Asian American Journal of Psychology’s cover (small) When you think of Asian American women, what picture comes to mind first? You might envision a woman who is submissive and subservient, sensuous or sexy (“The Geisha”), manipulative and untrustworthy (“The Dragon Lady”), or an industrious, dedicated worker bee.
Asian American women are frequently stereotyped as faceless, silent, and invisible, or as sexual objects. These and other representations, in addition to the myths of the “Model Minority” and the “Forever Foreigner,” have endured in the media and popular culture.
What are Asian American women’s contemporary discrimination experiences in terms of racism and sexism?
In a study just published in the Asian American Journal of Psychology, Shruti Mukkamala and Karen Suyemoto set out to answer this issue.
The goal of the study was to show that, contrary to popular assumption, Asian American women endure prejudice in both their professional and personal life. The researchers expect that their findings will lead to a greater understanding of how discrimination affects Asian American women in the United States.
Adult women who self-identified as Asian American participated in the study via online open-ended surveys and in-person group interviews. Participants were asked about their discrimination experiences.
Only four of the 107 people who took part in the study indicated they had never been discriminated against. Six of the 15 categories of discrimination found by the researchers were related to how race and gender interact in discriminating against Asian American women in particular.
A simple explanation of these six topics gives an idea of what the participants went through:
1. Exotic – Experiencing exoticization and objectification. These have long been associated with notions of Asian women as exotic “Geisha girls” with a unique sexuality.
2. Not a leader — Situations in which persons are perceived as unable to be or become leaders. Due to preconceptions of Asian women as quiet and without leadership characteristics, this is related to the stereotype of the busy “worker bee” who can work as part of a team but is incapable of leading. Women from other racial groups, who are often overlooked as leaders, have had similar experiences.
3. Submissive – Situations in which people are expected to be submissive/passive/quiet, compliant, and not speak up or stand up for themselves. Asian women are thought to be submissive and controlling, according to stereotypes.
4. Expectations placed on the participants about how they should or should not look are cute and little.
5. Invisible – Participants’ feelings that they or their group were neglected in some way, or that they lacked voice, agency, or authority.
6. service worker- Assumptions that the participant works in a low-level gendered employment that is stereotypically associated with Asian American women, such as being a maid or working in a nail salon.