Asian Women

As of recently, the media has been flooded with positive interpretations of beauty standards all over the world. According to various sources, beauty ideals, in women especially, are socially constructed in order to judge a person’s value based on physical attractiveness; therefore, it is highly encouraged that people pay attention to their looks and take care of themselves, in order for others to create a positive first impression of one’s character. It is no secret that beauty standards vary from one culture to the next and it is difficult to establish a universal principle of what is considered beautiful. Many countries’ ideals contrast one another and, as a result, allow for stereotypes to emerge. This is the case between American

The media group that retouches images skews the “normal” body image of people through many of its outlets, including models in advertising and magazines, and actors in TV and movie productions. “The average model portrayed in the media is approximately 5’11” and 120 pounds. By contrast, the average American woman is 5’4” and 140 pounds” (Holmstrom, 2004). This statistic shows how the media manipulates consumers into believing that because they are not what the average model looks like, they are not living up to a certain standard which implies that they need to look like that to be beautiful. Another research fact that shows a similar concept is that, “In the United States, 94% of female characters in television programs are thinner than the average American woman, with whom the media frequently associate happiness, desirability, and success in life” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This association of female thinness and happiness, desirability and success makes consumers believe they must achieve this unrealistic thinness to achieve more ultimate goals and fulfillment in life. “The media also explicitly instruct how to attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body-contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This idealization of thinness in the media is seen so much, and is extremely harmful to women’s self confidence and is often associated with body image dissatisfaction, which can be a precursor to social anxiety, depression, eating disturbances, and poor self-esteem (Yamamiya et al.,

She gives examples of the negative effects of the emphasis on conforming to these standards, such as women refusing medical treatment out of fear of the medicine making them unfeminine, women eating chalk in order to lose weight, and young girls wearing bras with padding made to look like breasts. She shows through these examples that beauty standards are damaging to young women and girls. However, she fails to mention that these standards of beauty and femininity are often racist as well. The standards of attractiveness for women are often Eurocentric; European or “white” features are considered more beautiful than any others. Light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes, and small “button” noses are all examples of attractive, “feminine” traits that are more commonly found in white women.

Chang’s writing is focused upon from the view of a sociocultural standpoint, with discovering the internal ideas beneath beauty from the external appearance. It included an experiment with nearly 500 Asian American female participants who took part in a questionnaire package regarding both one’s personal beliefs as well as on social relations with Caucasian-American women. The results of this showed that, there are little to none ethnic group differences in the internalization of the dominant White beauty standards among Asian American women. Despite the lack in differences, the findings made contributions by showing the importance of racial identity and beauty standards in Asian American women’s body image development and psychological well-being.

The beauty standard is a culturally constructed notion of physical attractiveness that has become increasingly imperative for women and men. However, this standard has become extremely perilous to men and women’s self-image. Camille Paglia, a highly educated individual who earned her PhD at Yale University and became a highly acclaimed author, explicates this conception in her essay “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery”. Paglia suggests that the beauty standard idealizes women to look like “sex symbols with an unattainable grandeur” (776). She continues to claim that it forces her audience of higher class women to pay large sums of money in order to alter their features ultimately conforming to a very “parochial” definition of beauty (776). Although Paglia is a highly credible source, she illogically appeals to the reader’s fears in order to persuade them. Paglia fails to give any credible outside sources which affirms her preposterous beliefs. Contrary to her inconsistencies, Daniel Akst, a social journalist and graduate from New York University provides his audience with reputable sources in order to persuade his audience. Daniel Akst believes that there needs to be a “democratization of physical beauty” in which instead of attempting to alter the beauty standard, we must first change how we view ourselves. Akst provides credible sources to establish his credibility where he observes cases studies and cultural experiments from scientists and organizations including:

The three main points are orientalism, the contribution of literature and influence of war have been the means that solidified the conceptualization of the term “China doll”. Asian women have and are continually being seen as delicate and sensualized figures in a much similar fashion to which the term China doll was coined from, and makes its way to entertain and appeal the long existing fetish for exoticness of Westernized society. The diversity of culture that to which Asians, particularly women of Asia belong to begins to shrink into a more generalized view and with little more to show for as sex symbols. This leads to the perversion of Asian culture in itself, as can be seen when one searches in the media for this stereotype.

In Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners, Evelyn Nakano Glenn examines how western civilization has dominated the world through the notion of skin color. All over the world lighter, whiter, skin is seen as a way to “raise one’s status” whether it is in the work place or in finding a potential life mate. This is mostly seen in women in the continents of Africa and Asia and in Latin America, where the women are hit with the double whammy of being a women, which is seen as less competent, and not being white, which is not being beautiful and not being competent. Because seems that Caucasian majority countries are more well off and there are more successful and established Caucasians throughout the world than any other race, being more like a Caucasian seems to mean that you get privileges similar to them called “light-skinned privilege”. Based on the ideals, most of those in my neighborhood could never be successful because we aren’t visually appealing and we aren’t as competent

Western portrayals of Asian women in media have often been stereotypical, one-dimensional characters such as the submissive and docile Lotus Blossom, the strong and domineering, but deceitful Dragon Lady, or the Asian hooker who is used as nothing more than a mere prop for the male gaze (Kuo, Rachel). However, the Western audience has also been exposed to other portrayals of Asian women through another form of entertainment called anime. Anime, or Japanese animation, has many genres that are named according to the target audience it is made for. For shounen, meaning male adolescents, is largely about action-packed adventures and accomplishing a goal or defeating an enemy (Eisenbeis, Richard). The shounen genre, however, despite its target audience that is

Americans live in a media-saturated world, where images constantly flow from the pages of magazines, television, and computer screens. Media creates a brand of beauty by helping the viewer identify the item with the beautiful people that are selling it. They are selling a “brand” of beauty. Hundreds of years ago, a brand was sometimes burned into the skin of some slaves. The damage of the brand was not only horrible physical scars, but also emotional trauma. When society begins accepting the media’s brand as their standard for their own physical identity, or when ethnic groups are defined by these brands, the results can be just as devastating.

Mexican women’s lives — their family life, their work, their educational opportunities, the health care they can expect, their social standing, political participation and especially their right — have changed over these hundred years. It was the fact that in the past, Mexican women were very sweet but passive and powerless human beings. Their lives revolved around home and family, and they were much subordinated to men as a famous Spanish proverb states, "El hombre en la calle, la mujer en la casa," which means, "men in the street and women at home". Mexican government has not haven good system to help protect women’s rights. Women in Mexico don’t have the same rights as men to keep their jobs. Violence against women

As an Asian-American woman, I want to see better representation for the Asian community; if media is supposed to reflect the real world, then there is no excuse for leaving Asians out in American films. I want to dissect why Asians are still marginalized and stereotyped today when there is a demand for more diversity in media. In addition, I want to cover the history behind the stereotyping and whitewashing of Asians in Hollywood and how that still has a negative impact today. In fact, recent movies have white-washed Asian roles in favor of white actors. In May 2015, Sony released “Aloha,” where Emma Stone portrayed Allison Ng, a part Chinese-Hawaiian fighter pilot. This blatant erasure is also evident in Dreamworks’ casting of Scarlett Johansson

There are significant figures who are destined for a greater purpose, those who are worthy of integration in the history books. They are men, destined for a greater purpose, provoking change in an otherwise stagnant trajectory, whether for better or for worse. In the best of scenarios, they are capable of offering hope, present innovative perspectives opening opportunities that affect the current way of life. Other times, however, the selected few, fall into circumstances beyond their control, but are influential, nonetheless. Men are often author of such reverence and acknowledgment, that a woman’s power and contributions to history oftentimes is overlooked. Case in point, three women who created change, who affected the culture during the colonization of Mexico in early 16th and 17th century, a time and place when women had no authority, or control in the way men did, are decorated with this honor. The first is La Virgin de Guadalupe, the symbol of hope, Malintzin, the epitome of disloyalty, and Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, the intellect.

The experiences of African-American and Asian-American women mirrored each other’s in many ways, seen through the filters of their varied experiences during different time periods in the last hundred years. While at this point, freed African-American women had been on American soil for a hundred years’ plus prior to that, Asian-American immigrants were just beginning to move into the United States, looking for an improved quality of life and the opportunity to make their fortune.

Asian Americans (AAS) are diverse ethnic group’s origins from the Far East Southeast Asia and Indian continents. More than 800 languages are spoken among AAS. They are one of the fastest growing populations in the US. 43 percent increase between 2000 & 2010. There are 15.5 million Asian Americans living in the United States (2012 Census Bureau population). Even if all Asian Americans have the same traits, such as strong family values, importance in educations, following tradition and valuing personal relationship, still there are many differences in language and culture among Asian American groups as well. In 2012, the total private insurance coverage for Asian Americans was 68.8 percent, as compared to 74.4 percent for the non-Hispanic White population. 15 percent of Asian Americans were uninsured, as compared to 10.4 percent non-Hispanic White Americans.

In this essay, I will be exploring the exotification of East Asian women in modern day society. My area of investigation in this writing is how these tropes pose danger towards East Asian women, instead of the misconception that they feel ‘flattered’ and sees it as a ‘compliment’.