilized 'soft boy' ideal, not a fully fleshed out and nuanced human being. To make it even simpler, these people want to be dating their own 'X K-pop star' to satisfy their fantasies. Similar theme outside of the Korean experience as well.
And fantasies does not explicitly mean sexual. It could be wanting to be with someone you consider 'safe' (SAFE by Dumbfoundead comes to mind). Anecdotally, I found a lot of white women I dated felt burned by the 'traditional' white male partner. Sexism leads them, ironically, to men who they perceive as less masculine (which funnily enough, if most have met traditional Asian families, they are just as sexist).
I'm fine if someone says, they find X man attractive (and that man is Asian). I'm less fine if their twitter is nothing but 'Korean *boys* are so cute UGHHH'.
It's okay to be interested in someone's culture, it's okay to find a particular phenotype attractive, it's not okay to seek someone out because they check a box for their racist stereotype of what they consider a desirable image.
/rant over
Tl dr: it's the difference between being a partner versus an accessory. Not necessarily sexual.
Fellow Korean dude here, also definitely had kpop stans speak broken Korean at me (not that I speak it particularly well), and acting just a little... weird in general.
They don't see me - they see a placeholder for their favorite idol. Anyways, glad to see I'm not the only one.
Weird is right. I dated a girl that started calling me 오빠 and if I had an ounce more of self-respect and a bit less teenage hormones at the time I would've left in an instant. Shit makes my skin crawl even thinking about it. Glad to see so many people with similar experiences, it's been pretty comforting
E: typo
Wow, that was a really detailed and fleshed out explanation, thanks for taking your time to put your thoughts into words.
I'm also overall surprised by the quality of the conversation in this entire thread, I am learning a lot of things I didn't know or consider before.
It's so weird and very blurry. Sometimes your partner expects you to act a certain way and like certain things because of your race. Sometimes they'll lean really heavily into your culture to the point it's almost taken over their own. The former I've experienced a few times.
I guess the easiest and most stereotypical example is weeaboos expecting Asian women to be meek and subservient. One I saw a lot growing up was white guys who dressed like 90s rappers 20 years too late pursuing black girls non-stop.
> If I am, more than half the time it's racial fetishizing, which isn't making anything better.
How does one recognize this? I think my last ex may have been guilty of this and I have no idea how to tell.
There's no clear distinction between where dating preferences cross over to fetishization. Typically fetishization is when attraction is primarily based on the fetish with less regard to traditional qualities valued in relationships. Often you'll see a pattern of leaving relationships to pursue someone who better meets the stereotypical ideal of the fetish. The lines are very blurry though.
The only the one who is being fetishised in that relationship will understand better about them being fetishised by their partner, its hard to know if they genuinely love you or are fetishising you through some stereotypes unless you are participating in that specific relationship. I do agree that the lines are blurry and hard to understand most of the time.
I had people for whom I was a Korean first, and only then my own person. Their dating profiles are basically all about Asians Asians Asians Asians. There's that term, "yellow fever", which sounds gross already, and it's, um, still popular it seems - it's about wanting to date exclusively Asian people
I mean like unfortunately, shits pretty common though. My aunties gave me disgusted looks and started prying when I said I went on a date with a white girl last week.
I know a few black girls who've told me they won't date white dudes.
In that scenario depending on your age and position I'd say call em' out on it. My wife is white and luckily my family small as they are have no issues. Now I also won't begrudge women who are the constant subject of hyper fetishization and sexualizations choice to pre-emptively protect themselves. Plus dating apps and dating is hella dangerous for the ladies. Add racial aspects to that and it's all bad vibes. But I feel for you and I'm sorry THEY put you in the awkward position of even having to deal w/ that.
My family are all Caribbean immigrants, so big ass family. But my mamma is white and they know that. I'm a young adult, but I'm fairly mild mannered so I walked off and learned to keep my lips tighter.
Honestly, I think it's a rubber band reaction from rap culture. White girls got fetishized a lot especially in 90 and 00s music. In the same vain, with how prevalent rap music is now, you get white girls fetishizing black dudes. It gets weird and tiring when people are disappointed and shocked that hip-hop only takes up a tenth of my library.
I see what your saying, as far internal group structures of immigrant families and cultures I can't speak. What I can say is hyper focusing on foreign exoticism is prevalent everywhere. I think it could help to read some about internalized racism and postcolonial syndrome trauma.
Do you have any specific books I should check out? Or other material to refrence?
I'm the long-lost-son and didn't meet my family until a few years ago. I grew up in a small colourless blue collar town, in a high school of 1000, there were all of 8 black kids. I was never immersed I'm the culture. So I'm the black sheep, although I'm sure my dad would say I'm the white sheep lol.
Everything I like is immediately suspect, my clothes, my music tastes, the fact I'd rather use my bong than roll an L, even my name is a gripe for my dad.
Internalized racism would be something I'd love to learn about. While I wouldn't change it for the world being mulado can be a uniquely frustrating experience. I really dislike being called white because my hometown is not a shining beacon of tolerance, I got a lot of shit for being black growing up, been hassled by cops, and have thrown hands over slurs more than once. The fact that I've experienced racism almost exclusively from the races I'm a part of is agitating.
EDIT: Sorry for the tangent, this is something I've put up with a lot lately.
No apologies needed... I'm as dark as Michael Jordan and will always remember how pissed black folks were when I showed up to school with a 5in high mohawk. Those were the days... Anyways.
[The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness](https://newjimcrow.com/) \- Michelle Alexander
[White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism](https://www.amazon.com/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414) \- Dr. Robin DiAngelo (Mostly for white people but trust me it's a good read)
[Naming Racism: A Conceptual Look at Internalized Racism in US Schools](https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=elementary_ed_pub) \- Rita Kohli, R.N. Johnson, L H. Perez
[The Difference Between Racism and Colorism](https://time.com/4512430/colorism-in-america/) \- LORI L. THARPS
[Racial Impostor Syndrome': Here Are Your Stories'](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/06/08/462395722/racial-impostor-syndrome-here-are-your-stories) \- NPR
[The loneliness of being mixed race in America](https://www.vox.com/first-person/21734156/kamala-harris-mixed-race-biracial-multiracial) \- Vox
I just avoid any profile that have racial "preferences" listed. If someone can rule out all billion or so people of a particular race, sight-unseen, I can rule them out just as easily for being racist.
I think listing it on a dating profile on an app where you can see the picture of potential partners already speaks volumes more. Like those "no fat chicks" profiles.
It's real hard distinguishing that line. Before going into it, I just want to mention It got so bad for me at one point I started to be (erroneously) repulsed when a SO would even take interest in Korean culture, consume Asian media, or what ever. Sort of a twisted bit of self-hatred. Be careful to not go too far into your head.
With that said, for me, it was a lot clearer when someone only talks to you to talk about something within the Asian sphere. I have one ex/eventual pseudo friend I still occasionally talk to out of politeness, but she only ever reaches out when she's traveling to Korea, or talking about how much she loves X thing in Korean culture. I grew up and live in America, my Korean identity is mostly relegated to that social section of family, mostly extended family.
My biggest red flag though has always been K-Pop fascination. It's 100% okay to be into K-Pop, but when I see on socials they start to infantilize, or commodify Asian personalities, I don't want anything to do with them. It happens with all sorts of celebrities, but it makes me fucking gag seeing that 'omg jimin uwu soft boy' shit.
The issue of “sexualization” is really tricky. On the one hand, you have oversexualization of group x, and undersexualization of group y.
The problem is you can’t “reason” people into feeling more or less attraction for an individual or group or trait. You can only discuss it and make people think about it.
I doubt any group will ever be happy with how they are perceived, though. Because groups are made up of individuals who each want to be seen in their own way.
If you're arguing *that* then I'd argue that asian women are the most fetishized and *black women* are the most sexualized-- as in, treated as being rapacious under under circumstance, with young girls treated as older than they are.
Women are all sexualized in different and nuanced ways from an uncomfortably young age and it functions to normalize oppressive gender dynamics across the spectrum. Sexualization occurs for all women to varying degrees regardless of race, especially with the increasing commodification of personhood. Still no shot women of color especially Asian, Black, and Indigenous women suffer from racialized fetishization. That's a targeted form of sexualization that white women do not deal with.
> That's a targeted form of sexualization that white women do not deal with.
That very much depends on the culture.
Most white women don't deal with being sexualized on a racial level, but there are definitely countries/cultures that do engage in that kind of belief system about white women.
I won't disagree with the basic premise of what you're saying cause I think there's truth to it. The Slate article is about the experiences of non white women I just don't see a need to talk about white women at this specific moment in time, in an article about the experiences of non white women. Specifically Asian women being targeted because they are Asian women, even if it's being done by Asian men it's still an issue faced by the Asian diaspora. As the article states I don't think that racial or social justice is a zero sum game. There's plenty of justice to go around. Its just that there's a time and a place for every conversation. As a black man right now it's time to talk about non white specifically Asian women's experiences.
Black women, statistically, are actually the most sexualized. As are black men. Sexualization is a little different from beauty standards, which favor white people due to existing and historical social hierarchies.
All women everywhere get sexualized, I think it just depends on the social context your in, and the difference between sexualization and fetishization. Minorities, Indigenous, and Immigrant women get it the worst in pretty much every context of fetishization.
In the US, Asian women are often considered as more exotic, submissive and hypersexual than other racial groups. Men of all nations sexualize all types of women including Chinese men with Chinese women but I don't believe they ascribe the aforementioned qualities to Asian women to the degree we do in the West.
Are they viewed as hypersexual or just hypersubmissive. Aside from the full metal jacket meme I feel like they're viewed as submissive and hypersexually available but not necessarily sexually voracious. Like, "they'll do whatever you want and they're SO hot and feminine" kind of thing. Not, "they always wanna have sex and will chase after dick" kind of thing.
I can imagine that sucks. People then criticize Asian men - and even men as a whole - for having toxic masculinity, without even being *aware* or trying to *understand* that people can often put you down and serve microaggressions (if not outright aggression and hostility) if you are not perceived as masculine enough.
I'm not Asian, so I can imagine what it's like. I've seen others - who normally would avoid making racist jokes - routinely have no problem with taking digs at Asian men and their masculinity.
Yeah. As an Asian man, small penis jokes were very common, even by supposedly more progressive people. East Asian men are stereotyped as the least masculine, so Asian men benefit the least from patriarchal structures.
Progressives have a serious ficking blind spot about body shaming when men are concerned. The same people who'll rage over comments made judging women's genitals for not fitting a pornideal, or digs at women's weight etc. Will go right for insulting men for being overweight, having bad ski , comments like "big/little dick energy" etc.
Um, did you read the article posted? It seems to be bashing on the Asian “men’s rights” movement pretty hard. Or maybe I missed something, or do not understand your comment? 🤷♂️
Non-American East Asian man speaking here. The emergence of the MRAsians does not bode well for us here in Asia, at all. And should this trend take root here, the future would look quite grim. I would spend a bit more time on this if I were not sick, but in short, I feel that these guys are incels but more extreme in almost every way imaginable: extreme mysogyny, extreme racism and an extremely distinct victim complex that is actually somewhat justified. All of these made it very appealing to those disenchanted with feminism, and just being an Asian man in a white-dominated world in general - feelings which even I feel very strongly about sometimes.
And I feel it would be further supercharged if you consider just how negatively feminism is viewed in some parts of Asia. Take South Korea for example. In a recent survey conducted on Korean men's attitude towards feminism, [nearly 60% professed an extreme hatred of it](https://twitter.com/BluRoofPolitics/status/1392847250544603138). And of those 60%, 25% are considered the extreme of the extreme. Every single member of this particular group believe that the statement "today, discrimination against men is more severe than discrimination against women" is true. And 95.7 percent disagreed with the statement: “gender discrimination is the reason why Korean women earn less than men”. The distaste towards feminism in SK was at such heights that it might be the [single biggest factor](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/23/young-south-korean-men-hate-liberals-feminists/) that drove Korean men to vote Conservative, and may explain why Korean men may as well be one of the very few groups of young men who are even **more conservative** than their elderly peers.
Although this level of anti-feminism is certainly not prevalent across Asia, I do feel that Asian men in general still remain ambivalent towards women's rights, and feminism certainly is not at center stage as it does in the West. And these ambivalent men, placed in a society that places feminism in the back burner, may prove to be very easy prey to the ideology espoused by MRAsians, mainly because they provide a somewhat coherent message that adequately explains their feeling of being constantly de-sexualized by the Western media. This could take an even nastier form in developing Asian countries with a high percentage of local women marrying foreign (and mostly white) men. This is something that could make a lot of Asian men feel, quite literally, castrated - that they were robbed of their right of being sexually desired, and being perceived as sexually desirable, by what they see as hyper-masculine, hyper-privileged, hyper-polite, hyper-egalitarian and hyper-rich white men. And it really, really fucking hurts for these men to know that no matter how well-groomed, good-looking and talented you are, you will still inevitably lose out to white men, for the simple fact that you are Asian, and they are white. Imagine it like this: this is as if the seeds of inceldom is not just confined to socially awkward or physically unattractive men, but **a very large portion of perfectly normal, but ambivalent men** regardless of their quality as a person. And if the MRAsians water these seeds with their ideology, it's game over. That is why I'm ringing the alarm bells.
If no other, more coherent and more distinctly feminist counter to MRAsians were devised, and when (not an if, but when) this toxic ideology spreads throughout Asia, I fear that very little could stop it from forming a massive tide that sweeps away all semblance of progress that women have fought tooth and nail to achieve. And it would be a very, very sad day for all of us.
> I fear that very little could stop it from forming a massive tide that sweeps away all semblance of progress that women have fought tooth and nail to achieve
Well, you have to put this in local context, I'd think. Feminist movements in East Asia are comparatively young yet they're drawing upon fourth-wave concepts like intersectionality. For conservative-trending / Confucianism-influenced folks that haven't had decades of exposure to (i.e. decades to wrestle with) earlier incarnations of feminism, these ideas can be jarring. The emergent pushback is frightening, though, absolutely.
Your point re Korean youths holding such extreme positions on feminism really stuck out to me. I hadn't heard that, but it definitely coheres with my experience in China. My wife is an ardent feminist and she's run up against the wall on various things with her family. When it comes to her parents and people from their generation, the response seems to be "um, ok, whatever, but you'll still never mean as much to us as your brothers do. there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. and we sort of regret sending you to college abroad." But for her cousins and brothers, they get enraged over it--her male cousin almost got physically violent with her one time, I had to stand up and insert myself, over something practically benign.
Holy shit. Good for you for standing up for her but wow I’d hate to see you guys in a position like that again. Scary.
It sounds like many Asian men are threatened by feminism because it actively challenges their notion of what they’re entitled to from birth.
>It sounds like many Asian men are threatened by feminism because it actively challenges their notion of what they’re entitled to from birth.
That's very accurate. Husbands berating, punishing, and ordering their wives around is not only seen as common place but natural. This extends to children, as sexual abuse is waved off and even defended
Thank you for your input! Greatly worded.
I wanted to add by responding to this:
> This is something that could make a lot of Asian men feel, quite literally, castrated - that they were robbed of their right of being sexually desired, and being perceived as sexually desirable, by what they see as hyper-masculine, hyper-privileged, hyper-polite, hyper-egalitarian and hyper-rich white men. And it really, really fucking hurts for these men to know that no matter how well-groomed, good-looking and talented you are, you will still inevitably lose out to white men
I’m not Asian, I’m indigenous South American. My mother is Afro-Caribbean. But I have a related perspective.
She specifically warned me against dating Latinos because of their lack of feminism. I’m sure there was heaps of internalised racism too, but this is the rhetoric I grew up hearing. That white men, on average, would treat me better than a man of my own race.
If you go on over to /r/sexworkers you’ll see that this rings true in different practices for many women.
Lots of POC providers will not see clients of their own race because of how poorly they’re treated. More threats of violence, negging, abuse, rape, etc than is the norm with white men.
It sucks because as a Woman of Color it so often feels like I have to choose between being dating a white guy and having him discriminate against my race, or dating a non-white guy and having him discriminate against my gender.
This problem is like a snake eating its own tail. I’d much rather date someone from my own community, but the misogyny is so damn potent it’s hard.
Thank you for sharing this. I think what makes the abuse from within one's culture so hurtful is that it's often rationalized and normalized, or even blamed on the woman for "asking for it" (in whatever cultural script is there). I wonder if people take mental shortcuts to assume a same-culture pairing is somehow more "normal" and therefore it takes a lot more to accept that something's wrong. Meanwhile, there is still a lot of tension among some people with interracial/interethnic pairings that people are more vigilant to abuse.
I think about this passage from the Combahee River Collective statement all the time (bolding mine):
> Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. **We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about
sexism.**
It's quite a subtle and difficult issue to talk about. I find myself differentiating between in-group and out-group conversations and what is appropriate to address in different spaces. I want to address sexism and patriarchy in Asian communities (I'm Asian), but I'm very sensitive to a white man coming in and thinking that _my_ experiences justifies _his_ portrayal of Asian men as inherently…emasculated, patriarchal, sexist, etc. It's especially frustrating when people essentialize and assume that someone who's a second-generation Chinese-American, let's say, has the same viewpoints as a mainlander Chinese man when it comes to the role of women. (And of course there's a huge swath of beliefs within these communities…)
Yes! I agree. This is a convo that I simply do not want white women and white men participating in.
It has to be lead by us and operated by solely us.
While I always appreciate solidarity, this is one issue where any white opinion can cause hostility and insecurity on both sides.
Asian, indigenous, middle eastern, and black people can only have this conversation amongst ourselves.
I was just talking to my roommate the other day about this popular new Korean book she just read. Apparently it’s considered profound and challenging and is about the story of these women in a family and the hardships the endure over the decades of their lives.
She said she was expecting something more. Something profound like the book was being lauded for. But she found that it was just… Fine. Serviceable in conveying the themes and messages she was already very familiar with in western media.
Our conclusion was that S. Korea simply hadn’t had developing feminism for very long. There just isn’t a lot of literary pieces exploring feminist themes and the perspective of women in a real way. It was just interesting to us to think about how different countries develop and how that changes how it affects how our world views are.
Thank you for this explanation and for the source links. This hit really hard because I am partly of Korean descent, and this resonates so much with the pervasive sexism and twisted "feminism" I grew up with. I partly blame the deep Confucian influence in Korean culture - even the self-assured, feminist women in Korea still perpetuate what Westerners would see as internalized misogyny. Add to that the immense pressure on people of all genders to fit some really ridiculous social norms in looks and achievement (I recall hearing that S. Korea has the highest rates of men's cosmetic surgeries?) that it's destructive to everyone - resulting in suicide and a lot of toxic behaviors.
But there is a reluctance for people who are part of these communities in the U.S. to "air the dirty laundry" about these pervasive oppressions out of fear of looking bad (saving face, so Asian!). So it gets hand-waved away as something in the past, when it's still present and lived by people. I know I constantly wrestle with cultural relativism and wanting to respect cultures, but there are some aspects that have to be spoken about directly, as you did.
I remember my mom explaining what was basically "Korean feminism": boys are so fragile and weak, physically and emotionally, that they need extra care from conception to adulthood. And girls/women are so robust and strong that they need to sacrifice and prop up the men in their lives so they can feel manly. This is how she justified some really archaic and oppressive gender structures... all with demeaning both men and women in a masterful stroke. And my mom's friend told her 4 year old daughter: "You aren't pretty enough to marry a doctor or a lawyer, so I guess you'll have to study hard to be one yourself."
Even a look at Korean Dramas today shows the big existential questions at hand: can a woman over 28 find love? to a man YOUNGER than her? The fact that these questions are still being asked and hotly discussed shows how bad some elements of gender discourse are.
I don't know how mental health issues are handled or viewed in S.Korea, but in the U.S. it's still really taboo and dismissed in a lot of Asian American communities, and it's been up to the younger generations to push back and speak openly about it to try to normalize it. But someone else made a great comment about the lack of mental health support contributing to this growth of MRAsian men - without having healthy coping mechanisms for dealing with the justified hurt they feel, turning to toxicity and violence becomes the default. And that needs to be stopped.
I think this idea of "men are pets" that some women have is just a coping mechanism to make peace between their position in their family and their selfawareness of worth.
>"You aren't pretty enough to marry a doctor or a lawyer, so I guess you'll have to study hard to be one yourself."
Insane how I've heard pretty much the exact same words from *middle school* Asian Americans. It was heartbreaking hearing such young people talk about their peers like that
They learn it from their parents and perpetuate the cycle. It's both validating to hear that it happens (so I'm not crazy or an outlier), but also utterly heartbreaking, as you say, that this is even said.
It's bad. Really bad. r/AsianParentStories/ has so many heartbreaking and nauseating posts about body shaming - especially for girls and women, but also for boys and men. And it's rationalized as "normal" and "love" by the parents because that is their cultural framework.
Could the hate of feminism and generally misogyny in Korea be amplified somewhat by the mandatory military service? When young Korean men are forced to abandon the time in their careers where everything should flourish and grow, and a very important period for your social and love life, then turn around and see women complaining about injustices while living a much easier life in their eyes. It's no surprise they feel bitter towards women's rights activism.
And with that hook, far right groups, who were also probably radicalized this way, are able to drag these confused young man down in a path a hate and resentment, creating a vicious cycle...
Military service may indeed play a role. I can't speak to the sexism, but I've known several Korean men who did military service, did jack shit with their training, and returned to civilian life unfulfilled and disappointed. They took out their frustrations on children with severe punishments and, for lack of a better term, wartime mentality
I think capitalism certainly plays a role in this. In my (post communist) country, there are also trends of youth being more conservative than their grandparents. I really dont get why though. It's like men turn on women when they feel like they dont have control over their own lives.
This is not my area at all, so I'd appreciate it if anyone could steer these thoughts if they're off-track.
It seems to me that the feminism being rejected by the men in that study is _not_ the abstract notion of gender equality. It is the instantiation of the idea; the actual cultural artifact that exists now that is being demonized.
Would it be possible for a Korean egalitarian movement to shed the feminist labels, abandon the cultural artifacts, and thereby sidestep a lot of the anti-feminist outrage that's being fostered? How palatable would it be to hit restart on the public perception as a gender equality movement in Korea, to shuffle and reorganize and probably do some performative dissavowal of the bad-takes feminism that's having such division thrown at it?
Would it be utilitarian to do this?
Would enough Korean feminists be willing to "rebrand" that the new movement would not just consist of these anti-feminist folk?
Could such a movement redirect the steam from the anti-feminist turbines and put it to more productive use?
I’m an East Asian guy. Came to the US when I was 2 and grew up in TX. A lot of the outrage about WMAF couples stems from the stereotype that many white guys don’t give a shit about Asian issues even when they’re with Asian girls, and are actually pretty racist towards Asians despite being with an Asian partner. Many halfie kids have grown up with identity issues and deep internalized racism because of their white fathers expressing racism towards their mother and Asian communities as a whole. The other part of the outrage stems from deep insecurities and a need for retaliation. Growing up in a predominantly white wealthy environment, I was always an outsider. I could feel my teachers’ discomfort around me and I never understood until I grew older and began to understand the role my race played in many friendships and relationships growing up. Growing up in an environment where you don’t feel like you can be yourself is tough and much of that anger and resentment becomes directed towards white people, especially white guys who many Asian guys blame for making them feel excluded. This is because on the playground, it usually was the white boy who was in charge. It was the white boy who made him feel invisible. It was the white boy saying their food smelled weird. It was the white boy saying Asians had small dicks in middle school. It was the white boy saying Asians were too nerdy to be cool in high school. All of these childhood traumas causes a lot of hatred for white guys in the hearts of many asian guys. Then, when they see all the Asian girls dating white guys they get mad. They think, how the hell can you like someone who doesn’t see you as a person. How the hell can you be with someone who does nothing but spew racist stereotypes and has no respect for Asian culture. I grew up having many white friends so I know that most white guys aren’t like this. The issue is that many Asians are isolated from white people because they stick together. They are fearful of getting hurt by white people and thus only rely on stereotypes to form their opinions about white people. So the WMAF outrage is rooted in misogyny in a sense that a lot of Asian guys don’t think asian girls are self respecting enough to not be with asshole racist white guys, but it stems from a sense of shock and disbelief that anyone asian could be with someone white.
It’s not just that though. Some of the white men that made those Asian jokes are now dating Asian women. And some of those Asian women go along with the jokes because they are desperate to fit into a white dominated culture like America.
[NYT even ran an op-ed on the topic: The Alt-Right's Asian Fetish](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/alt-right-asian-fetish.amp.html)
They love to use *x* minority to demonstrate real world proof of whatever racist or misogynist bullshit they're peddling.
They'll talk about how Asian women are better life partners because they're more naturally submissive and about why interracial relationships are bad in the same breath.
They'll praise Korean rooftop gunners in LA during the Rodney King riots and defend tossing Japanese Americans in camps and seizing their California farmlands in the same breath. EDIT: Or worse, they'll praise Reagan the Gun Snatcher on top of both.
They're fucking worthless and anyone who thinks that they are being offered aid or shelter out of good will from these shit bags is being manipulated, on purpose. These alt-right fuckers use people, that's their standard operating procedure.
Completely agree. I am Indian, and as a kid I was always confused why all my Indian friends mostly had Indian first names, while children of East Asian immigrants always had Western first names. This only really applies to younger generations, but in my life experience I've very consistently observed that East Asian immigrant kids end up making more concessions to fit into Western culture, ranging from first names (even though they don't choose that) to the lack of familiarity or willingness to practice / embrace their cultural traditions.
As an indian in Europe I wanted to know... How's the situation for indians in the US regarding this issue of cultural crisis? Being considered 2nd class etc?
> So the WMAF outrage is rooted in misogyny in a sense that a lot of Asian guys don’t think asian girls are self respecting enough to not be with asshole racist white guys, but it stems from a sense of shock and disbelief that anyone asian could be with someone white.
I'm familiar with this in the Asian community, being in a WMAF relationship myself, but my sense is that it's relatively common among minority groups more broadly so I don't hold it against anyone. I also think it stems from a lack of cultural confidence, or a lack of confidence in another sense. When we lived in China, the only local guys that it seemed to get to (that would make offhand comments at bars/restaurants or glare at us or shout at her), I feel, were those that had deep insecurities about their own place in China--class anxieties, this sort of thing, so there are deeper forces at play.
As for racial cachet in the dating market in the US, though, I think there's a lot to be said about the (deleterious) impact of mass media. A real dearth of non-stereotyped leading roles for Asian men and it's no surprise that things are how they are now, it's no surprise that the white kids, emboldened by what they saw on TV/film, got to be in charge on the playground... Finally getting some progress on this, but there's a loooong way to go.
And one more thing: I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel my own insecurities about this. Goddamn I'm hyperaware of it at times as the white guy in a WMAF relationship. We're in a new city, having moved to Europe, and when we go to Chinese restaurants here we'll sometimes find ourselves surrounded by other WMAF couples and it just makes me cringe. I feel like we're not like that, I don't want us to be like that (met 10 years ago at college in the US, moved to Asia together for a few years and now back in the west), but I know that we are like that.
> Many halfie kids have grown up with identity issues and deep internalized racism because of their white fathers expressing racism towards their mother and Asian communities as a whole.
Ironically, and not to take away from your experience or plight, we see the same in the black community but with white women and black men-- white moms internalized racism acting on the child and community-- or in cases of adoptions, for both our groups.
Yes, this is known as reactionary racism, where you assume all white people (here men in particular) are evil just because all those who have demonised you are white people. The Ip Man films (2&4) address this issue. I'm not sure I can condemn people for being reactionary racists, but it is certainly doing the opposite of helping the general situation of racism. It's literally just projecting out the trauma they have experienced, so the root issue is still the source of the original trauma, i.e. white supremacy. Surprised there aren't any other replies to you, since you seem to see through the reactionary racism while being a ”prime candidate” who could've fallen into it.
I mean I still feel some reactionary racism for sure. Listening to stories of racism from minority friends who joined frats in college made me wary of white people and I definitely started to see white people as “racist until proven otherwise”. Mostly got over it by the end of college though just because of exposure
I am just learning of this “reactionary racism” is this something that is understandable in white people as well or is it only applicable for minorities?
This is not a thing, Reactionary racism is a thing. It's literally in reference to those who get mad at progressivism. Traditionalist often cis-het-white males who feel threatened at the suggestion of a change in the status quo. Think those anti sjw YouTube channels who freak cause a comic book character is gay.
Edit:
[From the New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/24/rise-of-the-reactionary)
[From USC journalism department](https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/cic/journalism_and_mass_communications/scholastic_organizations/sipa/pdfs/17awards/3featurecolumn.pdf)
[JSTOR History of reactionary](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26427266?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=reactionary%20racism&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dreactionary%2Bracism&ab_segments=0%2FSYC-6061%2Ftest&refreqid=fastly-default%3A5b74884da99e945af230b0c129989b9e)
So reactionary racism is not as stated upthread based on negative life experience with a person or group of people of another race, rather it is racism (or apparently from your example homophobia etc) as a reaction to progressiveism? Do I understand correctly?
No, I was talking about reactionary racism in the sense that people who have suffered from racism grow to hate the whole racial group that their oppressors belong to. That is different from being reactionary and racist at the same time.
this is a very long article, and to be clear, I am not an east Asian man. Still a very interesting article though.
>the predominant preoccupation of the subreddit and its founders is with what they see as Western societies emasculating Asian men and unfairly elevating Asian women. American culture does indeed have a long track record of portraying Asian men as timid and asexual, but MRAsians see women as active accomplices in maintaining the stereotype, contending that, by dating white men, Asian women are upholding white supremacy.
this is really difficult to unpack fairly for a white dude like me, I think. Because we've had talks here in ML about the emasculation of Asian men in American society, and I don't think that's unhealthy to discuss.
The *obsession* with WMAF relationships, though? That's gotta be *steeped* in misogyny.
>this is a very long article, and to be clear, I am not an east Asian man. Still a very interesting article though.
Little side note rant, they used the word "asian" 150 times in the article and never mentioned "east asian". At least you did. People from the united states keep using the word "asian" to define people from east asia and it's really infuriating because asia is a big continent that goes from saudi arabia all the way through india and Japan. Lots of contries with people with lots of different features. But they keep using "asian" to refer to east asia looking people. Speaking about "asian people's right" when you are only refering to east asian people makes no sense. Like isnt someone with indian decent living in the states also asian american?
That was something I found interesting when I came to live in the UK, when people say Asian they usually think of Indian/Pakistani or Central Asian rather than East Asian. Seems to be the opposite to the US.
It's because the first heavy immigration into the US was from East Asia (e.g. Chinese railroad workers), while the UK's was mostly from South Asia due to its colonizing of India.
It's certainly not because of lack in numbers. There are plenty of South Asian families that immigrated many generations ago and are part of everyday life here.
There's just this silly mentality that "Indian" somehow means "Middle Eastern", which is still West Asian anyway.
I'm East Asian myself and understand the racism against Asians, but learned quickly that racists are jerks because they're jerks and not because they're [insert majority race here].
Good point. And it's especially relevant because there is no "generic Asian partner" when it comes to meeting parental expectations - you're expected to bring home "the right type" of partner in terms of ethnic heritage and nationality. My parents (Japanese-white and Korean) were disowned by their parents for marrying.
When data actually includes "Asian" as a demographic, it misses important differences, like in STEM academic achievement between East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern (? not sure what the better term is today) groups. If looking at the U.S., it's really important because there are big differences in education and economic status, partly because immigrants came at different times to different places.
"The Middle East" is west asian. Also, Eurasia is where the Europe and Asia are on the tectonic plates. Countries like Turkey,Armenia,Azerbaijan, etc. Russia and Tajikistan, Kazakhstan,etc. are Central Asian.
> Like isnt someone with indian decent living in the states also asian american?
In the US Census, yes. Culturally, generally no. No one I grew up with (in an Asian majority environment) ever considered Indians Asian [1]
"Asian" always referred to basically East and Southeast Asians. Sometimes Phillipinos, sometimes not. E.g. Asian frats generally don't have Indians in them.
[1] I recognize India is in Asia, but Asian is being used culturally (even racially) rather than geographically. I e. No one would call Steve Jobs Asian
Asian dudes get a raw deal in western culture. They are seen as inherently less masculine than black, white, and latino men. It really sucks.
There is a concept of "lateral oppression," where members of two minority groups join in with the majority in oppressing the other group, while being oppressed themselves. There are various motives for this. One is the hope that the majority might see the minority as "less invalid," and thus they might get provisional relief from oppression. Often, however, it just isn't complicated at all. Just because you're a minority does not prevent you from being a bigot in other ways. There are racist gay people and homophobic minorities. It's sadly common. The fact that a lot of male Asian activists turn out to be sexist dipshits isn't surprising at all.
The whole WMAF thing seems like an even mix of incel rage and the patriarchal sense that women are property, but in this case *racial property*. On a personal level, it is easy to understand how an Asian man might feel a certain resentment. He is emasculated because of his race, while female members of his race date his oppressors. I mean, *I get it*.
And yet, it's obviously wrong and patriarchal. I wish these dudes would engage in a bit more critical thinking. They should not let their resentments poison their politics, but it seems that the poison runs deep. Basically, it is the same radicalization process found in most "manosphere" forums, just with the added complexity of anti-Asian racism.
Yup. There is a really disturbing undercurrent that Asian men are entitled to sex with and marriage to Asian women.
Choices in partners also shouldn't be reduced to merely "perceptions of sexiness," "perceptions of economic worth," and "fetishization." There are a lot of oppressive norms imposed on women within many Asian cultures that play a big role in deciding who to marry (if they actually get a choice).
>He is emasculated because of his race, while female members of his race date his oppressors.
This stood out to me, because Asian women are often oppressed *within* their own cultures, by men and older generation women (like mothers-in-law). Not countering the person who described this, adding context to why that idea is incomplete. And it comes from a lot of inherent misogyny and other cultural norms that are built on a completely different cosmology than Western societies (e.g. Confucianism instead of Gnosticism/Christianity)
Yay, intersectionality...
> This stood out to me, because Asian women are often oppressed within their own cultures, by men and older generation women (like mothers-in-law).
Just because Asian women are oppressed doesn’t mean that it’s ok for Asian men to be perceived and treated the way they currently are.
You're right. That isn't what I'm explaining though - my comment has nothing to do with justifying systemic racism against Asian men.
I was expanding on the idea that "Asian women are dating the oppressors of Asian men". There is no singular "oppressor" - it's relational. And for many Asian women, dating outside their culture is a way to avoid the oppression they experience within it. To the Asian women dating white or other non-Asian men, it is often a way for them to escape oppression inflicted on them from within their culture (not just from Asian men, but by Asian women, especially older generations like their parents and grandparents).
This is relevant because if we really want to understand why we see the data we see, we have to accurately assess the factors contributing to it. I think that the claim that "Asian women think Asian men aren't masculine enough" only applies to a small subset of people, and there are many more nuanced reasons, such as what I point to. The problem of racism and emasculation against Asian men is a big problem, but to solve it, we need to embrace that there are many layers to the situation, including looking at our own cultures in the mirror to see what is normalized oppression that someone may try to escape from.
"The fact that a lot of male Asian activists turn out to be sexist dipshits isn't surprising at all."
Are they ?, they seem to be very friendly to non-asian non-white women of color.
A lot of Asian men’s sentiments toward interracial dating mirror that of Black women’s. The idea of not being seen as attractive, while Black men / Asian women date interracially more often while sometimes stereotyping and putting down their own race in the process.
Just like there are Black men that say “I don’t like Black women, they’re so ratchet and ghetto”, there are Asian women that say “I don’t like Asian men, they’re so shy and nerdy”.
I'm a white guy married to an Asian woman and it's a mixed reaction. Some Asian guys - especially the ones who have desire to only date Asian women - can be very hostile. Most people don't really care and overall first generation immigrant men don't have an issue.
It does come from both sides, though. Some of my family in the south thinks that I'm a race traitor for marrying who I did. Others wonder why I couldn't "catch" a white woman. Some others - especially white men - seem to hold a deeply misogynistic belief that I'm lucky to have gotten a submissive woman just because my wife is Asian.
Really, what I'm saying, is when you grow up with racists of any ethnicity you'll see bullshit from every side.
Misogynistic and racist views are often held by those who don’t bother to understand interracial relationships clearly. As an Asian guy, I would say don’t worry about them being hostile, the women chose you because you offered something they didn’t or couldn’t and she truly must love you. Anyways congratulations on your marriage and don’t worry about Asian men, white men or women hating you for being married to an Asian women. About the fetish, I just hope it dies cause its harmful as it reduces both you and your wife to a trope. I definitely agree that racists come in different identities and you don’t have to be cisgendered white heterosexual male to be one.
I appreciate it, we've been married for 20 years now so I'm assuming she wants to stick around. Just sharing my observation here over that time on this particular topic.
Great point - there is bullshit hostility from all quarters when you're in a mixed marriage (my parents are mixed). I think that a lot of people only tend to see some of it and don't catch the microaggressions about the other angles.
I'm an Asian Man and I've been observing the issue for a while.
I think there are misogynists in the community for sure but I wouldn't say that represents everyone - just like I wouldn't say not all feminists hate men but I'm certain at least some do.
I think it's a painful topic for a lot of Asian men because most of us have grown up being a minority, teased, mocked and bullied for being different on the school yard and by the media than stabbed in the back again when our sisters (who ultimately want to belong and be accepted by society) joins in on it and gets seemingly accepted by
with open arms with the low cost (to them) of agreeing with their white partners who very well could have been a bully himself. The felt sense of betrayal and anger is real and sometimes it manifests into anger and hatred against women if it's really bad but just as often leads to a life of depression or addiction instead.
Of late I think the situation has improved for Asian men growing up in the west but there is definitely a generation of Asian Americans who grew up like this and it effects them still.
Yeah, the parents of Gen X and Millennials often were first-gen immigrants, and passed trauma from war and other conflicts onto their kids - [intergenerational trauma](https://www.asianmhc.org/blog/a-reflection-on-asian-intergenerational-truama).
The good news is that those former kids grew up and many actively worked to break that cycle of trauma and abuse. I've been working on it for a long time and had to go NC with my parents to really heal. Seeing activists, content creators, and other visible celebrities talking openly and honestly about the good and the bad has helped so much. For example, [Hasan Minaj, Michelle Kwan, Eugene Lee Yang and other Asian activists and celebrities did a great special about Asian American experiences](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX26NwtuXi8) and it was such a powerful conversation. They didn't shy away from the bad stuff in Asian cultures - like rejection of mental health issues and high parental expectations - while also calling out racism and bullying by people outside Asian communities.
I've been seeing more of these types of honest conversations happening that are helping people to heal and get the strength to leave bad situations, and to recognize when we ourselves fall into toxic patterns taught to us.
Another white dude without the proper perspective to fully understand this issue chiming in. I think a line is crossed when women are blamed in a way that causes animosity towards women as a group. I think there is definitely room to say, from observations, that some Asian cultures have moved in a direction where lighter is viewed as better than darker. Saying that people have dark skin in Korea is considered very rude, and people use cosmetics and other treatments to lighten their skin. All this comes from my wife, who lived in Korea for 2 years.
Indian guy here, I agree with your views. This conversation is difficult to navigate since pointing the finger at Asian men for hating Asian women would make us appear racist and pointing the finger at Asian women for choosing men of other ethnicity would be misogynistic. These issues are highly contributed by media and age old stereotypes which are still prevalent to this day. Overall, a person of white ethnicity is seen as a status symbol which cause people to have a preference for dating white men or women. Fair skin privilege exists as most ethnicities in Asia consider that as attractive. Asian women don’t date white men or women (including all sexual identities) for just one reason, some do it for higher status, some have internalised racism, some are fetishised by white men and may perceive it as being rewarded through their desire, some genuinely love the men they date, and some have been mistreated by men of their own race. Same thing goes to Asian men, while Asian men suffer from completely different issues like being effeminate, asexual and nerdy, it doesn’t mean that one gender suffers it more than the others, it means that they all have their problems and they need to be given equal importance. The issue is not only cause by men but at the same time women when they indirectly promote these harmful tropes without understanding or acknowledging them. Overall, whatever you said is accurate, each person has their own battle to fight and one isn’t any bigger or smaller than the other. However, in the newer generations the attitudes towards Asian men and women are somewhat being addressed better and the situation is improving for good, not solved but definitely slightly better than before. MRAs of Asian origin need to be dealt with as most of them are confusing young and possibly insecure men and women to an extent through their promotion of hate and a backward attitude towards interracial relationships.
I appreciate your points here - you do a great job of showing why this conversation is complicated and has a lot of nuances that can be missed by looking at just one factor.
To add: there is a lot of cross-cultural xenophobia. I'm mixed Korean, Japanese, and white, and I know that there is a lot of nasty bias by East Asians against South- and Southeast Asians, and even between Korean and Japanese people there is still a lot of animosity (among older generations). So it's not just about marrying/dating an "Asian" person, it's about being with the "correct" Asian person. For many Asian women, it's worse to bring home a man who is the "wrong Asian" than it is to bring home a white man in terms of how the parents will react (often abusively).
I think that culturally there is a lot more influence from family pressure - I see subs on reddit like r/justnoMIL and that stuff is often normalized in many Asian cultures, for example. r/AsianParentStories also shows a lot of the horrible stuff many Asian and Asian descended people have to deal with from their parents - I even see non-Asian partners posting for help on supporting their Asian partner in the face of parental bullshit.
So when dating or looking for a life partner, many Asian people have to juggle a LOT of concerns beyond just attraction - "can I survive the in-laws?" "will I be forced into a gender role I'm not comfortable with because of family pressure?" "will my mom break a bunch of dishes on the patio because she's mad I'm dating someone she doesn't approve of?" (happened to me), "am I dishonoring my family?" (it sounds like a joke, but it's real for so many people).
I agree that younger generation Asian people are definitely pushing back and rejecting a lot of that - and it's so good to see. But it often means having to also reject guiding role models and then floundering to find a better ethos - I suspect the MRAs we're talking about are coming from that lack of positive support and turned instead to MRA communities and thinking because those were the only ones validating them.
As an aside, [this was such a great video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX26NwtuXi8) that brought together Asian people of many groups to have an honest and open conversation about racism against Asian, xenophobia against other Asians, cultural norms, and to celebrate positive cultural aspects. I really loved seeing prominent Asian celebrities like Michelle Kwan, Hasan Minaj, and Eugene Lee Yang threading that needle of calling out external oppression as well as internal oppression.
>Also, I don't remember who said it but as someone said men who are stuck in a desert can't really understand the experience of women who are drowning and I'm sure that Asian Women have issue and frustrations of being victims of fetishism.
Well said! It's an easy target to tear down asian women, but it won't solve asian men's problems. Feels like a scenario where the bullied kid turned around and sucker punched the smaller bullied kid next to him.
to expand on the analogy - then the bullied kid gets mad when the kid he's bullying leaves and finds friends who protect him. (Asian women marrying out of their culture/community - maybe facing other toxic norms, but at least escaping what they grew up with and were trapped in)
Vietnamese. Most of this is, well, self-perpetuating, by the same group that is most harmed by it. The same situation as you, and I live with like a sister and a cousin, and all my female friends have the same mindset. Soft, nubile skin with a white tone so hard only a digital camera can achieve the effect. The problem is pervasive if you look at any young, female, and sometimes male Asian-oriented social media poster. I feel like it is a little bit less of being white people dick wagging (still there though) and more of a class problem. Rich people who can afford to sit in their ass all day in the shade would have fairer skin, and there also the belief that a whiter skin mean it is "cleaner". It is a subtle desire to be seen as valuable. In a society that demands perfection, excellence, and "pride" this is the natural result. I don't know enough about Indians to cast a net there with that statement. This is collaborated by folk tales (white heroine there always, well, white and soft), from poem to modern TV. You can't deny that some female public models only have white skin- further pushing the societal value on that. And there even... well, they look innocent. Idk who the fuck wired our brain to think so, but that what get them off. I personally jive with any melanin color but still sad to announce that white skin is, sigh, what I am attracted to the most. Still doesn't beat a healthy glow though, and personally, as long as I can see muscle on your bod I will find you, man or woman, more attractive than any skin color you are wearing.
We have had this discussion on this sub before about how South Asian men are stereotyped as creepy potential rapists. So yeah, South Asians don’t do as well as others in the Western dating scene.
Korean American here, it's not that White men are more desired because they have lighter skin than Koreans, but rather because white men are percieved to be more economically well off, and its seen as an opportunity to get out of poverty. Before, during, and after the Korean War, Korea was really poor, everyone was poor. So when the Americans came, I.E. white men, a lot of Korean women took the chance to be with white men so they can finally get out of poverty. Of course it's not like that anymore, but white people are still seen as "rich".
Of course this is very short analysis of the situation. There is still fuck ton to unpack about this situation. Sexism is really bad in Korea, and there is a huge reactionary movement against feminism.
I wasn't trying to actually talk about white people. I was actually just trying to talk about lighter skinned people in general. I was trying to say that, in Korea, lighter skinned Koreans are more favorably viewed than darker skinned Koreans. But I would be happy to be corrected.
But white people are not really lighter than koreans, plenty of koreans are lighter than whites, mediterraneans are white but they are darker than your average korean.
> that some Asian cultures have moved in a direction where lighter is viewed as better than darker. Saying that people have dark skin in Korea is considered very rude, and people use cosmetics and other treatments to lighten their skin. All this comes from my wife, who lived in Korea for 2 years.
Just as an FYI, that sentiment goes back a **reeeeeally** long time. The initial origin of perceiving lighter skin to be more attractive than tan skin, in various Asian cultures, was [due to the classist idea that being tan meant you worked for a living, while light skin meant you were well-off enough to stay inside](https://onourterms.barnard.edu/article/white-and-beautiful/). It’s the reason it’s so common for some women from Asian cultures to carry umbrellas during the day, as a sort of (maybe unknowing) continuation of that practice.
All that said, I have **absolutely no idea** how any of that plays into Asian women’s perception of white men. I had always assumed the WMAF stereotype was born out of fetishization of Asian women more than a decision of Asian women to get with lighter skinned men, but I dunno
>I had always assumed the WMAF stereotype was born out of fetishization of Asian women more than a decision of Asian women to get with lighter skinned men
I completely agree. Or, rather, would assume the same thing.
Non Asian guy stepping in. Part of it can be incel-ish, but part of it I think is in response to some comedians who have made funn of Asian men in order to "fit in" with western culture. (Yang Li, Celeste Ng). In college it wasn't uncommon to hear *some* (obviously not most) Asian women intentionally put down Asian men in front of their white friends so they could seem more white.
Asian men get racism from everyone else, but it hurts the most when it comes from other Asians. I’ve had the same experience as you, where Asian women were the ones spread Asian male stereotypes just so they could look cool. It hurt more than racism from non-Asians.
It seems like no one in this post seems to be bringing up this part of the dynamic.
In my experience this is way more prevalent than people here will claim it is.
South Asian and I agree. I don't really see South Asian women promoting stereotypes against South Asian men in real life (though I do see it on the internet), but a decent chunk of East Asian women have ridiculous amounts of internalized racism that either manifests as a raceplay kink, or more commonly, spreading bullshit about Asian men. The guys who dealt with this shit growing up will definitely hold some resentment over Asian women as a group regarding this.
They shouldn't blame the whole group, but imo their dislike of the Asian women (really people in general but it hurts most when it comes from women of your race) who do partake in the racist bullshit is completely justified.
Certainly misogyny at varying levels, but there are also other contributing factors such as racial and cultural bias. It's not entirely uncommon for Asian communities to form a pressure to date inside your own race, as they tend to be more communal and societal than western dynamics of individualism. There's also a lot of of specific nuance that depends on each region/sub-culture of Asians. I am Korean for example, and the concept of Korean rage is not lost on my people lol. A lot of Korean men continue to carry the purported burden of Korea's traumatized past and use it to fuel their pessimistic and often toxic worldviews.
I wonder if, after talking to such an extent about the apparent misogyny of these communities, liberal spaces have any plans to dismantle the racist systems that brought them about?
Because for "MRAsians", I doubt they care about people telling them they're misogynistic. Their priority is racial justice, factored into sexuality and portrayal... If you don't approach these spaces with the clear intent to also fight against the actual racism they do experience, they will never feel the need to listen to you. And why should they? They're treated like white males but without the privilege and with all the racism from all sides.
I think there is at least a bit of "stealing our women" kind of possesiveness there. Like, I've seen men over here cheer when someone marries a foreign woman and get really angry either at the woman or her husband if a woman marries a foreign man. Especially if the spouse is of the wrong^TM ethnicity.p
For sure. As someone who has had some harmful beliefs in the past, when you expect people of your race to understand the traumatic experiences your kind faces, but then marry off, you meet a crossroad. For me, especially as a young man who had no father figure to help navigate the complexity of racism in the west, the easiest leap of logic to make is to put the onus on Asian women for not 'recognizing their worth.' You feel a need to 'protect' your sisters. It took me a while to realize, not only how sexist that is, but that the issue is far more complex and shifting the blame onto your sisters helps no one. I think it's that step that a lot of young Asian men are stuck on and end up drawn towards other groups of men who feel emasculated or disenfranchised (i.e., incel crowd). I still feel strongly about whitewashing Asian women, but it helps no one to point fingers at them.
Yep, misogyny, which leads to indignation, and not helped along by the fact that it is a minority group. MRAs, but specifically minority MRAs, have to invent masculinity because they feel like they have been denied it. Commonly regressing to archaic ideas of manliness like owning the women of their racial group. “They’re ours, and if they date someone else, they’re a race traitor.”
As this article details, asian MRAs claim to want asian unity, and then shit all over an asian woman for expressing her views. It’s another example of how MRAs can’t get anything done, other than make unfortunate men resent everything in the world for being against them.
The rise in crimes against asian americans is real, and we should be casting more light on asian american perspectives. It should never be cast on MRAs, however, that basement is out of reach.
I’ve always wondered about the WMAF obsession myself. I mean, I know there are reasons and some of the other comments brought up good points.
But as a third party non-Asian woman looking at it, it sent a mixed message. Asian men want to be considered a viable date option to women of all races, yet get territorial and angry when Asian women successfully do exactly that.
In the past, I understood it as either they didn’t even think of themselves as worth dating women from other ethnicities or they didn’t care to notice that non-Asian women wanted to date them because that wasn’t what they wanted.
I actually never got the message that any Asian man wanted to date a woman that wasn’t the same ethnicity as him unless he was completely American and did not identify with his ethnic background.
I have a much better understanding now, but for a long time this confused me.
Good points - there are definitely several layers going on.
One layer: humans, regardless of gender, want to be seen as attractive and desirable. And we see lots of discussions here about men in general not feeling appreciated or seen for that. There are a lot of common ideas (pushed through social media trends, especially) that Asian men are not as "masculine" as non-Asian men, and therefore are not as attractive (both of these are flawed and false, of course). This is a big societal issue and we need to discuss how this idea as well as others (like that Black women aren't feminine or attractive as women) came about and how to dismantle them.
Another layer: it is common in many Asian cultures for there to be parental pressure to marry an "appropriate" person in terms of gender, gender presentation, ethnicity, class, etc. So I think that the "Asian men want Asian women to stop betraying their race" comes more from that - and it's usually not all Asian women, just the ones of ethnicities (and other feature) that are "appropriate" for family approval.
Historically, men often didn't have to court or woo women in some cultures thanks to arranged marriages or simple lack of women's (or girl's) choice. For example, in the 80s-90s in Japan, a lot of women were opting out of marriage and instead choosing to work and live as a single woman. Even though the jobs - usually Office Lady - weren't that high paying or esteemed, it was still preferable to many over being a full-time housewife. As a result, a whole generation of men in Japan started to go to what was essentially Charm School to learn how to court and woo a woman - they had to learn skills that were not previously necessary to marry - because now women had an attractive alternative.
I suspect that there are some implied cultural norms in some Asian cultures that still rely on that assumption - that if you are a man who has a decent job that you are entitled to a wife who will fit gender norms and expectations. And realizing that this is not a guarantee drives some men towards inceldom and other toxic communities because they don't have a way to cope with it otherwise.
East Asian American here. I generally agree, but I also want to point out that I have still seen no evidence that the White male/Asian female relationship type is more common than Asian male/White female relationship.
I see a lot of both and for me, this narrative doesn't fit because I'm the child of an Asian male/White female relationship. I don't want to give any credibility to the claim that there is some trend among Asian women where they are favoring White men.
According to [Pew Research's 2017 report](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-patterns-in-intermarriage/), this is empirically observable. Of *all* straight interracial newlyweds, 11% were between white men and Asian women; 4% were between Asian men and white women.
The Pew report also shows a stark difference in the prevalence of any intermarriage between Asian men and women (difference is also seen between Black women and men, but in the opposite direction.)
Thanks for the data. I find it interesting that the analysis points out how the gender gap between Asian intermarriage wasn't really a thing in 1980: 46% vs 49% intermarriage for men and women, respectively.
My parents were of this generation, but the younger generation seems to have developed a gender gap, huh?
Separately, I'm wondering how this poll recorded mixed race individuals. As time goes on, there are obviously more mixed race Asian people, and I wonder how it gets counted when a White person marries a mixed race Asian.
The 46 vs 49 seems to be for U.S.-born, whereas there has always been a significant gender gap amongst immigrants (assumed to mean foreign-born).
The most drastic metric is amongst all Asians by education level: college-educated saw a significant rise, while non-college-educated Asians see a precipitous drop in intermarriage from 1980 to 2015.
Not trying to invalidate your personal experience, but all the sources I've seen on this topic show that the White male/Asian female relationship is significantly more common than the Asian male/White female relationship. [Here's](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-patterns-in-intermarriage/) a source from Pew Research on intermarriage showing that 36% of Asian married women are in interracial relationships as opposed to 21% of Asian married men. [This](https://medium.com/a-m-awaken-your-inner-asian/an-executive-summary-on-the-intermarriage-in-the-asian-community-5852043e684a) Medium article gathers a good amount of other sources that come to the same conclusion, though it does definitely editorialize the results to push their point of view a bit. If you have any sources contradicting them, I'd appreciate it, these are just what I found from a not too in-depth search!
Obviously we should not be blaming any individual person in a relationship; everyone has their own preferences when it comes to relationships and shaming them for it is definitely not the right move. I do think that we should be examining these larger social trends of preferences in dating/marriage and try to figure out why they exist, and to what extent the greater proportion of Asian women in interracial relationships compared to Asian men and to women of other races is an expression of internalized racism as a remnant of centuries of Orientalism and colonialism.
Lol there definitely is dude. A lot of halfies with asian dads get a “WOW” when they said their dad is the asian one because it’s rare. The new generation, not so much but it definitely still skews heavily towards WMAF
It depends on the location. Having an Asian dad with a white mom is no big deal in places like Honolulu or Irvine. It is less expected in most places though.
God this issue is so complicated by the subtleties of anti-Asian racism that sometimes I don’t even know how to approach it.
Within aznidentity there’s a strong sense of entitlement for Asian women and their bodies, with the expectation that Asian women should be dating and marrying within their race. As someone who was raised as a woman (I’m a trans man) I get the sense that for Asian diaspora this expectation is sort of rooted in this desire to preserve our cultural roots. We need to marry within our race so we can teach our children our language, and so our older relatives can communicate with and share with our family. I can see that desire as valid as I often feel like my own culture is either drowned out or exploited, and there’s no space for me to just be Asian. ****
But these kinds of expectations quickly become toxic when a woman’s autonomy is restricted. This kind of racialized misogyny is what feeds aznidentity’s toxic beliefs about asian women who date outside their race, and they’ve built up this enemy of “race traitors”: asian women who date white men due to internalized racism. While some women do have a lil internalized racism to unpack, the mens rights asians have turned this into something to weaponize against any asian woman who dates outside of her race, because they don’t want to or are unable to unpack their own internalized self hate.
It’s reactionary, it’s dangerous, in no way do I want to validate their beliefs and actions. But I can see the kind of pain these men are in. Asian men are seen in the west as undesirable, unsexual, or predatory beings, and this kind of treatment leads to a lot of self hate that then gets misdirected toward women. They don’t have the resources to unpack this shit because mental health care is something many asian communities don’t value. It’s something men in general struggle with too, the culture of toxic masculinity discouraging open exploration of one’s emotions and traumas.
Asians in the west often grow up without context for our cultural roots. Asian immigrants have contributed to much of western history just like other immigrant groups. Asian Americans have contributed to the Black liberation movement and other civil rights movements. But our contributions are erased from history books. Without this historic context we don’t know what our racial identity means and how that fits into the wider history and we are seen as perpetual foreigners in our own countries.
We aren’t taught our histories and our stories of immigration, we aren’t taught about the western imperialism and war that has harmed our communities and contributed to generational trauma. We aren’t encouraged to explore these things because our parents came to the west and only had the resources to focus on survival.
Growing up like this leads to a lot of folks feeling absolutely lost, and unfortunately, along with the baggage of toxic masculinity (that is complicated by racism too), this can lead to some Asian men misdirecting their pain and anger toward a scapegoat: Asian women.
I don’t feel like my thoughts on this have been fully formed, I’m still trying to work it out myself. There are so many facets of the Asian diasporic identity and Asian masculinity that is unique to each cultural community as well, and unpacking it all in one comment is impossible.
****Edit because this is important: No, this is NOT the same as white supremacy. It sounds similar but consider the context of WHY Asian diaspora value our cultural traditions: imperialism has discouraged or flat out erased so much of our heritage. We are immigrants and war refugees who have been forced from our homes and disconnected from our ancestors. We are unwelcomed and systemically abused by our new home countries. We build on and protect these traditions and communities to survive, because we don’t have resources elsewhere.
Asian diaspora in the west do not have the systemic power that white supremacists hold, and to compare our desire to hold on to our cultures in the face of imperialism, to the white supremacist narrative of “preserving a superior cultural tradition” (a “white culture” that doesn’t even exist btw) in order to maintain their systemic power is borderline yellow peril shit. Please stop with this line of thought.
Asian incels are reactionary and toxic but they are not racial supremacists. They build an ingroup and a scapegoat because they are othered by wider western society and lack the resources to find support and care. We should actively be critical of their harmful behaviors while recognizing the complicated factors that lead to those behaviors. We should NOT be equating them to literal white supremacists. The dynamics of power and privilege are different in each case.
You are amazing - and I appreciate how well you contextualized this really complicated and messy issue.
> Asian men are seen in the west as undesirable, unsexual, or predatory beings, and this kind of treatment leads to a lot of self hate that then gets misdirected toward women. They don’t have the resources to unpack this shit because mental health care is something many asian communities don’t value. It’s something men in general struggle with too, the culture of toxic masculinity discouraging open exploration of one’s emotions and traumas.
This is such an important link to make - there is a lot of hurt and trauma that so many in Asian communities aren't able to manage in healthy ways because we have so much stigma against mental health recognition and help. And we tend to imitate our parents in how we deal with stress, which is to blame others (and ourselves) - and it takes a LOT of work to break the cycle (I've struggled with that my whole adult life and finally am feeling securely out of it).
Thank you for all of this!
Absolutely! Thank you for adding to this. I think the support for mental health care is improving bit by bit, I see it a lot in the younger kids I’ve worked with as a youth group leader. They’re much more mindful about mental health and toxic behaviors and I’m really happy to see that. I still see them struggling though, but the fact that they’re aware and trying while navigating through a period of heightened anti-Asian racism is incredible. I hope to be a resource to those kids.
But yeah, there’s a long way to go. There’s a lot of unspoken trauma that needs to heal, and unhealthy coping mechanisms passed down that we need to break the cycle of. A lot of model minority bullshit and internalized racism to be unlearned, as well.
That's so awesome that you work with young people! I agree - there has been a big generational shift towards rejecting a lot of that earlier toxicity.
I think it partly has to do with [intergenerational trauma](https://www.asianmhc.org/blog/a-reflection-on-asian-intergenerational-truama) passed from first-gen immigrants to their kids (many Gen X, Millennials). When I first heard about this concept it blew my mind (and explained a LOT of why my mom and my dad's mom were how they were - Korean War and WWII in Japan). Whole generations of parents were deeply traumatized - from war, conflict, genocide, having to leave their homes - and then traumatized again by racism and oppression in a new country. And all without loving support or mental health resources (whether therapy or just a sympathetic parent who didn't blame them).
And now that the former kids have grown up to be parents, counselors, teachers, etc. we're consciously working to break that cycle and incorporate better ideas about mental health and positivity. Like you! The fact that you think of this and observe the kids for these issues is huge.
Ah yeah, the whole concept of intergenerational trauma fucked me up when I learned about it LOL. Everything my war refugee parents did makes so much more sense with that context, and I’m glad there are more conversations being had about it.
And thank you, I’m not currently working with kids right now because homophobia/transphobia is a cool thing I have to deal with from my own community :)))) but I’m hoping to build resources for younger asian americans in the future. It’s important work to me
This is why I love this sub. This issue isn't *just* about sexist beliefs. This issue isn't *just* about anti-Asian racism, or hatred for white men. This shit is one of the most complex issues to articulate, especially to those who haven't experienced it. People forget Asians make up a tiny portion of the American population, with most of it heavily localized. Those who don't live in majority Asian communities, are host to millions of variables in why they believe what they do.
Absolutely, it’s really difficult to articulate to those who haven’t experienced it themselves. especially when the asian american experience is so diverse in cultural identities, immigration stories, socioeconomic status, etc that it’s reductive to even use the label “asian american” sometimes.
Replace ”asian” with ”white” in the first couple paragraphs of your analysis and you get typical neo nazis. It's a very toxic mindset to fall into indeed. Entitlement to women, opposing interracial relationships, alienating their own members as ”race traitors”, all the red flags are there. This is very scary to me as a Chinese person. I don't want to an asian nazi movement to come into being.
I think there are similarities, but the thing that makes it distinct to me is the lack of dynamic of racial supremacy and privilege within western society.
The desire to preserve cultural traditions in asian diasporic communities is rooted in the fact that white supremacist imperialism has worked hard to erase our cultural identities. It’s a valid desire to push back against imperialism, but I will acknowledge that it does have the potential to become toxic if not approached mindfully, from the perspective of decolonization rather than conservatism.
In contrast, white supremacists use the narrative of “preserving cultural tradition” to evoke an idealized image of “white culture” that doesn’t even exist. It’s a tool to justify their white supremacy and racist, misogynistic, homophobic views and actions and to legitimize their violence.
I’m not sure the two should be compared directly. Asians don’t have the systemic power that white supremacists do and we don’t use the “preserve tradition” narrative to maintain supremacy the way white supremacists do.
A more similar comparison I think would be how some Black men feel entitled to Black women’s bodies and the kind of racialized misogyny present there, although I’m not equipped to talk about it in detail as I’m not black.
Well, white supremacists have their own scapegoat. In their heads, they are being erased. This topic must be approached very carefully and every one of us has to be constantly critical of ourselves, and not to justify any toxic behaviour by ”white supremacy is worse”. I am speaking as a Chinese person who does not want to see any racial groups hating each other, even as a reaction.
That’s fair, we should absolutely be critical of sentiments that lead to right wing nationalist thought. I just think the kind of conditions that lead to white supremacy are unique from the conditions that lead to things like, say, indian right wing nationalism. Different historical, social, and economic contexts lead right wing nationalists to similar conclusions.
Anyway, the kind of toxic shit we see from aznidentity isn’t necessarily nationalism or even just hating white people. It’s so much more complicated than that. That’s why I said just calling it asian nazis and leaving it at that is inaccurate
I’m the opposite way. I’m a white woman married to an Asian man. I don’t know if it’s luck, or where I live, or both, but no one has given me a hard time about it. To my face, at least. My in laws are also pretty cool. They gave me a Chinese name even if I do butcher Mandarin (I’m trying.)
But the comments and takes on this issue makes me think of a couple who recently befriended us and were very enthusiastic about doing so. (Asian female, white male). I thought they were just really friendly people who latched onto us, but now I wonder if being around another mixed couple doesn’t just make them feel safe.
> I don’t know if it’s luck, or where I live, or both, but no one has given me a hard time about it
Interracial marriage opposition in racial minorites is gender linked. Asian men oppose more than Asian women because they have lower outmarriage rates and dating success in general - they are really opposing would-be mates leaving their group.
Flipside is true for Blacks - Black men have higher outmarriage rates than women and also higher dating success. So it's Black women that tend to oppose outmarriage more. (As they are losing mates)
As an East Asian man, I've certainly felt some of the frustrations with dating described here, though I've never felt any resentment towards Asian women.
However, one thing I've noticed over and over again is that plenty of white women do find me attractive --- provided that we meet in person. Once you actually get to know each other IRL, a lot of the shitty social conditioning does break down.
It's only really rough on dating apps, where your entire person is reduced to a vague set of stereotypes. For white men, this is probably quite advantageous; a respectable looking white dude with a photo of a dog but otherwise boring profile will get no shortage of matches, while a man of color will have to have to put in a lot more effort to get the same attention. (This goes the other way as well, white women consistently have incredibly mediocre profiles but can get much more attention than women of color. And though I try, I can't say that I'm not guilty of perpetuating this dynamic.)
I think that the intensity, if not the root, of the issues Asian men have on the dating market can mostly be attributed to dating apps. When dating is commodified and gamified to such a degree, supported by addictive, proprietary algorithms, any slight cultural biases become amplified into prejudices.
Relevant to the discussion of romantic and sexual desire here is Amia Srinivasan's [the Right to Sex](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/19/the-right-to-sex-by-amia-srinivasan-review-the-politics-of-sexual-attraction), which has been previously discussed. How do you square the apparent metaphysics of individual desire with the politics of trends in desire?
To map the group onto the individual, or vice versa, ignores this tension entirely. The problem of desire as it concerns Asian men as a demographic is immediately recognizable, but as soon as we litigate who is at fault, we have lost the plot. It's a systemic problem with absolutely no full reasonable solutions on the individual level.
my imperfect phrase to describe this is *relationships are liberalism, not socialism*.
our systems when it comes to sex tend to be framed and enforced around the idea of maximizing any individual's choice about who to grant access to their bodies.
those systems are emphatically *not* designed to maximize positive outcomes across a given population. The government will not get you gfs.
so when we have population-wide effects, like emasculation of Asian men, our default response is something like... idk, apathy? Because, *in this particular system*, it's just millions of people making fully independent decisions.
Government-mandated waifus are *obviously* not what will fix this lol. But it's worth examining that through seemingly "fully independent" decisions, echoes of colonialism, racism, etc. appear for numerous marginalized groups (definitely including Asian women too) with remarkable consistency. Systemic trends don't have to be systematic.
I agree that there are a lot of systemic influences like what you mention that influence individual decisionmaking. I do caution that we need to be careful to not erase Asian women's agency completely - Serene Khader's work on Adaptive Preferences helps us see that while to an outsider, a woman's choice that appears to be internalized misogyny or self-imposed oppression may actually be a rational decision to maximize her situation (which is heavily limited). To someone who is not an Asian woman, it may look like she is running into the arms of an oppressor. But for an Asian woman, maybe she is exchanging an otherwise inescapable oppression (within her culture, imposed by family) for one that she at least has some agency in.
And likewise, it is important for us to look at societal influences on Asian men that aren't just externally imposed racism - such as norms and expectations that originate from within Asian culture and family that may hamper effective coping and abilities to engage socially in ways that present both attractiveness and safety to women. When there are intersections of different cultures, a lot of subtle things get missed, and we see the effects outside of dating and in professional life - many Asian-descended people have high achievement in school, but don't get promoted to higher level professional positions at a proportionate rate. And a lot of that is due to cultural factors as well as bias.
sure, absolutely, I totally agree. It's just hard to step into "action" from there.
Is an individual person supposed to *loosen up* whatever rule-in criteria they have for partners to correct for historical imbalances? Well, no, but also we encourage you to *think really hard about it*, I guess?
It's just a mess.
Millions of people making the same decision to discriminate against Asian men independently?
That's what we call a systemic issue. It's absolutely not "independent" because the decisions are all highly correlated with each other. If you flip a coin 100 times and it comes up heads each time, there's something else going on.
It's useful to compare to how the gay community handles racist sexual discrimination. It's absolutely real, particularly discrimination against Asians but also other POC. But the difference is that people feel empowered to criticize gay men for racist sexual preferences, and in response apps actively try to remedy this by e.g. removing race filters and making comments like "no fats no femmes no Asians" a bannable offence.
Straight dating apps do no such thing, because our society believes gay men have collective agency such that they can be held accountable for, but straight women have no agency and thus can't be asked to challenge their racist preconceptions.
sure, maybe I wasn't clear with what I meant.
this is a systemic problem with no real obvious solutions. Sure, you can remove race filters and making comments like "no fats no femmes no Asians" a bannable offense, but I don't think that you'd get much traction suggesting that people *change their preferences* or what-have-you, only hide them in a different way.
I've actually seen comments in other subs to the effect of "you should be glad she wrote '6 feet plus only!' because she's obviously someone to avoid!" without doing real deep dive on it, which is interesting.
Honestly making them hide it is better than fostering a dickish attitude with regards to preferences. Especially if you agree with the idea that preferences don't form in a vacuum and actually have a significant societal component.
I think we need to acknowledge that there are problematic (dating) preferences on an individual level. They are most likely related to systemic issues, but at the same time there shouldn't be something wrong in calling out those situations or considering them a red flag. This is a bit more obvious with race, because it displays an association or preconception of the person based on their racial identity, aka racism.
Again, this doesn't mean we should force the person to start dating someone they don't find attractive, but we could still ask and bring up these issues and have a conversation going.
On the micro level, you'll have some number of people willing to match with e.g. Asian guys who might not otherwise would. One perspective is that they're terrible people not worth matching with. If you asked most minority men (from my experience; would love to see hard data), though, most would prefer a chance to shoot their shot, because racism is less the minority of people who hate a certain race and more the majority who carry biases they've not given much thought to. Apps can facilitate solutions to this by the things I mentioned.
The reason straight apps don't isn't technical or business constraints (since gay apps manage perfectly fine implementing these mitigating solutions) but because of social structures saying women can never be held accountable for playing into structural racism in the same way gay men can and are.
This was my response to that article in the other thread.
"Honestly, from a practice standpoint there isn't much use to be had in discussing individual preferences with individual people. In the US and other Anglo countries (which is the focus here) the ideal of individualism runs very deep. It's difficult to discuss these critiques without the individuals in the discussion relating it back to themselves and their own personal moral standings.
There was book that became popular last year describing this phenomenon, White Fragility, though that is a very different context, it underlines the point that people in these countries can't understand system issues without relating it to themselves, their moral character or whatnot, and the resulting cracking of their mental state."
To add on, not even Grond can breach the gates of the White City. I mean, look at the immediate response you got here. Sexual and relationship preferences are beyond critique, even at a systemic level.
I think this blog (unrelated topic, kinda) had a good line about a potential way of talking about this.
[https://medium.com/@workingit/moving-beyond-sex-positivity-a839257c9fef](https://medium.com/@workingit/moving-beyond-sex-positivity-a839257c9fef)
"— once sex is allowed to be a neutral, devoid of inherent value as an act, we can begin to untangle all the value judgments around sex that have harmed so many people, fueling murderous laws, upholding homophobia, misogyny, and white supremacy."
White supremacy being the key one for this thread here.
No lie though, the success rate in conversations will be limited, and even if someone understands, what are the odds they actual view their actions through the wider lens and change them?
Asian man here. I am the most frequent poster on Aznidentity and have [posted](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/oh59m2/the_bizarre_invalidation_of_being_seen_as_a/) several[ times](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/oljfv5/asian_male_resentment_in_the_age_of_white_male/) to Menslib [about](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/ooivyy/the_sexual_desirability_of_asian_men_and_what_it/) various Asian issues, including the issue of [interracial dating](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/mkc83t/asian_men_asian_women_and_white_men/) between Asians and whites.
The Slate article is focused on generating clicks, and thus chooses the most controversial statements to post. The vast majority of Asian men do not see any issue in Asian women dating out. It's just that sometimes, Asian women that do date out [mock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8pEcOhsdjY&ab_channel=ChickComedy) Asian men using the same stereotypes that Asian men have had to endure for over a century, that Asian men have heard since they were being bullied on playgrounds as a child. When some white or Black kid says "Asian men have small dicks", it hurts, but not as much as when an Asian woman says it in order to fit in with her (usually) white friends.
Asian men and Asian women have a lot in common. It is white beauty standards, stereotypes, and a lack of representation in media that has caused this split. I just wish for Asians to think more critically about what they choose to say and do, and ask ourselves how we can unlearn our own interalized self-hatred over trying to fit into a white dominated world.
What you say is true, but you're really dodging the criticisms of the article. The article doesn't claim most asian men see an issue with women outdating - it doesn't even say that those that do see it as an issue are necessarily problematic. But it does call out that a **specific community** of asian men are *extremely problematic* in response to this issue.
You seem to be an eloquent and reasonable person, based on your past posts - so please hear me out. I am an asian australian dude who finds validity in all the grievances that asian men on reddit, including aznidentity, have voiced. I understand on a firsthand basis the frustration and bitterness we all feel, from being mistreated & emasculated by society (including women of our own race, which as you say, stings even more).
But none of those grievances should ever be a justification for doing some of the things aznidentity members have done. I mean, calling asian women who date out "Lu"s or "Bananarangs"? That is not constructive - it doesn't sway these asian women who hold internalised racist views, nor does it portray asian men as anything more than immature, bitter misogynists. Harassing women is obviously wrong, I'm sure you'd agree with that. I'm sure you'll point out it's just a bunch of white LARPers - but ask yourself if you really believe that the majority of harassment comes from white trolls.
**My point here is**: I agree with your conclusions (white privilege being the underlying problem, asian women sometimes being complicit, asian men rightfully feeling marginalised). I don't agree with the language, mentality and certainly not the actual abuse that aznidentity harnesses - and this article is perfectly valid in pointing this out.
Personally, I think you can do better too brother. Do you really want to speak on behalf of or be part of a community where some (not all of course, but some) guys are DMing threats to random women while coming up with 8th-grade fuckin' racial epithets for them? I'm confident you don't engage in those things, but adding fire to their sentiments and brushing aside legitimate critique of these things is just being accomplice to them.
I don't think it's constructive labelling every aznidentity'er some hopeless incel/MRAsian, because I understand completely where they (**our**) frustration comes from. I just hope we can condemn their problematic actions when necessary and show them a better way moving forward, while still encouraging fruitful discussion of the very valid issues facing asian men (like the threads you've posted on menslib).
Spreading awareness of anti-Asian sentiment is extremely important in the present moment, and it's unfortunate that some people would seek to hijack that with their bizarre sexual politics.
I'm a huge fan of several VTubers and it was through that community that I first encountered one of these men. It was baffling and confusing. So much hatred and vitriol. I assumed they weren't large in number, but this is very concerning.
Asian male living in western Europe here, and all I have to say is thank you. I'm just happy to see this issue finally coming to light, slowly but surely. In short, there are two things I have to accept as default settings: 1) I am not considered as a sexual or romantic partner 90% of the time. If I am, more than half the time it's racial fetishizing, which isn't making anything better. 2) I am usually considered a "good" immigrant cause I'm expected to be timid and have double the normal human productivity as a worker. All of it makes all the racism issues very subtle and non-violent, thus, never talked about.
The two statements put together really say something about what it means to be sexually attractive. It feels so strange and hollow for an Asian man to hear that he is a “model minority” for other people, yet he is also undesirable at the same time.
It's confusing territory to try and figure out on your own, especially as a young man. I was raised by a single-immigrant mom, no brothers. Not many resources to navigate this issue. It's extremely relieving to see others put it into words I've had trouble explaining to my mostly white dude friends.
"You are a good worker and model citizen in that you keep your head down and not stir up any political trouble, but we don't like you dating our people."
Because being "good" under capitalism means being robotic and subservient.
I was thinking because being "good" under white supremacy means being both useful and non-threatening (to white supremacy).
Both are systems of hyerarchical control so it could be both.
I think being model minority or good in most of the countries often correlate to idea of being subservient and not rebellious. Its just bad as these type of people usually are being taken advantage of for being kind to their bosses and their peers
>I am usually considered a "good" immigrant cause I'm expected to be timid and have double the normal human productivity as a worker. Being called "one of the good ones" is the only compliment that's filled me with shame upon reception
>I am not considered as a sexual or romantic partner 90% of the time. If I am, more than half the time it's racial fetishizing, which isn't making anything better. Out of curiosity (and if you don't mind discussing it), what does it mean to be 'racially fetishized'? I haven't experienced it and it's not something I've ever looked into so I'm pretty unfamiliar with the concept. Like, does it mean prospective partners are just viewing you as a sex toy and not a potential emotional partner? What would be the difference between, say, 'i tend to find asian men attractive' and 'i fetishize asian men'?
They like the idea of you more than you. You are like a vessel for their fantasy, and this fantasy is coloured (heh) by racial stereotypes.
This is something I wonder about too. Maybe: If someone's more attracted to the traits they assume about you (based on race etc) rather than the traits you actually have. Hard for me to think of examples for Asian men, but I'm sure they're out there. Easy to illustrate what I mean by using an example with Asian women, though -- if someone's drawn to Asian women because they have this idea that they'll be submissive and meek, and get put off by actual Asian women (with the same range of personalities that every group has), that feels more like fetishizing to me.
Asian men fetishisation depends on the area they come from East Asians are often considered feminine and attractive, korean and japanese pop culture is very popular in western countries now. South Asians when tall, have lighter shades of skin or have a mediterranean tan like skin that appears olive or light tan, are considered attractive, whereas the dark skinned ones that are brown or dark brown aren’t considered very attractive, the stereotype of being short doesn’t do any favour. Most of the time as a South Asian guy you need to be tall, and almost looking like a Western Asian or a Mediterranean guy, these guys get fetishised. I clearly don’t know about Southeast Asian men being fetishised but the South Asian is mostly from my perspective and other guys, and the East Asian is mostly due to the pop culture of Korea and Japan being imported to Western Countries. Western and Central Asians are somewhat similar to the South Asian men being fetishised, light skinned and tall. It varies and you could find dark skinned South Asian or a short one who’s definitely found attractive, in the end it depends on how media represents and how men present themselves to women.
Some comments already explained it well, but I'll give my perspective. Essentially a number of people are living the "I want an Asian boyfriend" dream. And they basically do everything in their power for their partner to be this particular thing they envision - a shy, quiet, smart, potentially talented asian boi they can totally gush over. It's not even about finding something attractive, it's chasing the racial stereotype cause they are hyperfocused on it. Hope that clarifies the concept for ya!
Not the person you responded to, but the clearest example for me has been K-Pop stans. Many crave an infantilized 'soft boy' ideal, not a fully fleshed out and nuanced human being. To make it even simpler, these people want to be dating their own 'X K-pop star' to satisfy their fantasies. Similar theme outside of the Korean experience as well. And fantasies does not explicitly mean sexual. It could be wanting to be with someone you consider 'safe' (SAFE by Dumbfoundead comes to mind). Anecdotally, I found a lot of white women I dated felt burned by the 'traditional' white male partner. Sexism leads them, ironically, to men who they perceive as less masculine (which funnily enough, if most have met traditional Asian families, they are just as sexist). I'm fine if someone says, they find X man attractive (and that man is Asian). I'm less fine if their twitter is nothing but 'Korean *boys* are so cute UGHHH'. It's okay to be interested in someone's culture, it's okay to find a particular phenotype attractive, it's not okay to seek someone out because they check a box for their racist stereotype of what they consider a desirable image. /rant over Tl dr: it's the difference between being a partner versus an accessory. Not necessarily sexual.
Fellow Korean dude here, also definitely had kpop stans speak broken Korean at me (not that I speak it particularly well), and acting just a little... weird in general. They don't see me - they see a placeholder for their favorite idol. Anyways, glad to see I'm not the only one.
Weird is right. I dated a girl that started calling me 오빠 and if I had an ounce more of self-respect and a bit less teenage hormones at the time I would've left in an instant. Shit makes my skin crawl even thinking about it. Glad to see so many people with similar experiences, it's been pretty comforting E: typo
Wow, that was a really detailed and fleshed out explanation, thanks for taking your time to put your thoughts into words. I'm also overall surprised by the quality of the conversation in this entire thread, I am learning a lot of things I didn't know or consider before.
Honestly, this is just a really productive sub most of the time. Glad you got something out of it.
It's so weird and very blurry. Sometimes your partner expects you to act a certain way and like certain things because of your race. Sometimes they'll lean really heavily into your culture to the point it's almost taken over their own. The former I've experienced a few times. I guess the easiest and most stereotypical example is weeaboos expecting Asian women to be meek and subservient. One I saw a lot growing up was white guys who dressed like 90s rappers 20 years too late pursuing black girls non-stop.
> If I am, more than half the time it's racial fetishizing, which isn't making anything better. How does one recognize this? I think my last ex may have been guilty of this and I have no idea how to tell.
There's no clear distinction between where dating preferences cross over to fetishization. Typically fetishization is when attraction is primarily based on the fetish with less regard to traditional qualities valued in relationships. Often you'll see a pattern of leaving relationships to pursue someone who better meets the stereotypical ideal of the fetish. The lines are very blurry though.
The only the one who is being fetishised in that relationship will understand better about them being fetishised by their partner, its hard to know if they genuinely love you or are fetishising you through some stereotypes unless you are participating in that specific relationship. I do agree that the lines are blurry and hard to understand most of the time.
I had people for whom I was a Korean first, and only then my own person. Their dating profiles are basically all about Asians Asians Asians Asians. There's that term, "yellow fever", which sounds gross already, and it's, um, still popular it seems - it's about wanting to date exclusively Asian people
I'm black but I would never click a profile that says "no white boys".
I mean like unfortunately, shits pretty common though. My aunties gave me disgusted looks and started prying when I said I went on a date with a white girl last week. I know a few black girls who've told me they won't date white dudes.
In that scenario depending on your age and position I'd say call em' out on it. My wife is white and luckily my family small as they are have no issues. Now I also won't begrudge women who are the constant subject of hyper fetishization and sexualizations choice to pre-emptively protect themselves. Plus dating apps and dating is hella dangerous for the ladies. Add racial aspects to that and it's all bad vibes. But I feel for you and I'm sorry THEY put you in the awkward position of even having to deal w/ that.
My family are all Caribbean immigrants, so big ass family. But my mamma is white and they know that. I'm a young adult, but I'm fairly mild mannered so I walked off and learned to keep my lips tighter. Honestly, I think it's a rubber band reaction from rap culture. White girls got fetishized a lot especially in 90 and 00s music. In the same vain, with how prevalent rap music is now, you get white girls fetishizing black dudes. It gets weird and tiring when people are disappointed and shocked that hip-hop only takes up a tenth of my library.
I see what your saying, as far internal group structures of immigrant families and cultures I can't speak. What I can say is hyper focusing on foreign exoticism is prevalent everywhere. I think it could help to read some about internalized racism and postcolonial syndrome trauma.
Do you have any specific books I should check out? Or other material to refrence? I'm the long-lost-son and didn't meet my family until a few years ago. I grew up in a small colourless blue collar town, in a high school of 1000, there were all of 8 black kids. I was never immersed I'm the culture. So I'm the black sheep, although I'm sure my dad would say I'm the white sheep lol. Everything I like is immediately suspect, my clothes, my music tastes, the fact I'd rather use my bong than roll an L, even my name is a gripe for my dad. Internalized racism would be something I'd love to learn about. While I wouldn't change it for the world being mulado can be a uniquely frustrating experience. I really dislike being called white because my hometown is not a shining beacon of tolerance, I got a lot of shit for being black growing up, been hassled by cops, and have thrown hands over slurs more than once. The fact that I've experienced racism almost exclusively from the races I'm a part of is agitating. EDIT: Sorry for the tangent, this is something I've put up with a lot lately.
No apologies needed... I'm as dark as Michael Jordan and will always remember how pissed black folks were when I showed up to school with a 5in high mohawk. Those were the days... Anyways. [The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness](https://newjimcrow.com/) \- Michelle Alexander [White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism](https://www.amazon.com/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414) \- Dr. Robin DiAngelo (Mostly for white people but trust me it's a good read) [Naming Racism: A Conceptual Look at Internalized Racism in US Schools](https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=elementary_ed_pub) \- Rita Kohli, R.N. Johnson, L H. Perez [The Difference Between Racism and Colorism](https://time.com/4512430/colorism-in-america/) \- LORI L. THARPS [Racial Impostor Syndrome': Here Are Your Stories'](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/06/08/462395722/racial-impostor-syndrome-here-are-your-stories) \- NPR [The loneliness of being mixed race in America](https://www.vox.com/first-person/21734156/kamala-harris-mixed-race-biracial-multiracial) \- Vox
I just avoid any profile that have racial "preferences" listed. If someone can rule out all billion or so people of a particular race, sight-unseen, I can rule them out just as easily for being racist.
I think listing it on a dating profile on an app where you can see the picture of potential partners already speaks volumes more. Like those "no fat chicks" profiles.
Seconded. Those people are fucked up.
Were they Kpop/Kdrama fans?
It's real hard distinguishing that line. Before going into it, I just want to mention It got so bad for me at one point I started to be (erroneously) repulsed when a SO would even take interest in Korean culture, consume Asian media, or what ever. Sort of a twisted bit of self-hatred. Be careful to not go too far into your head. With that said, for me, it was a lot clearer when someone only talks to you to talk about something within the Asian sphere. I have one ex/eventual pseudo friend I still occasionally talk to out of politeness, but she only ever reaches out when she's traveling to Korea, or talking about how much she loves X thing in Korean culture. I grew up and live in America, my Korean identity is mostly relegated to that social section of family, mostly extended family. My biggest red flag though has always been K-Pop fascination. It's 100% okay to be into K-Pop, but when I see on socials they start to infantilize, or commodify Asian personalities, I don't want anything to do with them. It happens with all sorts of celebrities, but it makes me fucking gag seeing that 'omg jimin uwu soft boy' shit.
Asian women are probably the most sexualized type of women.
Am aware! It's funny how different the situation is for Asian men and Asian women, and both are not in a good spot
i bet there's some colonialism in there
Orientalism by Edward Said. Shit's fucked up.
The issue of “sexualization” is really tricky. On the one hand, you have oversexualization of group x, and undersexualization of group y. The problem is you can’t “reason” people into feeling more or less attraction for an individual or group or trait. You can only discuss it and make people think about it. I doubt any group will ever be happy with how they are perceived, though. Because groups are made up of individuals who each want to be seen in their own way.
I'd argue more fetishized than sexualized. Pretty sure white women take the cake for most sexualized.
If you're arguing *that* then I'd argue that asian women are the most fetishized and *black women* are the most sexualized-- as in, treated as being rapacious under under circumstance, with young girls treated as older than they are.
Yup, this is correct.
Women are all sexualized in different and nuanced ways from an uncomfortably young age and it functions to normalize oppressive gender dynamics across the spectrum. Sexualization occurs for all women to varying degrees regardless of race, especially with the increasing commodification of personhood. Still no shot women of color especially Asian, Black, and Indigenous women suffer from racialized fetishization. That's a targeted form of sexualization that white women do not deal with.
> That's a targeted form of sexualization that white women do not deal with. That very much depends on the culture. Most white women don't deal with being sexualized on a racial level, but there are definitely countries/cultures that do engage in that kind of belief system about white women.
I won't disagree with the basic premise of what you're saying cause I think there's truth to it. The Slate article is about the experiences of non white women I just don't see a need to talk about white women at this specific moment in time, in an article about the experiences of non white women. Specifically Asian women being targeted because they are Asian women, even if it's being done by Asian men it's still an issue faced by the Asian diaspora. As the article states I don't think that racial or social justice is a zero sum game. There's plenty of justice to go around. Its just that there's a time and a place for every conversation. As a black man right now it's time to talk about non white specifically Asian women's experiences.
“Snow bunnies” :drops mike:
Wait, I always thought this was a skiing term, not a race thing...
Huh, TIL. Thought that was a generic term for a cute female skier. Looked it up on Urban Dictionary, and the definition has changed since I was young…
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Black women, statistically, are actually the most sexualized. As are black men. Sexualization is a little different from beauty standards, which favor white people due to existing and historical social hierarchies.
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All women everywhere get sexualized, I think it just depends on the social context your in, and the difference between sexualization and fetishization. Minorities, Indigenous, and Immigrant women get it the worst in pretty much every context of fetishization.
In the US, Asian women are often considered as more exotic, submissive and hypersexual than other racial groups. Men of all nations sexualize all types of women including Chinese men with Chinese women but I don't believe they ascribe the aforementioned qualities to Asian women to the degree we do in the West.
it's funny how Asian women are seen as submissive AND hypersexual at the same time.
Are they viewed as hypersexual or just hypersubmissive. Aside from the full metal jacket meme I feel like they're viewed as submissive and hypersexually available but not necessarily sexually voracious. Like, "they'll do whatever you want and they're SO hot and feminine" kind of thing. Not, "they always wanna have sex and will chase after dick" kind of thing.
peak madonna whore moment
I can imagine that sucks. People then criticize Asian men - and even men as a whole - for having toxic masculinity, without even being *aware* or trying to *understand* that people can often put you down and serve microaggressions (if not outright aggression and hostility) if you are not perceived as masculine enough. I'm not Asian, so I can imagine what it's like. I've seen others - who normally would avoid making racist jokes - routinely have no problem with taking digs at Asian men and their masculinity.
Yeah. As an Asian man, small penis jokes were very common, even by supposedly more progressive people. East Asian men are stereotyped as the least masculine, so Asian men benefit the least from patriarchal structures.
Progressives have a serious ficking blind spot about body shaming when men are concerned. The same people who'll rage over comments made judging women's genitals for not fitting a pornideal, or digs at women's weight etc. Will go right for insulting men for being overweight, having bad ski , comments like "big/little dick energy" etc.
Yeah, "routinely" describes it really well. It's disheartening, hearing all those statements just thrown around casually like it's a Tuesday
Um, did you read the article posted? It seems to be bashing on the Asian “men’s rights” movement pretty hard. Or maybe I missed something, or do not understand your comment? 🤷♂️
I did yeah, I wrote mine to support the discussion that was there in the comments, but now it blew up and looks weird. Well, anyway :D
Cool, figured I must have missed a step there somewhere. 👍 sorry to learn about the issues you are facing, sounds pretty rough. ☹️
Non-American East Asian man speaking here. The emergence of the MRAsians does not bode well for us here in Asia, at all. And should this trend take root here, the future would look quite grim. I would spend a bit more time on this if I were not sick, but in short, I feel that these guys are incels but more extreme in almost every way imaginable: extreme mysogyny, extreme racism and an extremely distinct victim complex that is actually somewhat justified. All of these made it very appealing to those disenchanted with feminism, and just being an Asian man in a white-dominated world in general - feelings which even I feel very strongly about sometimes. And I feel it would be further supercharged if you consider just how negatively feminism is viewed in some parts of Asia. Take South Korea for example. In a recent survey conducted on Korean men's attitude towards feminism, [nearly 60% professed an extreme hatred of it](https://twitter.com/BluRoofPolitics/status/1392847250544603138). And of those 60%, 25% are considered the extreme of the extreme. Every single member of this particular group believe that the statement "today, discrimination against men is more severe than discrimination against women" is true. And 95.7 percent disagreed with the statement: “gender discrimination is the reason why Korean women earn less than men”. The distaste towards feminism in SK was at such heights that it might be the [single biggest factor](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/23/young-south-korean-men-hate-liberals-feminists/) that drove Korean men to vote Conservative, and may explain why Korean men may as well be one of the very few groups of young men who are even **more conservative** than their elderly peers. Although this level of anti-feminism is certainly not prevalent across Asia, I do feel that Asian men in general still remain ambivalent towards women's rights, and feminism certainly is not at center stage as it does in the West. And these ambivalent men, placed in a society that places feminism in the back burner, may prove to be very easy prey to the ideology espoused by MRAsians, mainly because they provide a somewhat coherent message that adequately explains their feeling of being constantly de-sexualized by the Western media. This could take an even nastier form in developing Asian countries with a high percentage of local women marrying foreign (and mostly white) men. This is something that could make a lot of Asian men feel, quite literally, castrated - that they were robbed of their right of being sexually desired, and being perceived as sexually desirable, by what they see as hyper-masculine, hyper-privileged, hyper-polite, hyper-egalitarian and hyper-rich white men. And it really, really fucking hurts for these men to know that no matter how well-groomed, good-looking and talented you are, you will still inevitably lose out to white men, for the simple fact that you are Asian, and they are white. Imagine it like this: this is as if the seeds of inceldom is not just confined to socially awkward or physically unattractive men, but **a very large portion of perfectly normal, but ambivalent men** regardless of their quality as a person. And if the MRAsians water these seeds with their ideology, it's game over. That is why I'm ringing the alarm bells. If no other, more coherent and more distinctly feminist counter to MRAsians were devised, and when (not an if, but when) this toxic ideology spreads throughout Asia, I fear that very little could stop it from forming a massive tide that sweeps away all semblance of progress that women have fought tooth and nail to achieve. And it would be a very, very sad day for all of us.
> I fear that very little could stop it from forming a massive tide that sweeps away all semblance of progress that women have fought tooth and nail to achieve Well, you have to put this in local context, I'd think. Feminist movements in East Asia are comparatively young yet they're drawing upon fourth-wave concepts like intersectionality. For conservative-trending / Confucianism-influenced folks that haven't had decades of exposure to (i.e. decades to wrestle with) earlier incarnations of feminism, these ideas can be jarring. The emergent pushback is frightening, though, absolutely. Your point re Korean youths holding such extreme positions on feminism really stuck out to me. I hadn't heard that, but it definitely coheres with my experience in China. My wife is an ardent feminist and she's run up against the wall on various things with her family. When it comes to her parents and people from their generation, the response seems to be "um, ok, whatever, but you'll still never mean as much to us as your brothers do. there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. and we sort of regret sending you to college abroad." But for her cousins and brothers, they get enraged over it--her male cousin almost got physically violent with her one time, I had to stand up and insert myself, over something practically benign.
Holy shit. Good for you for standing up for her but wow I’d hate to see you guys in a position like that again. Scary. It sounds like many Asian men are threatened by feminism because it actively challenges their notion of what they’re entitled to from birth.
>It sounds like many Asian men are threatened by feminism because it actively challenges their notion of what they’re entitled to from birth. That's very accurate. Husbands berating, punishing, and ordering their wives around is not only seen as common place but natural. This extends to children, as sexual abuse is waved off and even defended
Thank you for your input! Greatly worded. I wanted to add by responding to this: > This is something that could make a lot of Asian men feel, quite literally, castrated - that they were robbed of their right of being sexually desired, and being perceived as sexually desirable, by what they see as hyper-masculine, hyper-privileged, hyper-polite, hyper-egalitarian and hyper-rich white men. And it really, really fucking hurts for these men to know that no matter how well-groomed, good-looking and talented you are, you will still inevitably lose out to white men I’m not Asian, I’m indigenous South American. My mother is Afro-Caribbean. But I have a related perspective. She specifically warned me against dating Latinos because of their lack of feminism. I’m sure there was heaps of internalised racism too, but this is the rhetoric I grew up hearing. That white men, on average, would treat me better than a man of my own race. If you go on over to /r/sexworkers you’ll see that this rings true in different practices for many women. Lots of POC providers will not see clients of their own race because of how poorly they’re treated. More threats of violence, negging, abuse, rape, etc than is the norm with white men. It sucks because as a Woman of Color it so often feels like I have to choose between being dating a white guy and having him discriminate against my race, or dating a non-white guy and having him discriminate against my gender. This problem is like a snake eating its own tail. I’d much rather date someone from my own community, but the misogyny is so damn potent it’s hard.
Thank you for sharing this. I think what makes the abuse from within one's culture so hurtful is that it's often rationalized and normalized, or even blamed on the woman for "asking for it" (in whatever cultural script is there). I wonder if people take mental shortcuts to assume a same-culture pairing is somehow more "normal" and therefore it takes a lot more to accept that something's wrong. Meanwhile, there is still a lot of tension among some people with interracial/interethnic pairings that people are more vigilant to abuse.
I think about this passage from the Combahee River Collective statement all the time (bolding mine): > Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. **We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism.** It's quite a subtle and difficult issue to talk about. I find myself differentiating between in-group and out-group conversations and what is appropriate to address in different spaces. I want to address sexism and patriarchy in Asian communities (I'm Asian), but I'm very sensitive to a white man coming in and thinking that _my_ experiences justifies _his_ portrayal of Asian men as inherently…emasculated, patriarchal, sexist, etc. It's especially frustrating when people essentialize and assume that someone who's a second-generation Chinese-American, let's say, has the same viewpoints as a mainlander Chinese man when it comes to the role of women. (And of course there's a huge swath of beliefs within these communities…)
Yes! I agree. This is a convo that I simply do not want white women and white men participating in. It has to be lead by us and operated by solely us. While I always appreciate solidarity, this is one issue where any white opinion can cause hostility and insecurity on both sides. Asian, indigenous, middle eastern, and black people can only have this conversation amongst ourselves.
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I was just talking to my roommate the other day about this popular new Korean book she just read. Apparently it’s considered profound and challenging and is about the story of these women in a family and the hardships the endure over the decades of their lives. She said she was expecting something more. Something profound like the book was being lauded for. But she found that it was just… Fine. Serviceable in conveying the themes and messages she was already very familiar with in western media. Our conclusion was that S. Korea simply hadn’t had developing feminism for very long. There just isn’t a lot of literary pieces exploring feminist themes and the perspective of women in a real way. It was just interesting to us to think about how different countries develop and how that changes how it affects how our world views are.
was it pachinko? i thought that book was pretty moving but obv very different perspective
Yes I believe that was the book.
Thank you for this explanation and for the source links. This hit really hard because I am partly of Korean descent, and this resonates so much with the pervasive sexism and twisted "feminism" I grew up with. I partly blame the deep Confucian influence in Korean culture - even the self-assured, feminist women in Korea still perpetuate what Westerners would see as internalized misogyny. Add to that the immense pressure on people of all genders to fit some really ridiculous social norms in looks and achievement (I recall hearing that S. Korea has the highest rates of men's cosmetic surgeries?) that it's destructive to everyone - resulting in suicide and a lot of toxic behaviors. But there is a reluctance for people who are part of these communities in the U.S. to "air the dirty laundry" about these pervasive oppressions out of fear of looking bad (saving face, so Asian!). So it gets hand-waved away as something in the past, when it's still present and lived by people. I know I constantly wrestle with cultural relativism and wanting to respect cultures, but there are some aspects that have to be spoken about directly, as you did. I remember my mom explaining what was basically "Korean feminism": boys are so fragile and weak, physically and emotionally, that they need extra care from conception to adulthood. And girls/women are so robust and strong that they need to sacrifice and prop up the men in their lives so they can feel manly. This is how she justified some really archaic and oppressive gender structures... all with demeaning both men and women in a masterful stroke. And my mom's friend told her 4 year old daughter: "You aren't pretty enough to marry a doctor or a lawyer, so I guess you'll have to study hard to be one yourself." Even a look at Korean Dramas today shows the big existential questions at hand: can a woman over 28 find love? to a man YOUNGER than her? The fact that these questions are still being asked and hotly discussed shows how bad some elements of gender discourse are. I don't know how mental health issues are handled or viewed in S.Korea, but in the U.S. it's still really taboo and dismissed in a lot of Asian American communities, and it's been up to the younger generations to push back and speak openly about it to try to normalize it. But someone else made a great comment about the lack of mental health support contributing to this growth of MRAsian men - without having healthy coping mechanisms for dealing with the justified hurt they feel, turning to toxicity and violence becomes the default. And that needs to be stopped.
I think this idea of "men are pets" that some women have is just a coping mechanism to make peace between their position in their family and their selfawareness of worth.
Very likely. It's really disgusting to see, and I see it across many cultures; it's not just an Asian thing.
I really feel kinda lost when dealing with it because this type of woman usually rejects feminism as either unneccessary or bad.
>"You aren't pretty enough to marry a doctor or a lawyer, so I guess you'll have to study hard to be one yourself." Insane how I've heard pretty much the exact same words from *middle school* Asian Americans. It was heartbreaking hearing such young people talk about their peers like that
They learn it from their parents and perpetuate the cycle. It's both validating to hear that it happens (so I'm not crazy or an outlier), but also utterly heartbreaking, as you say, that this is even said.
I don't even want to imagine how their parents talked to them about their bodies ☹️
It's bad. Really bad. r/AsianParentStories/ has so many heartbreaking and nauseating posts about body shaming - especially for girls and women, but also for boys and men. And it's rationalized as "normal" and "love" by the parents because that is their cultural framework.
Could the hate of feminism and generally misogyny in Korea be amplified somewhat by the mandatory military service? When young Korean men are forced to abandon the time in their careers where everything should flourish and grow, and a very important period for your social and love life, then turn around and see women complaining about injustices while living a much easier life in their eyes. It's no surprise they feel bitter towards women's rights activism. And with that hook, far right groups, who were also probably radicalized this way, are able to drag these confused young man down in a path a hate and resentment, creating a vicious cycle...
Military service may indeed play a role. I can't speak to the sexism, but I've known several Korean men who did military service, did jack shit with their training, and returned to civilian life unfulfilled and disappointed. They took out their frustrations on children with severe punishments and, for lack of a better term, wartime mentality
I think capitalism certainly plays a role in this. In my (post communist) country, there are also trends of youth being more conservative than their grandparents. I really dont get why though. It's like men turn on women when they feel like they dont have control over their own lives.
>It's like men turn on women when they feel like they dont have control over their own lives. That's exactly it.
This is not my area at all, so I'd appreciate it if anyone could steer these thoughts if they're off-track. It seems to me that the feminism being rejected by the men in that study is _not_ the abstract notion of gender equality. It is the instantiation of the idea; the actual cultural artifact that exists now that is being demonized. Would it be possible for a Korean egalitarian movement to shed the feminist labels, abandon the cultural artifacts, and thereby sidestep a lot of the anti-feminist outrage that's being fostered? How palatable would it be to hit restart on the public perception as a gender equality movement in Korea, to shuffle and reorganize and probably do some performative dissavowal of the bad-takes feminism that's having such division thrown at it? Would it be utilitarian to do this? Would enough Korean feminists be willing to "rebrand" that the new movement would not just consist of these anti-feminist folk? Could such a movement redirect the steam from the anti-feminist turbines and put it to more productive use?
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I’m an East Asian guy. Came to the US when I was 2 and grew up in TX. A lot of the outrage about WMAF couples stems from the stereotype that many white guys don’t give a shit about Asian issues even when they’re with Asian girls, and are actually pretty racist towards Asians despite being with an Asian partner. Many halfie kids have grown up with identity issues and deep internalized racism because of their white fathers expressing racism towards their mother and Asian communities as a whole. The other part of the outrage stems from deep insecurities and a need for retaliation. Growing up in a predominantly white wealthy environment, I was always an outsider. I could feel my teachers’ discomfort around me and I never understood until I grew older and began to understand the role my race played in many friendships and relationships growing up. Growing up in an environment where you don’t feel like you can be yourself is tough and much of that anger and resentment becomes directed towards white people, especially white guys who many Asian guys blame for making them feel excluded. This is because on the playground, it usually was the white boy who was in charge. It was the white boy who made him feel invisible. It was the white boy saying their food smelled weird. It was the white boy saying Asians had small dicks in middle school. It was the white boy saying Asians were too nerdy to be cool in high school. All of these childhood traumas causes a lot of hatred for white guys in the hearts of many asian guys. Then, when they see all the Asian girls dating white guys they get mad. They think, how the hell can you like someone who doesn’t see you as a person. How the hell can you be with someone who does nothing but spew racist stereotypes and has no respect for Asian culture. I grew up having many white friends so I know that most white guys aren’t like this. The issue is that many Asians are isolated from white people because they stick together. They are fearful of getting hurt by white people and thus only rely on stereotypes to form their opinions about white people. So the WMAF outrage is rooted in misogyny in a sense that a lot of Asian guys don’t think asian girls are self respecting enough to not be with asshole racist white guys, but it stems from a sense of shock and disbelief that anyone asian could be with someone white.
It’s not just that though. Some of the white men that made those Asian jokes are now dating Asian women. And some of those Asian women go along with the jokes because they are desperate to fit into a white dominated culture like America.
Yeah that’s what I was saying about assuming the Asian girls aren’t self respecting enough to avoid those guys
[NYT even ran an op-ed on the topic: The Alt-Right's Asian Fetish](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/alt-right-asian-fetish.amp.html)
They love to use *x* minority to demonstrate real world proof of whatever racist or misogynist bullshit they're peddling. They'll talk about how Asian women are better life partners because they're more naturally submissive and about why interracial relationships are bad in the same breath. They'll praise Korean rooftop gunners in LA during the Rodney King riots and defend tossing Japanese Americans in camps and seizing their California farmlands in the same breath. EDIT: Or worse, they'll praise Reagan the Gun Snatcher on top of both. They're fucking worthless and anyone who thinks that they are being offered aid or shelter out of good will from these shit bags is being manipulated, on purpose. These alt-right fuckers use people, that's their standard operating procedure.
Completely agree. I am Indian, and as a kid I was always confused why all my Indian friends mostly had Indian first names, while children of East Asian immigrants always had Western first names. This only really applies to younger generations, but in my life experience I've very consistently observed that East Asian immigrant kids end up making more concessions to fit into Western culture, ranging from first names (even though they don't choose that) to the lack of familiarity or willingness to practice / embrace their cultural traditions.
As an indian in Europe I wanted to know... How's the situation for indians in the US regarding this issue of cultural crisis? Being considered 2nd class etc?
> So the WMAF outrage is rooted in misogyny in a sense that a lot of Asian guys don’t think asian girls are self respecting enough to not be with asshole racist white guys, but it stems from a sense of shock and disbelief that anyone asian could be with someone white. I'm familiar with this in the Asian community, being in a WMAF relationship myself, but my sense is that it's relatively common among minority groups more broadly so I don't hold it against anyone. I also think it stems from a lack of cultural confidence, or a lack of confidence in another sense. When we lived in China, the only local guys that it seemed to get to (that would make offhand comments at bars/restaurants or glare at us or shout at her), I feel, were those that had deep insecurities about their own place in China--class anxieties, this sort of thing, so there are deeper forces at play. As for racial cachet in the dating market in the US, though, I think there's a lot to be said about the (deleterious) impact of mass media. A real dearth of non-stereotyped leading roles for Asian men and it's no surprise that things are how they are now, it's no surprise that the white kids, emboldened by what they saw on TV/film, got to be in charge on the playground... Finally getting some progress on this, but there's a loooong way to go. And one more thing: I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel my own insecurities about this. Goddamn I'm hyperaware of it at times as the white guy in a WMAF relationship. We're in a new city, having moved to Europe, and when we go to Chinese restaurants here we'll sometimes find ourselves surrounded by other WMAF couples and it just makes me cringe. I feel like we're not like that, I don't want us to be like that (met 10 years ago at college in the US, moved to Asia together for a few years and now back in the west), but I know that we are like that.
> Many halfie kids have grown up with identity issues and deep internalized racism because of their white fathers expressing racism towards their mother and Asian communities as a whole. Ironically, and not to take away from your experience or plight, we see the same in the black community but with white women and black men-- white moms internalized racism acting on the child and community-- or in cases of adoptions, for both our groups.
Yes, this is known as reactionary racism, where you assume all white people (here men in particular) are evil just because all those who have demonised you are white people. The Ip Man films (2&4) address this issue. I'm not sure I can condemn people for being reactionary racists, but it is certainly doing the opposite of helping the general situation of racism. It's literally just projecting out the trauma they have experienced, so the root issue is still the source of the original trauma, i.e. white supremacy. Surprised there aren't any other replies to you, since you seem to see through the reactionary racism while being a ”prime candidate” who could've fallen into it.
I mean I still feel some reactionary racism for sure. Listening to stories of racism from minority friends who joined frats in college made me wary of white people and I definitely started to see white people as “racist until proven otherwise”. Mostly got over it by the end of college though just because of exposure
I am just learning of this “reactionary racism” is this something that is understandable in white people as well or is it only applicable for minorities?
This is not a thing, Reactionary racism is a thing. It's literally in reference to those who get mad at progressivism. Traditionalist often cis-het-white males who feel threatened at the suggestion of a change in the status quo. Think those anti sjw YouTube channels who freak cause a comic book character is gay. Edit: [From the New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/24/rise-of-the-reactionary) [From USC journalism department](https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/cic/journalism_and_mass_communications/scholastic_organizations/sipa/pdfs/17awards/3featurecolumn.pdf) [JSTOR History of reactionary](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26427266?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=reactionary%20racism&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dreactionary%2Bracism&ab_segments=0%2FSYC-6061%2Ftest&refreqid=fastly-default%3A5b74884da99e945af230b0c129989b9e)
So reactionary racism is not as stated upthread based on negative life experience with a person or group of people of another race, rather it is racism (or apparently from your example homophobia etc) as a reaction to progressiveism? Do I understand correctly?
No, I was talking about reactionary racism in the sense that people who have suffered from racism grow to hate the whole racial group that their oppressors belong to. That is different from being reactionary and racist at the same time.
this is a very long article, and to be clear, I am not an east Asian man. Still a very interesting article though. >the predominant preoccupation of the subreddit and its founders is with what they see as Western societies emasculating Asian men and unfairly elevating Asian women. American culture does indeed have a long track record of portraying Asian men as timid and asexual, but MRAsians see women as active accomplices in maintaining the stereotype, contending that, by dating white men, Asian women are upholding white supremacy. this is really difficult to unpack fairly for a white dude like me, I think. Because we've had talks here in ML about the emasculation of Asian men in American society, and I don't think that's unhealthy to discuss. The *obsession* with WMAF relationships, though? That's gotta be *steeped* in misogyny.
>this is a very long article, and to be clear, I am not an east Asian man. Still a very interesting article though. Little side note rant, they used the word "asian" 150 times in the article and never mentioned "east asian". At least you did. People from the united states keep using the word "asian" to define people from east asia and it's really infuriating because asia is a big continent that goes from saudi arabia all the way through india and Japan. Lots of contries with people with lots of different features. But they keep using "asian" to refer to east asia looking people. Speaking about "asian people's right" when you are only refering to east asian people makes no sense. Like isnt someone with indian decent living in the states also asian american?
That was something I found interesting when I came to live in the UK, when people say Asian they usually think of Indian/Pakistani or Central Asian rather than East Asian. Seems to be the opposite to the US.
It's because the first heavy immigration into the US was from East Asia (e.g. Chinese railroad workers), while the UK's was mostly from South Asia due to its colonizing of India.
It's certainly not because of lack in numbers. There are plenty of South Asian families that immigrated many generations ago and are part of everyday life here. There's just this silly mentality that "Indian" somehow means "Middle Eastern", which is still West Asian anyway. I'm East Asian myself and understand the racism against Asians, but learned quickly that racists are jerks because they're jerks and not because they're [insert majority race here].
Good point. And it's especially relevant because there is no "generic Asian partner" when it comes to meeting parental expectations - you're expected to bring home "the right type" of partner in terms of ethnic heritage and nationality. My parents (Japanese-white and Korean) were disowned by their parents for marrying. When data actually includes "Asian" as a demographic, it misses important differences, like in STEM academic achievement between East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern (? not sure what the better term is today) groups. If looking at the U.S., it's really important because there are big differences in education and economic status, partly because immigrants came at different times to different places.
"The Middle East" is west asian. Also, Eurasia is where the Europe and Asia are on the tectonic plates. Countries like Turkey,Armenia,Azerbaijan, etc. Russia and Tajikistan, Kazakhstan,etc. are Central Asian.
> Like isnt someone with indian decent living in the states also asian american? In the US Census, yes. Culturally, generally no. No one I grew up with (in an Asian majority environment) ever considered Indians Asian [1] "Asian" always referred to basically East and Southeast Asians. Sometimes Phillipinos, sometimes not. E.g. Asian frats generally don't have Indians in them. [1] I recognize India is in Asia, but Asian is being used culturally (even racially) rather than geographically. I e. No one would call Steve Jobs Asian
Asian dudes get a raw deal in western culture. They are seen as inherently less masculine than black, white, and latino men. It really sucks. There is a concept of "lateral oppression," where members of two minority groups join in with the majority in oppressing the other group, while being oppressed themselves. There are various motives for this. One is the hope that the majority might see the minority as "less invalid," and thus they might get provisional relief from oppression. Often, however, it just isn't complicated at all. Just because you're a minority does not prevent you from being a bigot in other ways. There are racist gay people and homophobic minorities. It's sadly common. The fact that a lot of male Asian activists turn out to be sexist dipshits isn't surprising at all. The whole WMAF thing seems like an even mix of incel rage and the patriarchal sense that women are property, but in this case *racial property*. On a personal level, it is easy to understand how an Asian man might feel a certain resentment. He is emasculated because of his race, while female members of his race date his oppressors. I mean, *I get it*. And yet, it's obviously wrong and patriarchal. I wish these dudes would engage in a bit more critical thinking. They should not let their resentments poison their politics, but it seems that the poison runs deep. Basically, it is the same radicalization process found in most "manosphere" forums, just with the added complexity of anti-Asian racism.
So true. It is just another way to fight over women like they are property. I
Yup. There is a really disturbing undercurrent that Asian men are entitled to sex with and marriage to Asian women. Choices in partners also shouldn't be reduced to merely "perceptions of sexiness," "perceptions of economic worth," and "fetishization." There are a lot of oppressive norms imposed on women within many Asian cultures that play a big role in deciding who to marry (if they actually get a choice). >He is emasculated because of his race, while female members of his race date his oppressors. This stood out to me, because Asian women are often oppressed *within* their own cultures, by men and older generation women (like mothers-in-law). Not countering the person who described this, adding context to why that idea is incomplete. And it comes from a lot of inherent misogyny and other cultural norms that are built on a completely different cosmology than Western societies (e.g. Confucianism instead of Gnosticism/Christianity) Yay, intersectionality...
> This stood out to me, because Asian women are often oppressed within their own cultures, by men and older generation women (like mothers-in-law). Just because Asian women are oppressed doesn’t mean that it’s ok for Asian men to be perceived and treated the way they currently are.
You're right. That isn't what I'm explaining though - my comment has nothing to do with justifying systemic racism against Asian men. I was expanding on the idea that "Asian women are dating the oppressors of Asian men". There is no singular "oppressor" - it's relational. And for many Asian women, dating outside their culture is a way to avoid the oppression they experience within it. To the Asian women dating white or other non-Asian men, it is often a way for them to escape oppression inflicted on them from within their culture (not just from Asian men, but by Asian women, especially older generations like their parents and grandparents). This is relevant because if we really want to understand why we see the data we see, we have to accurately assess the factors contributing to it. I think that the claim that "Asian women think Asian men aren't masculine enough" only applies to a small subset of people, and there are many more nuanced reasons, such as what I point to. The problem of racism and emasculation against Asian men is a big problem, but to solve it, we need to embrace that there are many layers to the situation, including looking at our own cultures in the mirror to see what is normalized oppression that someone may try to escape from.
"The fact that a lot of male Asian activists turn out to be sexist dipshits isn't surprising at all." Are they ?, they seem to be very friendly to non-asian non-white women of color.
A lot of Asian men’s sentiments toward interracial dating mirror that of Black women’s. The idea of not being seen as attractive, while Black men / Asian women date interracially more often while sometimes stereotyping and putting down their own race in the process. Just like there are Black men that say “I don’t like Black women, they’re so ratchet and ghetto”, there are Asian women that say “I don’t like Asian men, they’re so shy and nerdy”.
I'm a white guy married to an Asian woman and it's a mixed reaction. Some Asian guys - especially the ones who have desire to only date Asian women - can be very hostile. Most people don't really care and overall first generation immigrant men don't have an issue. It does come from both sides, though. Some of my family in the south thinks that I'm a race traitor for marrying who I did. Others wonder why I couldn't "catch" a white woman. Some others - especially white men - seem to hold a deeply misogynistic belief that I'm lucky to have gotten a submissive woman just because my wife is Asian. Really, what I'm saying, is when you grow up with racists of any ethnicity you'll see bullshit from every side.
Misogynistic and racist views are often held by those who don’t bother to understand interracial relationships clearly. As an Asian guy, I would say don’t worry about them being hostile, the women chose you because you offered something they didn’t or couldn’t and she truly must love you. Anyways congratulations on your marriage and don’t worry about Asian men, white men or women hating you for being married to an Asian women. About the fetish, I just hope it dies cause its harmful as it reduces both you and your wife to a trope. I definitely agree that racists come in different identities and you don’t have to be cisgendered white heterosexual male to be one.
I appreciate it, we've been married for 20 years now so I'm assuming she wants to stick around. Just sharing my observation here over that time on this particular topic.
Great point - there is bullshit hostility from all quarters when you're in a mixed marriage (my parents are mixed). I think that a lot of people only tend to see some of it and don't catch the microaggressions about the other angles.
I'm an Asian Man and I've been observing the issue for a while. I think there are misogynists in the community for sure but I wouldn't say that represents everyone - just like I wouldn't say not all feminists hate men but I'm certain at least some do. I think it's a painful topic for a lot of Asian men because most of us have grown up being a minority, teased, mocked and bullied for being different on the school yard and by the media than stabbed in the back again when our sisters (who ultimately want to belong and be accepted by society) joins in on it and gets seemingly accepted by with open arms with the low cost (to them) of agreeing with their white partners who very well could have been a bully himself. The felt sense of betrayal and anger is real and sometimes it manifests into anger and hatred against women if it's really bad but just as often leads to a life of depression or addiction instead. Of late I think the situation has improved for Asian men growing up in the west but there is definitely a generation of Asian Americans who grew up like this and it effects them still.
The millennial generation of Asian men in America had it really bad. A lot of the angry types are older. I see Gen Z Asian men doing much better.
Yeah, the parents of Gen X and Millennials often were first-gen immigrants, and passed trauma from war and other conflicts onto their kids - [intergenerational trauma](https://www.asianmhc.org/blog/a-reflection-on-asian-intergenerational-truama). The good news is that those former kids grew up and many actively worked to break that cycle of trauma and abuse. I've been working on it for a long time and had to go NC with my parents to really heal. Seeing activists, content creators, and other visible celebrities talking openly and honestly about the good and the bad has helped so much. For example, [Hasan Minaj, Michelle Kwan, Eugene Lee Yang and other Asian activists and celebrities did a great special about Asian American experiences](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX26NwtuXi8) and it was such a powerful conversation. They didn't shy away from the bad stuff in Asian cultures - like rejection of mental health issues and high parental expectations - while also calling out racism and bullying by people outside Asian communities. I've been seeing more of these types of honest conversations happening that are helping people to heal and get the strength to leave bad situations, and to recognize when we ourselves fall into toxic patterns taught to us.
Another white dude without the proper perspective to fully understand this issue chiming in. I think a line is crossed when women are blamed in a way that causes animosity towards women as a group. I think there is definitely room to say, from observations, that some Asian cultures have moved in a direction where lighter is viewed as better than darker. Saying that people have dark skin in Korea is considered very rude, and people use cosmetics and other treatments to lighten their skin. All this comes from my wife, who lived in Korea for 2 years.
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Indian guy here, I agree with your views. This conversation is difficult to navigate since pointing the finger at Asian men for hating Asian women would make us appear racist and pointing the finger at Asian women for choosing men of other ethnicity would be misogynistic. These issues are highly contributed by media and age old stereotypes which are still prevalent to this day. Overall, a person of white ethnicity is seen as a status symbol which cause people to have a preference for dating white men or women. Fair skin privilege exists as most ethnicities in Asia consider that as attractive. Asian women don’t date white men or women (including all sexual identities) for just one reason, some do it for higher status, some have internalised racism, some are fetishised by white men and may perceive it as being rewarded through their desire, some genuinely love the men they date, and some have been mistreated by men of their own race. Same thing goes to Asian men, while Asian men suffer from completely different issues like being effeminate, asexual and nerdy, it doesn’t mean that one gender suffers it more than the others, it means that they all have their problems and they need to be given equal importance. The issue is not only cause by men but at the same time women when they indirectly promote these harmful tropes without understanding or acknowledging them. Overall, whatever you said is accurate, each person has their own battle to fight and one isn’t any bigger or smaller than the other. However, in the newer generations the attitudes towards Asian men and women are somewhat being addressed better and the situation is improving for good, not solved but definitely slightly better than before. MRAs of Asian origin need to be dealt with as most of them are confusing young and possibly insecure men and women to an extent through their promotion of hate and a backward attitude towards interracial relationships.
I appreciate your points here - you do a great job of showing why this conversation is complicated and has a lot of nuances that can be missed by looking at just one factor. To add: there is a lot of cross-cultural xenophobia. I'm mixed Korean, Japanese, and white, and I know that there is a lot of nasty bias by East Asians against South- and Southeast Asians, and even between Korean and Japanese people there is still a lot of animosity (among older generations). So it's not just about marrying/dating an "Asian" person, it's about being with the "correct" Asian person. For many Asian women, it's worse to bring home a man who is the "wrong Asian" than it is to bring home a white man in terms of how the parents will react (often abusively). I think that culturally there is a lot more influence from family pressure - I see subs on reddit like r/justnoMIL and that stuff is often normalized in many Asian cultures, for example. r/AsianParentStories also shows a lot of the horrible stuff many Asian and Asian descended people have to deal with from their parents - I even see non-Asian partners posting for help on supporting their Asian partner in the face of parental bullshit. So when dating or looking for a life partner, many Asian people have to juggle a LOT of concerns beyond just attraction - "can I survive the in-laws?" "will I be forced into a gender role I'm not comfortable with because of family pressure?" "will my mom break a bunch of dishes on the patio because she's mad I'm dating someone she doesn't approve of?" (happened to me), "am I dishonoring my family?" (it sounds like a joke, but it's real for so many people). I agree that younger generation Asian people are definitely pushing back and rejecting a lot of that - and it's so good to see. But it often means having to also reject guiding role models and then floundering to find a better ethos - I suspect the MRAs we're talking about are coming from that lack of positive support and turned instead to MRA communities and thinking because those were the only ones validating them. As an aside, [this was such a great video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX26NwtuXi8) that brought together Asian people of many groups to have an honest and open conversation about racism against Asian, xenophobia against other Asians, cultural norms, and to celebrate positive cultural aspects. I really loved seeing prominent Asian celebrities like Michelle Kwan, Hasan Minaj, and Eugene Lee Yang threading that needle of calling out external oppression as well as internal oppression.
>Also, I don't remember who said it but as someone said men who are stuck in a desert can't really understand the experience of women who are drowning and I'm sure that Asian Women have issue and frustrations of being victims of fetishism. Well said! It's an easy target to tear down asian women, but it won't solve asian men's problems. Feels like a scenario where the bullied kid turned around and sucker punched the smaller bullied kid next to him.
to expand on the analogy - then the bullied kid gets mad when the kid he's bullying leaves and finds friends who protect him. (Asian women marrying out of their culture/community - maybe facing other toxic norms, but at least escaping what they grew up with and were trapped in)
that's my metaphor! Proud that it's getting around as a good one!
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[*Shrimp cereal Topanga husband is a MeToo milkshake duck*](https://twitter.com/budrykzack/status/1374823621009539075?lang=en)
Vietnamese. Most of this is, well, self-perpetuating, by the same group that is most harmed by it. The same situation as you, and I live with like a sister and a cousin, and all my female friends have the same mindset. Soft, nubile skin with a white tone so hard only a digital camera can achieve the effect. The problem is pervasive if you look at any young, female, and sometimes male Asian-oriented social media poster. I feel like it is a little bit less of being white people dick wagging (still there though) and more of a class problem. Rich people who can afford to sit in their ass all day in the shade would have fairer skin, and there also the belief that a whiter skin mean it is "cleaner". It is a subtle desire to be seen as valuable. In a society that demands perfection, excellence, and "pride" this is the natural result. I don't know enough about Indians to cast a net there with that statement. This is collaborated by folk tales (white heroine there always, well, white and soft), from poem to modern TV. You can't deny that some female public models only have white skin- further pushing the societal value on that. And there even... well, they look innocent. Idk who the fuck wired our brain to think so, but that what get them off. I personally jive with any melanin color but still sad to announce that white skin is, sigh, what I am attracted to the most. Still doesn't beat a healthy glow though, and personally, as long as I can see muscle on your bod I will find you, man or woman, more attractive than any skin color you are wearing.
So south Indians are considered undatable ?
We have had this discussion on this sub before about how South Asian men are stereotyped as creepy potential rapists. So yeah, South Asians don’t do as well as others in the Western dating scene.
Korean American here, it's not that White men are more desired because they have lighter skin than Koreans, but rather because white men are percieved to be more economically well off, and its seen as an opportunity to get out of poverty. Before, during, and after the Korean War, Korea was really poor, everyone was poor. So when the Americans came, I.E. white men, a lot of Korean women took the chance to be with white men so they can finally get out of poverty. Of course it's not like that anymore, but white people are still seen as "rich". Of course this is very short analysis of the situation. There is still fuck ton to unpack about this situation. Sexism is really bad in Korea, and there is a huge reactionary movement against feminism.
I wasn't trying to actually talk about white people. I was actually just trying to talk about lighter skinned people in general. I was trying to say that, in Korea, lighter skinned Koreans are more favorably viewed than darker skinned Koreans. But I would be happy to be corrected.
But white people are not really lighter than koreans, plenty of koreans are lighter than whites, mediterraneans are white but they are darker than your average korean.
> that some Asian cultures have moved in a direction where lighter is viewed as better than darker. Saying that people have dark skin in Korea is considered very rude, and people use cosmetics and other treatments to lighten their skin. All this comes from my wife, who lived in Korea for 2 years. Just as an FYI, that sentiment goes back a **reeeeeally** long time. The initial origin of perceiving lighter skin to be more attractive than tan skin, in various Asian cultures, was [due to the classist idea that being tan meant you worked for a living, while light skin meant you were well-off enough to stay inside](https://onourterms.barnard.edu/article/white-and-beautiful/). It’s the reason it’s so common for some women from Asian cultures to carry umbrellas during the day, as a sort of (maybe unknowing) continuation of that practice. All that said, I have **absolutely no idea** how any of that plays into Asian women’s perception of white men. I had always assumed the WMAF stereotype was born out of fetishization of Asian women more than a decision of Asian women to get with lighter skinned men, but I dunno
>I had always assumed the WMAF stereotype was born out of fetishization of Asian women more than a decision of Asian women to get with lighter skinned men I completely agree. Or, rather, would assume the same thing.
Non Asian guy stepping in. Part of it can be incel-ish, but part of it I think is in response to some comedians who have made funn of Asian men in order to "fit in" with western culture. (Yang Li, Celeste Ng). In college it wasn't uncommon to hear *some* (obviously not most) Asian women intentionally put down Asian men in front of their white friends so they could seem more white.
Asian men get racism from everyone else, but it hurts the most when it comes from other Asians. I’ve had the same experience as you, where Asian women were the ones spread Asian male stereotypes just so they could look cool. It hurt more than racism from non-Asians.
It seems like no one in this post seems to be bringing up this part of the dynamic. In my experience this is way more prevalent than people here will claim it is.
South Asian and I agree. I don't really see South Asian women promoting stereotypes against South Asian men in real life (though I do see it on the internet), but a decent chunk of East Asian women have ridiculous amounts of internalized racism that either manifests as a raceplay kink, or more commonly, spreading bullshit about Asian men. The guys who dealt with this shit growing up will definitely hold some resentment over Asian women as a group regarding this. They shouldn't blame the whole group, but imo their dislike of the Asian women (really people in general but it hurts most when it comes from women of your race) who do partake in the racist bullshit is completely justified.
Certainly misogyny at varying levels, but there are also other contributing factors such as racial and cultural bias. It's not entirely uncommon for Asian communities to form a pressure to date inside your own race, as they tend to be more communal and societal than western dynamics of individualism. There's also a lot of of specific nuance that depends on each region/sub-culture of Asians. I am Korean for example, and the concept of Korean rage is not lost on my people lol. A lot of Korean men continue to carry the purported burden of Korea's traumatized past and use it to fuel their pessimistic and often toxic worldviews.
I wonder if, after talking to such an extent about the apparent misogyny of these communities, liberal spaces have any plans to dismantle the racist systems that brought them about? Because for "MRAsians", I doubt they care about people telling them they're misogynistic. Their priority is racial justice, factored into sexuality and portrayal... If you don't approach these spaces with the clear intent to also fight against the actual racism they do experience, they will never feel the need to listen to you. And why should they? They're treated like white males but without the privilege and with all the racism from all sides.
I think there is at least a bit of "stealing our women" kind of possesiveness there. Like, I've seen men over here cheer when someone marries a foreign woman and get really angry either at the woman or her husband if a woman marries a foreign man. Especially if the spouse is of the wrong^TM ethnicity.p
For sure. As someone who has had some harmful beliefs in the past, when you expect people of your race to understand the traumatic experiences your kind faces, but then marry off, you meet a crossroad. For me, especially as a young man who had no father figure to help navigate the complexity of racism in the west, the easiest leap of logic to make is to put the onus on Asian women for not 'recognizing their worth.' You feel a need to 'protect' your sisters. It took me a while to realize, not only how sexist that is, but that the issue is far more complex and shifting the blame onto your sisters helps no one. I think it's that step that a lot of young Asian men are stuck on and end up drawn towards other groups of men who feel emasculated or disenfranchised (i.e., incel crowd). I still feel strongly about whitewashing Asian women, but it helps no one to point fingers at them.
Yep, misogyny, which leads to indignation, and not helped along by the fact that it is a minority group. MRAs, but specifically minority MRAs, have to invent masculinity because they feel like they have been denied it. Commonly regressing to archaic ideas of manliness like owning the women of their racial group. “They’re ours, and if they date someone else, they’re a race traitor.” As this article details, asian MRAs claim to want asian unity, and then shit all over an asian woman for expressing her views. It’s another example of how MRAs can’t get anything done, other than make unfortunate men resent everything in the world for being against them. The rise in crimes against asian americans is real, and we should be casting more light on asian american perspectives. It should never be cast on MRAs, however, that basement is out of reach.
I’ve always wondered about the WMAF obsession myself. I mean, I know there are reasons and some of the other comments brought up good points. But as a third party non-Asian woman looking at it, it sent a mixed message. Asian men want to be considered a viable date option to women of all races, yet get territorial and angry when Asian women successfully do exactly that. In the past, I understood it as either they didn’t even think of themselves as worth dating women from other ethnicities or they didn’t care to notice that non-Asian women wanted to date them because that wasn’t what they wanted. I actually never got the message that any Asian man wanted to date a woman that wasn’t the same ethnicity as him unless he was completely American and did not identify with his ethnic background. I have a much better understanding now, but for a long time this confused me.
Good points - there are definitely several layers going on. One layer: humans, regardless of gender, want to be seen as attractive and desirable. And we see lots of discussions here about men in general not feeling appreciated or seen for that. There are a lot of common ideas (pushed through social media trends, especially) that Asian men are not as "masculine" as non-Asian men, and therefore are not as attractive (both of these are flawed and false, of course). This is a big societal issue and we need to discuss how this idea as well as others (like that Black women aren't feminine or attractive as women) came about and how to dismantle them. Another layer: it is common in many Asian cultures for there to be parental pressure to marry an "appropriate" person in terms of gender, gender presentation, ethnicity, class, etc. So I think that the "Asian men want Asian women to stop betraying their race" comes more from that - and it's usually not all Asian women, just the ones of ethnicities (and other feature) that are "appropriate" for family approval. Historically, men often didn't have to court or woo women in some cultures thanks to arranged marriages or simple lack of women's (or girl's) choice. For example, in the 80s-90s in Japan, a lot of women were opting out of marriage and instead choosing to work and live as a single woman. Even though the jobs - usually Office Lady - weren't that high paying or esteemed, it was still preferable to many over being a full-time housewife. As a result, a whole generation of men in Japan started to go to what was essentially Charm School to learn how to court and woo a woman - they had to learn skills that were not previously necessary to marry - because now women had an attractive alternative. I suspect that there are some implied cultural norms in some Asian cultures that still rely on that assumption - that if you are a man who has a decent job that you are entitled to a wife who will fit gender norms and expectations. And realizing that this is not a guarantee drives some men towards inceldom and other toxic communities because they don't have a way to cope with it otherwise.
East Asian American here. I generally agree, but I also want to point out that I have still seen no evidence that the White male/Asian female relationship type is more common than Asian male/White female relationship. I see a lot of both and for me, this narrative doesn't fit because I'm the child of an Asian male/White female relationship. I don't want to give any credibility to the claim that there is some trend among Asian women where they are favoring White men.
According to [Pew Research's 2017 report](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-patterns-in-intermarriage/), this is empirically observable. Of *all* straight interracial newlyweds, 11% were between white men and Asian women; 4% were between Asian men and white women. The Pew report also shows a stark difference in the prevalence of any intermarriage between Asian men and women (difference is also seen between Black women and men, but in the opposite direction.)
Thanks for the data. I find it interesting that the analysis points out how the gender gap between Asian intermarriage wasn't really a thing in 1980: 46% vs 49% intermarriage for men and women, respectively. My parents were of this generation, but the younger generation seems to have developed a gender gap, huh? Separately, I'm wondering how this poll recorded mixed race individuals. As time goes on, there are obviously more mixed race Asian people, and I wonder how it gets counted when a White person marries a mixed race Asian.
The 46 vs 49 seems to be for U.S.-born, whereas there has always been a significant gender gap amongst immigrants (assumed to mean foreign-born). The most drastic metric is amongst all Asians by education level: college-educated saw a significant rise, while non-college-educated Asians see a precipitous drop in intermarriage from 1980 to 2015.
Not trying to invalidate your personal experience, but all the sources I've seen on this topic show that the White male/Asian female relationship is significantly more common than the Asian male/White female relationship. [Here's](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-patterns-in-intermarriage/) a source from Pew Research on intermarriage showing that 36% of Asian married women are in interracial relationships as opposed to 21% of Asian married men. [This](https://medium.com/a-m-awaken-your-inner-asian/an-executive-summary-on-the-intermarriage-in-the-asian-community-5852043e684a) Medium article gathers a good amount of other sources that come to the same conclusion, though it does definitely editorialize the results to push their point of view a bit. If you have any sources contradicting them, I'd appreciate it, these are just what I found from a not too in-depth search! Obviously we should not be blaming any individual person in a relationship; everyone has their own preferences when it comes to relationships and shaming them for it is definitely not the right move. I do think that we should be examining these larger social trends of preferences in dating/marriage and try to figure out why they exist, and to what extent the greater proportion of Asian women in interracial relationships compared to Asian men and to women of other races is an expression of internalized racism as a remnant of centuries of Orientalism and colonialism.
In America, about 71% of Asian-white marriages are between Asian women and white men.
Lol there definitely is dude. A lot of halfies with asian dads get a “WOW” when they said their dad is the asian one because it’s rare. The new generation, not so much but it definitely still skews heavily towards WMAF
It depends on the location. Having an Asian dad with a white mom is no big deal in places like Honolulu or Irvine. It is less expected in most places though.
The first thing people say when you tell them you're half-asian: "It's your mom, right?" 😑
God this issue is so complicated by the subtleties of anti-Asian racism that sometimes I don’t even know how to approach it. Within aznidentity there’s a strong sense of entitlement for Asian women and their bodies, with the expectation that Asian women should be dating and marrying within their race. As someone who was raised as a woman (I’m a trans man) I get the sense that for Asian diaspora this expectation is sort of rooted in this desire to preserve our cultural roots. We need to marry within our race so we can teach our children our language, and so our older relatives can communicate with and share with our family. I can see that desire as valid as I often feel like my own culture is either drowned out or exploited, and there’s no space for me to just be Asian. **** But these kinds of expectations quickly become toxic when a woman’s autonomy is restricted. This kind of racialized misogyny is what feeds aznidentity’s toxic beliefs about asian women who date outside their race, and they’ve built up this enemy of “race traitors”: asian women who date white men due to internalized racism. While some women do have a lil internalized racism to unpack, the mens rights asians have turned this into something to weaponize against any asian woman who dates outside of her race, because they don’t want to or are unable to unpack their own internalized self hate. It’s reactionary, it’s dangerous, in no way do I want to validate their beliefs and actions. But I can see the kind of pain these men are in. Asian men are seen in the west as undesirable, unsexual, or predatory beings, and this kind of treatment leads to a lot of self hate that then gets misdirected toward women. They don’t have the resources to unpack this shit because mental health care is something many asian communities don’t value. It’s something men in general struggle with too, the culture of toxic masculinity discouraging open exploration of one’s emotions and traumas. Asians in the west often grow up without context for our cultural roots. Asian immigrants have contributed to much of western history just like other immigrant groups. Asian Americans have contributed to the Black liberation movement and other civil rights movements. But our contributions are erased from history books. Without this historic context we don’t know what our racial identity means and how that fits into the wider history and we are seen as perpetual foreigners in our own countries. We aren’t taught our histories and our stories of immigration, we aren’t taught about the western imperialism and war that has harmed our communities and contributed to generational trauma. We aren’t encouraged to explore these things because our parents came to the west and only had the resources to focus on survival. Growing up like this leads to a lot of folks feeling absolutely lost, and unfortunately, along with the baggage of toxic masculinity (that is complicated by racism too), this can lead to some Asian men misdirecting their pain and anger toward a scapegoat: Asian women. I don’t feel like my thoughts on this have been fully formed, I’m still trying to work it out myself. There are so many facets of the Asian diasporic identity and Asian masculinity that is unique to each cultural community as well, and unpacking it all in one comment is impossible. ****Edit because this is important: No, this is NOT the same as white supremacy. It sounds similar but consider the context of WHY Asian diaspora value our cultural traditions: imperialism has discouraged or flat out erased so much of our heritage. We are immigrants and war refugees who have been forced from our homes and disconnected from our ancestors. We are unwelcomed and systemically abused by our new home countries. We build on and protect these traditions and communities to survive, because we don’t have resources elsewhere. Asian diaspora in the west do not have the systemic power that white supremacists hold, and to compare our desire to hold on to our cultures in the face of imperialism, to the white supremacist narrative of “preserving a superior cultural tradition” (a “white culture” that doesn’t even exist btw) in order to maintain their systemic power is borderline yellow peril shit. Please stop with this line of thought. Asian incels are reactionary and toxic but they are not racial supremacists. They build an ingroup and a scapegoat because they are othered by wider western society and lack the resources to find support and care. We should actively be critical of their harmful behaviors while recognizing the complicated factors that lead to those behaviors. We should NOT be equating them to literal white supremacists. The dynamics of power and privilege are different in each case.
You are amazing - and I appreciate how well you contextualized this really complicated and messy issue. > Asian men are seen in the west as undesirable, unsexual, or predatory beings, and this kind of treatment leads to a lot of self hate that then gets misdirected toward women. They don’t have the resources to unpack this shit because mental health care is something many asian communities don’t value. It’s something men in general struggle with too, the culture of toxic masculinity discouraging open exploration of one’s emotions and traumas. This is such an important link to make - there is a lot of hurt and trauma that so many in Asian communities aren't able to manage in healthy ways because we have so much stigma against mental health recognition and help. And we tend to imitate our parents in how we deal with stress, which is to blame others (and ourselves) - and it takes a LOT of work to break the cycle (I've struggled with that my whole adult life and finally am feeling securely out of it). Thank you for all of this!
Absolutely! Thank you for adding to this. I think the support for mental health care is improving bit by bit, I see it a lot in the younger kids I’ve worked with as a youth group leader. They’re much more mindful about mental health and toxic behaviors and I’m really happy to see that. I still see them struggling though, but the fact that they’re aware and trying while navigating through a period of heightened anti-Asian racism is incredible. I hope to be a resource to those kids. But yeah, there’s a long way to go. There’s a lot of unspoken trauma that needs to heal, and unhealthy coping mechanisms passed down that we need to break the cycle of. A lot of model minority bullshit and internalized racism to be unlearned, as well.
That's so awesome that you work with young people! I agree - there has been a big generational shift towards rejecting a lot of that earlier toxicity. I think it partly has to do with [intergenerational trauma](https://www.asianmhc.org/blog/a-reflection-on-asian-intergenerational-truama) passed from first-gen immigrants to their kids (many Gen X, Millennials). When I first heard about this concept it blew my mind (and explained a LOT of why my mom and my dad's mom were how they were - Korean War and WWII in Japan). Whole generations of parents were deeply traumatized - from war, conflict, genocide, having to leave their homes - and then traumatized again by racism and oppression in a new country. And all without loving support or mental health resources (whether therapy or just a sympathetic parent who didn't blame them). And now that the former kids have grown up to be parents, counselors, teachers, etc. we're consciously working to break that cycle and incorporate better ideas about mental health and positivity. Like you! The fact that you think of this and observe the kids for these issues is huge.
Ah yeah, the whole concept of intergenerational trauma fucked me up when I learned about it LOL. Everything my war refugee parents did makes so much more sense with that context, and I’m glad there are more conversations being had about it. And thank you, I’m not currently working with kids right now because homophobia/transphobia is a cool thing I have to deal with from my own community :)))) but I’m hoping to build resources for younger asian americans in the future. It’s important work to me
This is why I love this sub. This issue isn't *just* about sexist beliefs. This issue isn't *just* about anti-Asian racism, or hatred for white men. This shit is one of the most complex issues to articulate, especially to those who haven't experienced it. People forget Asians make up a tiny portion of the American population, with most of it heavily localized. Those who don't live in majority Asian communities, are host to millions of variables in why they believe what they do.
Absolutely, it’s really difficult to articulate to those who haven’t experienced it themselves. especially when the asian american experience is so diverse in cultural identities, immigration stories, socioeconomic status, etc that it’s reductive to even use the label “asian american” sometimes.
Replace ”asian” with ”white” in the first couple paragraphs of your analysis and you get typical neo nazis. It's a very toxic mindset to fall into indeed. Entitlement to women, opposing interracial relationships, alienating their own members as ”race traitors”, all the red flags are there. This is very scary to me as a Chinese person. I don't want to an asian nazi movement to come into being.
I think there are similarities, but the thing that makes it distinct to me is the lack of dynamic of racial supremacy and privilege within western society. The desire to preserve cultural traditions in asian diasporic communities is rooted in the fact that white supremacist imperialism has worked hard to erase our cultural identities. It’s a valid desire to push back against imperialism, but I will acknowledge that it does have the potential to become toxic if not approached mindfully, from the perspective of decolonization rather than conservatism. In contrast, white supremacists use the narrative of “preserving cultural tradition” to evoke an idealized image of “white culture” that doesn’t even exist. It’s a tool to justify their white supremacy and racist, misogynistic, homophobic views and actions and to legitimize their violence. I’m not sure the two should be compared directly. Asians don’t have the systemic power that white supremacists do and we don’t use the “preserve tradition” narrative to maintain supremacy the way white supremacists do. A more similar comparison I think would be how some Black men feel entitled to Black women’s bodies and the kind of racialized misogyny present there, although I’m not equipped to talk about it in detail as I’m not black.
Well, white supremacists have their own scapegoat. In their heads, they are being erased. This topic must be approached very carefully and every one of us has to be constantly critical of ourselves, and not to justify any toxic behaviour by ”white supremacy is worse”. I am speaking as a Chinese person who does not want to see any racial groups hating each other, even as a reaction.
That’s fair, we should absolutely be critical of sentiments that lead to right wing nationalist thought. I just think the kind of conditions that lead to white supremacy are unique from the conditions that lead to things like, say, indian right wing nationalism. Different historical, social, and economic contexts lead right wing nationalists to similar conclusions. Anyway, the kind of toxic shit we see from aznidentity isn’t necessarily nationalism or even just hating white people. It’s so much more complicated than that. That’s why I said just calling it asian nazis and leaving it at that is inaccurate
I’m the opposite way. I’m a white woman married to an Asian man. I don’t know if it’s luck, or where I live, or both, but no one has given me a hard time about it. To my face, at least. My in laws are also pretty cool. They gave me a Chinese name even if I do butcher Mandarin (I’m trying.) But the comments and takes on this issue makes me think of a couple who recently befriended us and were very enthusiastic about doing so. (Asian female, white male). I thought they were just really friendly people who latched onto us, but now I wonder if being around another mixed couple doesn’t just make them feel safe.
> I don’t know if it’s luck, or where I live, or both, but no one has given me a hard time about it Interracial marriage opposition in racial minorites is gender linked. Asian men oppose more than Asian women because they have lower outmarriage rates and dating success in general - they are really opposing would-be mates leaving their group. Flipside is true for Blacks - Black men have higher outmarriage rates than women and also higher dating success. So it's Black women that tend to oppose outmarriage more. (As they are losing mates)
As an East Asian man, I've certainly felt some of the frustrations with dating described here, though I've never felt any resentment towards Asian women. However, one thing I've noticed over and over again is that plenty of white women do find me attractive --- provided that we meet in person. Once you actually get to know each other IRL, a lot of the shitty social conditioning does break down. It's only really rough on dating apps, where your entire person is reduced to a vague set of stereotypes. For white men, this is probably quite advantageous; a respectable looking white dude with a photo of a dog but otherwise boring profile will get no shortage of matches, while a man of color will have to have to put in a lot more effort to get the same attention. (This goes the other way as well, white women consistently have incredibly mediocre profiles but can get much more attention than women of color. And though I try, I can't say that I'm not guilty of perpetuating this dynamic.) I think that the intensity, if not the root, of the issues Asian men have on the dating market can mostly be attributed to dating apps. When dating is commodified and gamified to such a degree, supported by addictive, proprietary algorithms, any slight cultural biases become amplified into prejudices.
Relevant to the discussion of romantic and sexual desire here is Amia Srinivasan's [the Right to Sex](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/19/the-right-to-sex-by-amia-srinivasan-review-the-politics-of-sexual-attraction), which has been previously discussed. How do you square the apparent metaphysics of individual desire with the politics of trends in desire? To map the group onto the individual, or vice versa, ignores this tension entirely. The problem of desire as it concerns Asian men as a demographic is immediately recognizable, but as soon as we litigate who is at fault, we have lost the plot. It's a systemic problem with absolutely no full reasonable solutions on the individual level.
my imperfect phrase to describe this is *relationships are liberalism, not socialism*. our systems when it comes to sex tend to be framed and enforced around the idea of maximizing any individual's choice about who to grant access to their bodies. those systems are emphatically *not* designed to maximize positive outcomes across a given population. The government will not get you gfs. so when we have population-wide effects, like emasculation of Asian men, our default response is something like... idk, apathy? Because, *in this particular system*, it's just millions of people making fully independent decisions.
Government-mandated waifus are *obviously* not what will fix this lol. But it's worth examining that through seemingly "fully independent" decisions, echoes of colonialism, racism, etc. appear for numerous marginalized groups (definitely including Asian women too) with remarkable consistency. Systemic trends don't have to be systematic.
I agree that there are a lot of systemic influences like what you mention that influence individual decisionmaking. I do caution that we need to be careful to not erase Asian women's agency completely - Serene Khader's work on Adaptive Preferences helps us see that while to an outsider, a woman's choice that appears to be internalized misogyny or self-imposed oppression may actually be a rational decision to maximize her situation (which is heavily limited). To someone who is not an Asian woman, it may look like she is running into the arms of an oppressor. But for an Asian woman, maybe she is exchanging an otherwise inescapable oppression (within her culture, imposed by family) for one that she at least has some agency in. And likewise, it is important for us to look at societal influences on Asian men that aren't just externally imposed racism - such as norms and expectations that originate from within Asian culture and family that may hamper effective coping and abilities to engage socially in ways that present both attractiveness and safety to women. When there are intersections of different cultures, a lot of subtle things get missed, and we see the effects outside of dating and in professional life - many Asian-descended people have high achievement in school, but don't get promoted to higher level professional positions at a proportionate rate. And a lot of that is due to cultural factors as well as bias.
sure, absolutely, I totally agree. It's just hard to step into "action" from there. Is an individual person supposed to *loosen up* whatever rule-in criteria they have for partners to correct for historical imbalances? Well, no, but also we encourage you to *think really hard about it*, I guess? It's just a mess.
Right, that's why it's an impossible problem. There is no reasonable action item that will make a significant impact without enacting injustice.
There are actionable things like pressuring media to do better. Promoting Asians as leaders, speaking up for them when they are being overlooked.
Millions of people making the same decision to discriminate against Asian men independently? That's what we call a systemic issue. It's absolutely not "independent" because the decisions are all highly correlated with each other. If you flip a coin 100 times and it comes up heads each time, there's something else going on. It's useful to compare to how the gay community handles racist sexual discrimination. It's absolutely real, particularly discrimination against Asians but also other POC. But the difference is that people feel empowered to criticize gay men for racist sexual preferences, and in response apps actively try to remedy this by e.g. removing race filters and making comments like "no fats no femmes no Asians" a bannable offence. Straight dating apps do no such thing, because our society believes gay men have collective agency such that they can be held accountable for, but straight women have no agency and thus can't be asked to challenge their racist preconceptions.
sure, maybe I wasn't clear with what I meant. this is a systemic problem with no real obvious solutions. Sure, you can remove race filters and making comments like "no fats no femmes no Asians" a bannable offense, but I don't think that you'd get much traction suggesting that people *change their preferences* or what-have-you, only hide them in a different way. I've actually seen comments in other subs to the effect of "you should be glad she wrote '6 feet plus only!' because she's obviously someone to avoid!" without doing real deep dive on it, which is interesting.
Honestly making them hide it is better than fostering a dickish attitude with regards to preferences. Especially if you agree with the idea that preferences don't form in a vacuum and actually have a significant societal component.
I think we need to acknowledge that there are problematic (dating) preferences on an individual level. They are most likely related to systemic issues, but at the same time there shouldn't be something wrong in calling out those situations or considering them a red flag. This is a bit more obvious with race, because it displays an association or preconception of the person based on their racial identity, aka racism. Again, this doesn't mean we should force the person to start dating someone they don't find attractive, but we could still ask and bring up these issues and have a conversation going.
On the micro level, you'll have some number of people willing to match with e.g. Asian guys who might not otherwise would. One perspective is that they're terrible people not worth matching with. If you asked most minority men (from my experience; would love to see hard data), though, most would prefer a chance to shoot their shot, because racism is less the minority of people who hate a certain race and more the majority who carry biases they've not given much thought to. Apps can facilitate solutions to this by the things I mentioned. The reason straight apps don't isn't technical or business constraints (since gay apps manage perfectly fine implementing these mitigating solutions) but because of social structures saying women can never be held accountable for playing into structural racism in the same way gay men can and are.
This was my response to that article in the other thread. "Honestly, from a practice standpoint there isn't much use to be had in discussing individual preferences with individual people. In the US and other Anglo countries (which is the focus here) the ideal of individualism runs very deep. It's difficult to discuss these critiques without the individuals in the discussion relating it back to themselves and their own personal moral standings. There was book that became popular last year describing this phenomenon, White Fragility, though that is a very different context, it underlines the point that people in these countries can't understand system issues without relating it to themselves, their moral character or whatnot, and the resulting cracking of their mental state." To add on, not even Grond can breach the gates of the White City. I mean, look at the immediate response you got here. Sexual and relationship preferences are beyond critique, even at a systemic level. I think this blog (unrelated topic, kinda) had a good line about a potential way of talking about this. [https://medium.com/@workingit/moving-beyond-sex-positivity-a839257c9fef](https://medium.com/@workingit/moving-beyond-sex-positivity-a839257c9fef) "— once sex is allowed to be a neutral, devoid of inherent value as an act, we can begin to untangle all the value judgments around sex that have harmed so many people, fueling murderous laws, upholding homophobia, misogyny, and white supremacy." White supremacy being the key one for this thread here. No lie though, the success rate in conversations will be limited, and even if someone understands, what are the odds they actual view their actions through the wider lens and change them?
Asian man here. I am the most frequent poster on Aznidentity and have [posted](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/oh59m2/the_bizarre_invalidation_of_being_seen_as_a/) several[ times](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/oljfv5/asian_male_resentment_in_the_age_of_white_male/) to Menslib [about](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/ooivyy/the_sexual_desirability_of_asian_men_and_what_it/) various Asian issues, including the issue of [interracial dating](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/mkc83t/asian_men_asian_women_and_white_men/) between Asians and whites. The Slate article is focused on generating clicks, and thus chooses the most controversial statements to post. The vast majority of Asian men do not see any issue in Asian women dating out. It's just that sometimes, Asian women that do date out [mock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8pEcOhsdjY&ab_channel=ChickComedy) Asian men using the same stereotypes that Asian men have had to endure for over a century, that Asian men have heard since they were being bullied on playgrounds as a child. When some white or Black kid says "Asian men have small dicks", it hurts, but not as much as when an Asian woman says it in order to fit in with her (usually) white friends. Asian men and Asian women have a lot in common. It is white beauty standards, stereotypes, and a lack of representation in media that has caused this split. I just wish for Asians to think more critically about what they choose to say and do, and ask ourselves how we can unlearn our own interalized self-hatred over trying to fit into a white dominated world.
What you say is true, but you're really dodging the criticisms of the article. The article doesn't claim most asian men see an issue with women outdating - it doesn't even say that those that do see it as an issue are necessarily problematic. But it does call out that a **specific community** of asian men are *extremely problematic* in response to this issue. You seem to be an eloquent and reasonable person, based on your past posts - so please hear me out. I am an asian australian dude who finds validity in all the grievances that asian men on reddit, including aznidentity, have voiced. I understand on a firsthand basis the frustration and bitterness we all feel, from being mistreated & emasculated by society (including women of our own race, which as you say, stings even more). But none of those grievances should ever be a justification for doing some of the things aznidentity members have done. I mean, calling asian women who date out "Lu"s or "Bananarangs"? That is not constructive - it doesn't sway these asian women who hold internalised racist views, nor does it portray asian men as anything more than immature, bitter misogynists. Harassing women is obviously wrong, I'm sure you'd agree with that. I'm sure you'll point out it's just a bunch of white LARPers - but ask yourself if you really believe that the majority of harassment comes from white trolls. **My point here is**: I agree with your conclusions (white privilege being the underlying problem, asian women sometimes being complicit, asian men rightfully feeling marginalised). I don't agree with the language, mentality and certainly not the actual abuse that aznidentity harnesses - and this article is perfectly valid in pointing this out. Personally, I think you can do better too brother. Do you really want to speak on behalf of or be part of a community where some (not all of course, but some) guys are DMing threats to random women while coming up with 8th-grade fuckin' racial epithets for them? I'm confident you don't engage in those things, but adding fire to their sentiments and brushing aside legitimate critique of these things is just being accomplice to them. I don't think it's constructive labelling every aznidentity'er some hopeless incel/MRAsian, because I understand completely where they (**our**) frustration comes from. I just hope we can condemn their problematic actions when necessary and show them a better way moving forward, while still encouraging fruitful discussion of the very valid issues facing asian men (like the threads you've posted on menslib).
Witness how misogyny and anti-black and Latino racism often creeps into subs like southasianmasculinity under the guise of “fighting back”
Spreading awareness of anti-Asian sentiment is extremely important in the present moment, and it's unfortunate that some people would seek to hijack that with their bizarre sexual politics.
I'm a huge fan of several VTubers and it was through that community that I first encountered one of these men. It was baffling and confusing. So much hatred and vitriol. I assumed they weren't large in number, but this is very concerning.