Week 5: Femininity

Asian women in America are seen as the dragon lady who is dominate may be violent and in her own right powerful and respected. Other stereotypes of Asian women in America shows Asian women as submissive and sexually compliant. A common stereotype the "Lotus Blossom" is a submissive to her white male counter part. In a perplexed way the Lotus Blossom makes a woman more of an Americanized commodity vs. the Asian male because they are considered more useful because they are at their white male counter part disposal. The Lotus Blossom were originally prostitutes.The Geisha stereotype is an Asian "doll". Asian women are dressed in lavish clothing and exaggerated make-up for the pleasure of white men. They are overtly sexualized and compliant to please and entertain men. Hollywood treatment of Asian women have not steered away from these stereotypes, often times playing a white mans girlfriend and the Asian woman can barely speak English. I ran across an article that explains from a female writer's point of view why men like foreign women. There are four reasons she listed, 1. Husband and children come first. i agree with this because many foreign women are housewives, due to their lack of knowledge of working in America. Many American women are focused on being equal with the male spouse and having their own career. According to an Asian female professor  who is fairly young, she told me that teaching was a huge step to her. mostly because in her culture teaching is considered a man's job and a women it taught to be a wife/homemaker.She also spoke on how education for Asian women is valued, and great grades were mandatory. i find it very odd and a contradicting concept that education is valued, but being a wife/homemaker is the duties that are taught. 2. Femininity and Beauty was also listed. Many Asian and other foreign women take the time consistently to make themselves attractive to the husbands. Asian women have always been viewed as "dolls" since geisha's were first brought to the scene. From general observation American women are known to slack off in the appearance department once they have gotten comfortable with their spouse. The other two reasons are not specific to foreign women in my opinion, but applies to a woman who is a homemaker and taught to take care of her spouse. they are being very hospitable to her guest and pampering her spouse above and beyond the normal. These point have validity because many women not only foreign women are taught that their femininity is dependent on how well a woman takes care of men and children.   http://theartofbeingfeminine.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-men-are-so-attracted-to-foreign.html Another interesting point i read was Asian women prefer White men because Asian men are wimpy or nerds. however Asian women find black men over masculine and scary. I cant say that i disagree because i am not an Asian Woman. However in this day and age i have seen a lot of Asian women with black men, these couples varied in age. In general i think Asian women femininity is developed similarly to any woman as mentioned before, which is how well a woman can please a man and care for children. In the early and Mid 1900's women may have been considered more feminine because of the duties they performed vs. today many women are opting not to have families, or choosing to be a working mom and wife.