I made a tiktok that recommended feminism to a commenter, on a thread about Asian American men. Not wanting to just ad lib this topic, I decided to to a quick review of the material, and started down a rabbit hole (as usual).
Disclaimer: though I read feminist texts, and align with feminism, I’m still pretty sexist. The fact is, I live in a social space that is both sexist, and anti-sexist. At times, society demands that we conform to sexism, or if we cannot conform, we adapt to it. Often these adaptations can, themselves, be sexist.
My basic feeling about feminism is that it has a lot of explanatory power and analytical power to understand patriarchy and sexism. Some forms of feminism have an intersectional approach that is mainstream today, and influenced me via anarchism in the 1990s. (Arguably, feminism, particularly what is now derisively called “white feminism” was probably the only regular left ideology across anarchism. This was probably because anarchism functioned as a Left refuge from patriarchy and homophobia, and remains a refuge from transphobia.)
Note that not all feminists are equally intersectional. As with most political and philosophical practices, people disagree about things.
I think feminism relates to Asian American men because we are socially emasculated in some areas: media representation, social clout, sexuality, and other areas. Understanding patriarchy, and patriarchies in different cultures, is one way to understand these issues.
Put more simply: feminism aims to end sexism, and sexism affects us more than it affects white men.
Anyway, here are some of the pages I’m reading to review. Some comments below.
Brown and Ismail, Feminist Theorizing of Men and Masculinity: Applying Feminist Perspectives to Advance College Men and Masculinities Praxis
Pyke and Johnson, Asian American Women And Racialized Femininities: “Doing” Gender across Cultural Worlds
API-GBV, Patriarchy and Power, and other articles on the site.
Le, Asian-Nation Women and Gender Issues, and hoping to read the references.
Fong, Asian American Women: an Understudied Minority
Rooney, Development of the Multicultural Gender Role Scale for Asian American Women
Park, Eating Our Own: Deconstructing the Misogynistic Myths of Asian American Antifeminism, and other articles on this site.
Truong, 5 Reasons Why We Need to Change the Way We Talk About ‘Emasculating’ Asian Men
Google search: patriarchy +”asian american”
These papers are all just starting points.
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