Introduction
Asian-American male and female seemed been viewed by others as very different in many things. Such examples are when getting a job, on the job, on the television, on billboards, and even being put in a dating web site. This paper would like to show how big is the difference on how Asian-American male and Asian-American female were treated.
How Asian-American male and female was treated?
Many factors made them to be treated differently by others. This paper would like to discuss each factor available in identifying how these factors had affected how differently Asian-American male and Asian-American female were seen and treated by others.
Frustration of Asian-American Male
An assistant professor of Asian American Studies at San Jose State University made a study about the interracial marrying of Asian-American female and how Asian American male react on this issue (Nishioka). His name is Curtiss Takada Rooks. After the study was completed, he concluded that a disappointment was formed in the minds of the Asian American male due to the increasing interracial marrying of Asian American female. In addition, the media has been attacking the Asian American to be represented as either “stern and misogynist” or “effeminate and nerdy”.
Curtiss Takada Rooks claimed that the disappointment on the Asian American Male really exists but it is not because Asian American female marry the white men. The reason for this disappointment is for the reason why these Asian American female get involved with interracial marriage. The feeling of being discharged of Asian American male by Asian American female tends to be the issue. This is because they think that they were send away by the Asian American female not because of they characteristics or who they really are, but for the images and representations the society labeled them.
Studies were done by social scientists to further discuss the issue. They found out that Asian American women probably would choose to get involved into interracial marriage. The 1990 Census shows that the ourtmarrying ratio of Asian American male to Asian American female is 2:1. As a fact, the outmarrying of Asian Americans in California is a strong evident (Featherly). The percentage of Asian American male marrying white women is only 7.7 percent while the percentage of Asian American female marrying white men is 16.2 percent, twice the percentage of males.
Larry Shinagawa stated that it was a big discrepancy relating to the outmarrying of Asian American male and female. Shinagawa was a professor of Asian American studies at Sonoma State University (Nishioka). He followed his claim that Asian American male chooses to marry the same race.
Asian American Male As Seen by Others
The community and the society have their own judgment to the Asian American male. Media branded Asian-Americans as “yellow peril”. It was a characteristic of Asian Americans seen by the media which means to be having a perverted lifestyle and be likely to lack family values.
The Asian American male are distinguished to be less sexualized and neutered compared to that of Asian American female. Asian American male are seen by others as stereotypes of buck-toothed and have a nerdy looks.
The Dating Game
I had viewed some of the dating sites in the Internet such as the craiglist.com, mail order brides and many more. The findings I have found in the sites seemed to vary but tend to be having the same claim in general. The issue that overtakes almost all those issues is that the Asian American females are more probably is chosen by white men compared to the white women to choose Asian American male.
One finding is that the white men be likely having obsessions on Asian American females. One white man commented that the Asian American women’s look doest matter as long as they have a long black hair and their characteristic being petite would be enough. Following his statement, he exaggeratedly stated that he wants to meet Asian American women and would do whatever it would take him.
The tendency that an Asian American female would get a date after they name was posted on web sites which involves dating, would be of great difference compared to that of Asian American male. The Asian American male are not much likely to be chosen by white women and even themselves found it was hard dating white women thinking they were not get attractive to them (Le). However, to cover up this issue, the tendency of these Asian American male is to put their American names on the list rather than to choose their Asian names.
More Asian American guys were trying to project to look as white men and not to consider their selves as an average-looking guy from Asia. The typical guy would be is white, having an average of 5’ 10” in height, one feature that distinguishes them from others. And the standards made by white men are those girls who have a long hair and are petite, which are Asian American female.
Also, one issue discussed in the forum in the web site which got my attention is an Asian American male which told his story in his stay in college. He was been shy and has low esteem because of being dumped by white women he dated. He asked the girl what’s wrong with him, and same with what he was thinking, the reason is that he is not white, which implies he doesn’t possess the characteristics of a white men. To make it short, he’s not tall. In addition, he was an engineering student, which is common to most of the Asian American male to have been taken up math and engineering courses that made the label of being nerd. Simply because of that, he had been dumped because the white women said he is no fun and she didn’t like it.
In contrast with the school issue of Asian American male students, the story commented to those Asian American females is different. One Asian student had claimed that there had been many white men enrolling in Japanese and Chinese class because of the presence of lots of Asian American female. They found out lately that there had been a fetish on their kinds these white men had.
Furthermore, Asian American men were labeled as weak, given the images of being sexless, and would be having a status of life not comparable to that of white men. These are the tags for the Asian American guy found on one of the web sites.
However, not all women found the ‘white standard’ as the basis of finding a guy. That girl told her story about how she sees an Asian American male. Her name was Lisa Rosevear, a publicist (Chin). This woman came to think of listing the characteristics of a man that would fit for her taste. As the list enumerates, the characteristics listed were a smart guy, a real man, and have a sense of respect. After considering those characteristics, she had found out that this defines what an Asian American guy is. An ethnic group she never thought of possessing those qualities she had listed, a group she never thought of being romantic.
Asian American male might have different characteristics that seen by others. In contrast with the Asian American men to be ‘no fun’ because of being a hardworking people, the advantage this brings is that they are earning more money as in contrast with the others claim that Asian American men didn’t have the same status in life as compared to white men.
The percentage of the Asian American women to be dated and chosen by white men is visibly higher compared to those Asian American guys. The first factor would that be of the images media built up for those Asian American male to be stereotypes and are of nerdy looks. In addition, the white women and Asian American women might be having the same standard in choosing a date, which was the ‘white standard’. The characteristics of having a 5’ 10” of height and so goes with the color can be easier to be seen compared to those Asian American male (Nishioka). Asian American women would rather choose to date those tall white men.
There is no or little evidence that Asian American females were sellouts when they put their name on the dating web site. Those Asian American women whose names are on the list of the mail-order brides are an example. Considering these are girls are Asian Americans, there is a great possibility that they will get a white men to pick their names and date them. As said earlier in this paper, it might have been the unwritten standards for white men to date Asian American female.
Conclusion
The differences on how Asian American male and Asian American female is brought by the judgment of the community and society they belonged to and also with a great influence of the label the media gave them. Everything that these factors were saying is reflected to the images of those Asian Americans, whether good or bad. But still there is more to explore to those Asian American male and female that are still not shown by the media, and how others would look at them will depend on their own judgment.
References
Chin, Andrew. “Why Asian Guys Are on a Roll”. 2002. April 26 2007. <http://modelminority.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=110>.
Featherly, Kevin. “Asian-Americans Are Most Avid Net Users – Pew Survey – Statistical Data Included”. 2001. April 26 2007. <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NEW/is_2001_Dec_13/ai_80808062>.
Le, C.N. “Bringing Civility to the Blogosphere”. 2007. April 26 2007. <http://www.cnle.net/2007/04/bringing-civility-to-the-blogosphere/>.
Nishioka, Joyce. “A Threatened Manhood? Exploring the myth of the angry Asian male”. 2000. April 28 2007. <http://www.asianweek.com/2000_02_03/feature_asianmale.html>
