The Situation of Asian American Women

Gender studies in recent times have been primarily guided by two positioning approaches of social constructionists emphasizing everyday construction or gender responsibility and responsiveness to the interconnectedness of race, class, and gender (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). Despite the prominence of these methodologies, there hasn't been much experimentation that combines gender and racial research. The more thorough integration of social constructionism in gender analysis compared to race research is an underpinning component. Despite the fact that racial dominance is ingrained in our social groups, biological indicators are nonetheless given weight (Root, 1990). Additionally, efforts to hypothetically assimilate the performance of gender, race, and class around the perception of “doing difference” (Miville, & Ferguson, 2014) lean towards the restraint of large-scale historical arrangement of power and dominion besides dispensation of gender over race and class (Lindsey, 2015). In incorporating structures of repression in the social constructionist agenda with no compromising predominance to whichever form of disparity or disregarding larger groupings of power, more work is required (Sangalang & Gee, 2015).

Furthermore, the incorporation of race and gender in the social constructionist approach focuses the attentiveness of matters that have been disregarded. Barely, a few research has studied how culturally downgraded women in the context of race and ethnicity (Watson, DeBlaere, Langrehr, Zelaya, & Flores, 2016). Moreover, the Asian American women, facilitate cross-pressures in the construction of femininity as they shift amidst the conventional and ethnic grounds, such as homes, workplaces, and learning institutions, and whether diverse and even contrary gender presentations alongside with the plans endorsed amongst several fields (Capodilupo & Forsyth, 2014). Several individuals relocate to social domains that do not impose overturns of their gender feats, thereby allowing them to sustain firm and apparently integrated gender approaches (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). Though, members of communities that are culturally sidelined and who frequently go over communication platforms with inconsistent gender outlooks may perhaps participate in diverse sex feats relying on the limited framework in which they are relating (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). Several unanswered questions might be addressed by studying ways that such persons intervene in different expectations. In response to unlike gender rules, do sideline women move their gender representations across conventional and subcultural venues? If that is the case, how do they encounter and deal with such shifts? What implication do they give to the various kinds of femininities that participate diagonally over the sceneries? Are racially downgraded women experiencing the creation of femininity as substandard to those types involved by advantaged white women and praised in the prevailing culture?

These issues are tackled by evaluating what the second-generation Asian American women go through as well contemplate about the unstable changing aspects tangled in the performance of femininity in Asian ethnic and conventional cultural realms. Precisely, we observe their conjectures about gender changing elements in the Euro-centric conventional and Asian ethnic, social backgrounds, the way they reason about their gendered identities, and their approaches in doing gender (Root,1990). This examination portrays and develops the theoretical discourse regarding the creation of femininities over race, paying specific considering how manipulating appearances and beliefs forms the prejudiced encounters of women of color.

Gender

According to Asian Americans women, there are three major topics necessary for the teaching of gender issues and acknowledging the psychological experiences (Root, 1990). These occurrences include gender roles, stereotypes, and differences in gender. Likewise, resources and themes are concerns associated with the above topics. Due to the issues related to historical complexity, cultural setup and sociopolitical the discovery of unified pedagogical method has become a challenge since the Asians Americans problems are not easily displayed (Sangalang & Gee, 2015). While studying, the student has to learn the act of appreciation to the way other ethical and gender handle their issues to create a layer of complexity of understanding and acknowledging the identities of Asian Americans (Lindsey, 2015). In spite of other fields like arts and humanities exploring the construction of gender, race, and identity of the Asian Americans, little has been done by the psychologists by carrying out research and studies (Watson, 2016). It has made the psychologists instructors refer to the arts and humanities as a source of Asian American psychology and the nonpsychology studies. It is about the roles played by the gender and stereotypical sense to the sex present (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). The psychologists were lucky to recover traditional media and nonpsychology courses that were suitable for the study since it dealt with ethical study and the study is conducted under the interdisciplinary arrangement.

The Asian American psychology lies under the three top topics related to central gender concerns. The three interest are attached to sexism and status of Asian American women who are; the gender roles in societies and cultures of the Asian Americans, stereotypes of gender within the Asian American community and lastly, the differences between the male and female sex in the Asian American Society (Capodilupo, & Forsyth, 2014). The psychologists need to carry out studies to determine means the Asian American women handle themselves while in the minority bracket. And the developments they conduct and the unique responsibility and relations they engage in towards their success.

According to the gender roles, the traditional Asian family structure gives each member of the role according to their gender (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). The Asian American upholds these traditions since every member of the household needs to comply with their traditions that offer different duties to the family members (Root, 1990). The traditional structure is based on a patriarchy as the father is the sole decision maker with authority over the family. Also, the mother is a family’s caretaker and observes the well-being of the children; socially and mentally.

Americans have a different perspective on the Asian-American’s tradition on the gender role thus showing the difference due to the stereotypes played by the Asians-American males to the female leading to conflict. While the students are in classes and they discuss the Asians-Americans, there are stereotypic ideas that arise from the discussion of American students about the culture and the lifestyle of the Asians (Root, 1990). From the debates, the students perceived an Asian woman as an exotic, domesticated, submissive, sexy and shy, they are considered untrustworthy like “dragon lady.” Also, the Asian American women are viewed as sexualized people by nature since they first generation Asian women were stereotyped as immoral and participated in prostitution while at the Pacific Rim countries (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). It has led to the production of films and written scholarly articles that deal in portraying the ordinary Asian-American woman who resists a positive image accorded to them by the American Society.

Ethnic

In the Asian American group, the Korean and Vietnamese are the largest group in America mostly from the California state. The primary focus of this paper is to the women from Asia America; involvement is substantial in the mainstream of culture and ethnic issues as the first general members (Root, 1990). From the late 1960s and early 1970s, both the Vietnamese and Koreans did not migrate into the United States, 80% of the Koreans and the Vietnamese were born in America from immigrant parents (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). The second generation which mainly consists of young adults and children who mostly juggle the mainstream cultures and ethnic cross-pressure that lacks ground work to enslave their long-standing ethnic lifestyle. The disparity in the cultural mainstream and ethnic has made it difficult for the children of the immigrants leading to conflicts that mainly affect the gender of the victims.

The dichotomization of the ethnic group leads to them interacting with the other societies including the families of the immigrants and the other ethics and the mainstream that are related to the non-Asians Americans while at the workplace, schools and among the peer groups. This group has been raised while objected by different cultures while moving from one place to another e.g. from home to school and they are faced with a different kind of behavior while interacting with the Asians-American and the non-Asians Americans (Root, 1990). Due to the non-monolithic status of this group, and constant norms in their setting, they experience an absolute pressure, structural arrangement, and expectations that cause an impact to the different genders. The disparity in the gender differences as the patriarchal community imposes the development and production of the woman’s gender from one culture to the other. The patriarchal system dominates the Korean and the Vietnam communities, thus according the male Confucian code that is superior together with authority in the family setup thus affecting the social relations. The women make the small decisions in the family, and their identity is recognized from the role they play in the family which insists that the women have to serve their male members in the family. Violations of the role of women in the family cause a shame for both her and the family (Root, 1990). There are variations even after speculations from the western observers claiming Asians have a strong patriarchal bond between the household members (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). Asian-American women tend to have active resistance strategies while information exchanging in social groups and power pocket is concerned. The opportunities offered for women to grow both economically and socially have enhanced the rise of women rights groups among the Koreans and the Vietnamese to challenge the current gender inequality. It has led to ease of the culture gender compliance in the real gender dynamics and according to the moral code.

The Koreans and the Vietnamese immigrants face a shift in gender arrangements thus centers the weakening of men’s power in the economy over the women and raising self-dependency of women as they earn their wedges. There has been a rising demand for immigrant women labor by the employees placing their regards to the cheap labor offered. Regarding these employees, women can gain the power to make their decisions, autonomy and provide assistance to their husbands with the domestic house chore. Moreover, the shift in dominance is not total since the common element of the family is still present. Furthermore, the immigrant still carries over their ethnic culture which allows the male to be dominant in their families thus enhancing the resource available to keep the patriarchal authority secure and causing economic insecurity, social impartation, and racism in the newly formed society. Parenting practices offer a clear indication to gender hierarchy among every household in the new society. These methods require the daughters to stay at home and carry out the household chore when the school is not present while the male counterparts have freedom of doing anything.

Compared to the American women, the Asian-American women have a less equality, freedom, independence and power, portraying the difference in the attitude of each gender. A study conducted on Korean-American women show that 82% of Korean women concur with a family oriented life and devotion to serving the family with the husband unlike 19% of American women who agree with the same issue (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). The association between a Democrat gender attitude and the actual behavior of the American people is indigent. The patriarch setting still awards the male people higher status than the women while at workplace and home thus women face little job pay and have a greater responsibility at home and labor and they face much violence from the male. There is a norm of gender equality in U.S society that believes that acts as an obscure to the daily materiality of the American patriarchy (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). Patriarchy society has brought the gender inequality factor to both the Asian and the whole cultures in the world despite the diverse culture available in the world with cultural differences.

Culture

Model culture is more of a scheme that demonstrates values, attitudes, knowledge and norms that can trigger the external cultural cues that stimulate the covered cultural meanings. During the ancient times when the practical demonstrations exposed the ideas of the bicultural practices of the Chinese-Americans individuals as the Chinese ions (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). These icons include the Great Wall of China, the Chinese calligraphy, the Chinese dragons, Chinese opera vocalist and the chopstick used when eating. Many studies demonstrate the exposition of Chinese cultural cues might lead to a situational attribution of the eastern way in a prototype explanation of the proceedings and behavior. As the Asians-Americans are exposed to American cultural cues, their bicultural position is at dispositional provenance that is prototypical to the western way of clarifying individual events of behavior. Frame-switching is a process that supports the dynamic constructivist of the framework that is multi-cultural that explains the existence of a person and can be revealed to the front of all the cultural primes.

The induction of the cultural frame has additional images that other cultural cues have been switching to, including the Thai culture. These American bicultural individuals demonstrate a behavior example from both the eastern and the western ways as it relies on the type of language of survey directives (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). The instructions are determined from the cultural setup that can individually expose the Chinese Americans bicultural personality to both the positive and the negative side of the stereotype (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). Asians a research conducted on the frame-switching and primary culture suggests a dynamic culture that relies on the salience of the cultural cues on the surrounding to an individual behavior with different cultural values, thoughts, and feelings.

The eastern cues obtain a prototype to the conduct of the eastern which is studied and describes as the cultural cues that form the culturally normative behavior. It is not the case since there is evidence among the Asians Americans that can lead to the exposure of the American cues that is prototypically connected to the Asians behavior and revealing the Asian cues that are directed to the American signals. It also causes the swapping of the cultural characteristics that can lead to activation of the cultural scheme that offers the contrast to the prevailing cultural cues in the situation. Unlikely, there might be an occurrence of counterintuitive which differentiates the effects that often recur when there is a study of psychological literature. A poor performance test was contributed by research that involves the priming of intelligence and the comparison of the priming stupidity. Another study demonstrated the advertisement of the blatant product that accelerated the disparity effects that consist of the dislikes of the products by the people. There are several theories used in the explanation and the proposal of the contrast effects. A given mechanism is employed in the description of the proposed contrast effects that recur when the cues are highly salient, blatant and obvious (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). The contrast is specifically necessary for the highly recognized biasing influence of the external cues; they convert these forces that later leads to the overcorrection or difference in behavior that is apart from the direction of the signals.

The above-used mechanism has been proposed to illustrate the differences in the cultural effects of the cues on the bicultural while it suggests that the consequences of the variation occur due to misidentification intentions or the wish to leave the cultural blatantly that is implanted in other people. As a proposal on the cultural cues, a proposed contract seems discrepant from cultural experiences meaning that the people of bicultural adverse acculturation occurrences are revealed to the positive cultural cues. Also, the signals are specifically seen as a salient and evident that results to disassociation with the reactance of these cues. The bicultural personalities are actively suppressed by the cultural schemes that are not reliable as others have suggested that the external cultural conditions of visible cues to the process of the effective suppression that can cause the over-activation of a rejected cultural individuals (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). As an example of the Asians Americans who try to restrain the Asian identity while facing and experiencing the American cultural cues that dominate their dwelling places in an attempt to liberate themselves from the Asian cultural identity that is highly carried out in their societies.

Body image

Unlike the black Americans, the Asians tend to agree with the extreme thinness when it comes to the female body type which is more that those of the whites. During the ancient Chinese dynasties, the harem women would starve themselves to maintain their thinness for the emperor to favor them. Additionally, the Chinese body is an ideal when it is frail and thin, unlike the plump-bodied people (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). Beauty contestant competing for Miss Hong Kong were determined and reviewed by their weight, between the years 1975-2000 a female person found to have maintained their weight all through the years were crowned as the winner of the pageant. Moreover, the BMI trend went downwards as the number of pageant winners due to the rise in height and lost in weight that assisted in suggesting the most considerable winner conclude the Miss Universe pageant (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). There was no drastic change in the indicator of the narrow waist and full hip as the contestants were keen on winning the pageant with the use of waist to hip ratio. After the research, conclusions of the ideal Asian female body being thin, tall and hourglass shape were attained (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). The white counterparts were better of when it came to the body image, which the Asian failed in controlling weight thus they were the ideal extreme thinness body types.

The body type and the image of both the Asian Americans and the white Americans appeared to be equivocal when the results are obtained. Other studies conducted demonstrated similar result on the body image between the Asians-Americans and the white Americans together with the European women, but another result contradicts the first finds claiming that the Asian and Asian-American women have negative body image. Other sources found out that there is some positivity in the Asian body image. Various sources demonstrate the inconsistency to the type of body an Asian woman portrays. Different religions and ethnicities also cause the difference by the Asian woman which includes the Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Chinese and Vietnamese.

A variation of studies demonstrates the difference in primary body image that is requested by the participants on the membership of the cultural, ethical and racial group in comparison to the body image of the groups associated. The degree of acculturation of one’s ethnic group or cultural group assess the measuring of the culture, for example; an examination is conducted to study the eating disarray among the Latinas and the values upheld by the Latinas in the identification of cultural activities that causes a negative attitude and disarray eating symptoms (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). Also, the Asians Americans have a higher identification levels on the Asian society by adherence to the traditions of Asian values that is associated with the pressure of thinning and avoidance of the big body that is a poor image and dissatisfaction to the community. The Asian Americans have a higher affinity to identify their culture with the American culture that values the thin body and think it an ideal body that portrays a positive body attitude.

Racialization

The feminist in every community of different race faces a difficult situation in every context of their existence. There is a discursively constructed natural and essential aspect of the racialized gender. Some biological factors are jointly related to the essentiality of the race and gender that determines the social behavior of a person a topic of gender identities, personality, domestic orientation are binary categories use in the discussion of the Asians and the American codes. Also, the deployment of racialized gender groups portrays an interpretive template of experiences and worldview organization.

Mental health

Asians Americans women in the United States prefer not to seek mental, physical and behavioral counseling compared to the white American women. They defend their decision by claiming poor treatment by the healthcare personnel while interacting and offering health services. Also, research demonstrates that the healthcare does not recognize cross-cultural differences that cause disparities and barriers to the health care provided to the minor ethnic groups (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). Other ethnic groups tend not to trust the physicians handling them as compared to the white Americans. The Asian American women seek a health provider who appreciates their being and respects them while handling. They also rate physicians according to tradition implementation of the health sector and also believe in the cultural activities and practices.

Due to lack of English proficiency, lack of insurance and time site evidence to why Asian American women lack proper medical care. Many of the Koreans immigrant experience stress leading to mental health problems while in America. This problem further affects the Vietnamese American and Lao American refugee women that the Asians American men in America. Furthermore, the Asian American women that have lived in America for a long time experience less mental health disorder as compared to the refugee's Asian American women in America. Immigrants from the minor groups like Asian Americans face a significant mental health challenge while seeking the available services for them. Also, the Asian American US-born persons receive a special treatment of mental health disorder, unlike the Asian-Americans immigrants (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). Gender or ethnical discrimination makes the Asian American women not seek psychiatric treatment as they will receive poor, dissatisfactory services.

Research shows more Asian American women are likely to become depressed than the men. Lack of variety work has made it easy for Asian American women engage in activities that suppress their mental disorder (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). For example, Vietnamese American women in Seattle participate in smoking to occupy their mind and suppress normal mental function. And most of them tend to be masked by psychosomatic symptoms and chronic memory illness (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). The underrepresentation of the Asian American women in mental health hospital has led to the increase of depression cases among the Asian women in America. Due to lack of support for the Asian American women has caused the underrating mental facilities as poor and has resulted in the rise of life stress among the Asians Americans.

Oppression

Most of the Asian families has a hierarchy authority that uses, generation, gender, and sex as its functioning basis. This system places the young women on the lowest level and the male members of the dominant sex (Miville & Ferguson, 2014). The Asians families tend to develop the male gender’s personality and aspiration and do the otherwise for the female. Sexual stereotypes and racialization of the feminine among the Asian American families have resulted to submission of the female for the male (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2016). It is believed that the woman’s work is to become a good housekeeper and a wife. Additionally, Asian women are referred as sex objects to their husbands, and they are worthy of little respect. The racial stereotyping caused by the male make the females to become inferior and self-hating. An Asian American woman feels oppressed when the Asian men do not accredit a marriage between an American man and an Asian-American woman. The male counterpart defines their wives as tradition implementers and unfeminine. The Asian men are allowed to be attracted to the beauty of Americans. Thus they look down upon their women. The hierarchy authority of the Asian American men makes it hard for the Asian American females to grow to their full potential as influential people in the society.

Conclusion

Asians American being one of the minority groups, they face many challenges while in the American society. They struggle very much to meet their demands and stand up for their family. Many of the Asian Americans face discrimination in a various way while interacting and seeking the same opportunities as the other majority group of white Americans. Furthermore, the Asian American women face much challenges and difficulties in both their community surrounding and the white neighbors. As discussed above women face challenges like oppression, mental instability, they are segregated racially, gender-wise and ethnically by almost everyone in the American community. Also, the Asian American woman moral values and women rights are not upheld and taking care of in the required manner, and it has resulted to bad deeds implicated on them without listening to their complaints.

The self-development of the Asian American woman needs to be re-examined and revised to reduce the hitches faced by the Asian American woman. Likewise, the Asian American culture requires amendments and abolition of some section to suit the needs of the Asian American woman. Historians need to research and document the history and the life experiences of the Asian American women. The documentation of feminist life history will enable their young feminist to acknowledge and note the progress of their previous noted women. This history will enable the young feminist to progress using the past as the foundation for their growth. The history can act as an empowerment to the aspiring young ladies on various available fields of exploring. Finally, the document history can later act as a cultural lesson to the new and the coming generations living in America. And for identification purposes, the documentation can assist the Asian American groups to trace back their ancestry and determine their origin.

References

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