American Sexist

This is a post for everyone who thinks that a lot of commentary about women's issues and everyday sexism in Taiwan (as this is, after all, a Taiwan-focused blog) are somehow unique to Taiwan or unique to Asia. "Taiwanese culture infantilizes women", they might say, or "In Taiwan women are expected to be very feminine, and they really don't like masculine things - that's why all the clothing and other items they buy are so girly".

Which, there's a speck of truth to that. I wouldn't go so far as to say women are "infantilized" in Taiwan (I know enough women who are, say, the general managers of investment company offices, who are senior executives or who basically run their family businesses, enough tomboys and women who simply aren't that feminine, enough rebels, athletes and artistic types to know that that is something of an exaggeration) but there does seem to be a cultural tendency to expect greater "femininity". Most stereotypes, after all, build bullshit around a kernel of truth.

What bothers me is the idea that this is somehow Asia-specific, Taiwan-specific, or has already been done away with in the Western countries that people who say this often a.) hail from and b.) praise.

I've been in the US for family reasons since December (it is now March, for those who read this post down the line). That's the longest amount of time I've spend in the US since the mid-aughts - 2006 to be precise. I was 26 when I left, and I feel I've grown and changed a lot since then - become more articulate in my support for, and reasons for supporting, feminist causes, for example. Behavior I put up with in male friends and boyfriends back then I would not put up with now, and I would be better able to articulate why.

So, this is the first time I've been around American cultural norms for an extended period since before my sense of feminist self fully formed - at least I think it's fully-formed at this point.  And you know what? Gender-pigeonholing and expecting 'femininity' is a huge problem here, as well. And yes, it is somewhat media-propagated, it's also socially propagated.

There's the Fifty Shades of Grey crap going around - since I've been back I've had at least one friend spend quite some time rhapsodizing the 'beauty' of a relationship where a significantly younger woman goes against her egalitarian beliefs and lets herself be dominated, as per the wishes of her (barf) "inner goddess", a relationship I'd categorize as if not abusive, at least full of red flags and creepy behavior (this is not a commentary on dom-sub relationships, of which I know very little and have no firsthand experience - this is a commentary on the relationship in that book/movie/pile of trash).

Then there's shopping. As I shop for spring clothing, something I am happy to have the luxury of doing without a problem (that never happened in Taiwan), my sister and I have noted several times that the clothing and t-shirts available for men are much cooler and more unique than those available for women. Some examples from Target:




Choices for women: yawn. They're cute, but boring. Totally fine as one aspect of a wardrobe, and would be fine if more fun choices were available - but the only fun choices are super feminine:



So, the men get Game of Thrones sigils and Star Wars t-shirts, and we get "SINGLE"? Yuck.

There were t-shirts for sports teams - most of which seemed to include the word "Swag".

The men's t-shirts were much more interesting: 



I personally would want "Omnomnomnivore" from that group.

So, we've been shopping in the men's section. I got fuzzy Batman pajama pants, Boba Fett pajama pants, a Sriracha t-shirt, and I almost bought a Star Trek t-shirt but decided against it as the last movie was so damn bad. You can get t-shirts for everything from Guiness to The Big Bang Theory to A Song of Ice and Fire. I'll have to get all the t-shirts altered.

I asked if any of these were available in the women's section. Nope. For women? Boooyyyss, we're single! 

Do they think women just don't like sci-fi, Game of Thrones or delicious, delicious Sriracha? I like all of those things. What makes them think that a woman wouldn't love a pair of fuzzy Batman pajama pants or a baby Iron Man t-shirt or a Darth Vader sugar skull t-shirt? All of which I would totally wear. I would not wear Snoopy sporting a pink bow or anything that says "swag", "cute", "kiss me" or whatever on it. Also, no sparkles please.

I've also been watching an inordinate amount of TV, simply because it's quite novel to have a lot of channels to choose from in my native language. I've become strangely obsessed with Ellen's Design Challenge (I just love cool furniture I suppose), but was put off by the judges saying repeatedly that "women" would not like one designer's items. Here's an example of an item that is "masculine" and that "every man" would want in their home but hardly any women would buy (very close to what was actually said.

Both my sister and I were put off by this - I freaking love this fan...thing (it's a credenza, right?). I would TOTALLY buy that. I would probably never buy the more 'feminine' designs thought up by other designers. I happened to love this guy's "masculine" work - I'm all about interesting metals, industrial details and thick natural woods*. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was pissed at how the show categorized these designs as "for men", but it, along with the "now we shop in the men's section at Target" experience, has really made me think about whether the US is really better at all in terms of socially-conditioned gender stereotyping than Taiwan.

Sure, women in the US, at least my part of the US, get less blowback for expressing our not-always-feminine preferences and sensibilities, and in Taiwan a lot of women complain that they do. But I'm from the People's Republic of New York where we are all Communists, pornographers, homosexuals and Jews - I would wager that in other parts of the country it's much worse. And you won't see as many instances of Hello Kitty figurine collection or anything like that.

But really, I'm not even particularly anti-feminine - if even I, not the least feminine person you will meet (although certainly not the most) feels pigeonholed, like "this is for girls, that is for boys" in the USA, if even I feel like I have to shop in the men's section of Target to get cool t-shirts and get irritated at a TV show for implying that women don't like things that women obviously do like, as I'm a woman and I like them, then maybe we are not as progressive as we think, maybe Taiwan isn't so much worse or so much more sexist than we think, and maybe we need to get off our high horses about what it's like 'back home'.

Women still get a raw deal here, too.

*shut up

Not All Western Women Are Sluts, Because Sluts Don't Exist

Guys, I seriously love Jocelyn Eikenburg's blog, Speaking ofChina. The comments can get a little troll-y, but that's the downside to having a very popular blog (so maybe it's a plus that I don't have "a very popular blog!"). And I usually agree with her frank, openminded inquiries and stances on love in China, although I myself never did experience it.

But as a Western woman in Asia, as a Western woman, and as a woman, I have a small problem with the first item on this list of "stereotypes about Western women in China": "Western women are sluts and like to sleep around".

Basically, she says:

It took me years to learn that some Chinese men automatically assume Western women love to sleep around or are simply easy sex for the taking.

I blame it in part on the ubiquitous Hollywood movies and TV you’ll find in China at the local DVD vendor or online, where Western women’s sex lives often turn into a revolving door of one-night stands and disposable boyfriends.

Of course, we’re not all sluts.

I kind of wanted to scream - "if a revolving door of one-night stands and disposable boyfriends is what you want, then what's wrong with that?"

Saying "not all Western women are sluts" implies that there is something wrong with women who do choose temporary companionship over relationships, and that it's okay to judge them. And why shouldn't they? Maybe they have sexual desires like almost everyone else, but don't want or aren't in the right place for a relationship? As long as they're open about that, then that's their and their partners' business. It doesn't make them "sluts". 

So no, I don't blame it on "ubiquitous Hollywood movies and TV you'll find in China", I blame it on puritanical judgmental pricks who think it's okay to dictate what every woman's choices should be.

In fact, a man who takes a woman home, sleeps with her, and then the next day says "I'm just not in a place right now where I can commit to anything serious" would be seen as a cad if he'd led her on, but if he'd been honest with her, then there would be nothing wrong with that (she might be angry, but hey, he was honest with her. She knew what she was getting into). 

That is not to say I have a problem with the blog, and I'm sure Jocelyn didn't mean for it to be taken this way, but, to say "not all Western women are sluts" sounds good on the surface: look, we're multidimensional, and not all of us are Sex in the City-style swinging single women who view sexual conquest as a game or hobby! Woo!

Just a little below that, however, lurks the idea that for this to be true, sluts must exist. And if sluts exist, then it's okay to think of a woman with a longer sexual history than you might deem acceptable as one. It still puts forward only two choices for women: be a good girl, or be a dirty skanky slut. You don't want to be a slut, do you? Nobody likes a slut! Sluts are slutty and gross! Ew! Get your slut-juice off of me! So you'd better be a good girl. That means no sex, or at least, pretending there is none (to admit you are a sexual person is to admit you are a SLLLLLUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTT). Good girls don't have sex and they certainly don't enjoy it.

So, to say "not all Western women are sluts" implies that SOME Western women ARE sluts, and it's okay to think of them as such, which judges their behavior as wrong (again, I don't think Jocelyn herself meant to do this, but that's how the phrasing comes across). And, it's not wrong. It's just not.

And, following that, it implies that if you're an Asian guy who likes a Western woman, that the woman you like is "not a slut", which implies that in order to be acceptable, she must make a particular set of "not slutty" choices. Those choices need to be similar to the perceived choices of the local women (be they Taiwanese in Taiwan, Chinese in China, Korean in Korea etc) in order to "pass" - those same local women who don't always feel free to be open about their own histories and desires because they face the same sexist notion of what a "good girl" does, or the Western woman automatically becomes an "other". Nothing new in the stream of intercultural or gender discourse, except this time it's a group of people of color, mostly men, telling Caucasian women what choices they must make to be "acceptable". Which is not quite the same as the reverse problem - telling people of color they have to 'act white' - because being white confers privilege that being a person of color doesn't, but it sure shares some DNA with it. (Also, being male confers privilege that being a woman doesn't - as the universe giveth, the universe also taketh away). The whole thing, no matter who you are, never leads anywhere good.

Whereas the real progressive answer here isn't to refuse to stereotype all Western women (only some of them!)  as slutty slut-whores, but to acknowledge that some people make different choices, and some of those choices may be more libertine than yours (or more conservative than yours - that's okay too, as long as those same conservatives don't try to push their choices on everyone as the only morally correct option!) but there's nothing wrong with that as long as everyone's safe and legal (and even if they're not safe, that sucks, but it doesn't make them a bad person). So to me, the person who says "you're not like other Western women. You're not a slut! Now I see that Western women can make the right choices!" is still upholding only one set of choices as acceptable, and that's not good for women generally. That person doesn't get a pass from me. Either you acknowledge that women can make a variety of choices and it's not for anyone else to judge them, or you're a part of the problem.

Basically, forget "not all Western women are sluts". How about NO women are sluts? How about even if a Western woman (or an Asian woman for that matter! Or whatever woman!) makes choices you personally don't care for, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with her?

It does mean a lot to me that this be clear - perhaps if there is a stereotype that "all Western women are sluts", then I have to constantly be proving somehow that I'm not. But the only slightly less constricting "NOT ALL Western women are sluts" isn't really any better, because I STILL have to prove I'm not, only there is now room for the stereotype of a Western woman to include "makes the choices we approve of even if that's not what she'd prefer". How is that better? 

This doesn't even get a pass culturally. I am sure someone will read this and comment angrily that "if a man wants a woman who doesn't have a huge sexual past that's his right, if he wants a virgin then why can't he look for one?" There would be something to that argument if it went both ways, but those same men who claim they want a woman like this generally do not hold other men or often themselves to the same standard. He probably wouldn't judge his guy friends who slept around to be "sluts", nor is he likely to judge himself by the same standard (he may, but my point is he usually doesn't). Only the women they stick it in are sluts, not them. It's okay for men, but not for women, even though for the majority of us, it takes a man and a woman to do the hoingy-boingy dance. And that set of double standards is pretty fucked up. 

Which is really too bad as if men who felt that way about the kind of woman they would prefer to be with held themselves and other men to the same standard, then like could find like. There's nothing wrong with having your set of "traditional" values (although that's a loaded word, too), and wanting a partner with a similar worldview. The key is, you have to have those same values for yourself. If that happened, chaste men could find chaste women and libertine men could find libertine women. Okay.

Libertinism an attitude that doesn't always lead to action, by the way - I am quite libertine in my attitudes but actually very traditional, by 20 and 21st century standards, in my actual life. I don't mean that as an excuse, like, "women who sleep around aren't sluts but I'm definitely not even those women!" - but to point out that progressive thinking can exist within any chosen lifestyle. That's the whole point - we can all choose. Whether you choose monogamy, open relationships, booty calls or no relationships at all, it's all okay.

Plus, there's no cultural pass here because this "NO SLUTTY SLUTZ ALLOWED IN OUR CLUBHOUSE!" attitude is pervasive in the USA too. I'm not just speaking to Asian men, here. I'm speaking to everyone.

It's not "not all women are sluts". It's not "not all Western women are sluts". No women are sluts. No people are sluts. Sluts don't exist.

Bougainvillea

One of the nicest features of our apartment is that we have a really nice south-facing window with a spacious casement. It looks out over a courtyard with a small playground, not a road, so there aren't any exhaust fumes or loud traffic noises. The light is soft and indirect - perfect for an apartment in a subtropical city, but not great for growing plants. So we keep it simple: a few large plants that we inherited (I don't know what they're called), mint, a few orchids, a fern that took root in an old pot of soil gone to seed, and a big fat fuchsia bougainvillea.

On nice days, I like to open up the screens and occasionally stick my head out into the sunlit air and enjoy the leaves and flowers. I was doing that just the other day - head out, light streaming in, a slight breeze which rustled up the smell of the mint, and swirls and splatters of bright pink flowers. To maintain the "shades of blue" theme from the living room, we added (okay, I added) inexpensive blue glass candleholders and lanterns and had chiffon curtains in shades of green and blue tailor-made.

Side note: when I gave the fabric and design specs to the tailor, her reaction was "this fabric is too thin! You don't want everyone seeing in, don't you? Why not choose a thicker fabric that can keep out the sun, too? The sun will come right through this!"

"That's what we want, and anyway we don't mind if people can see into the living room, not that too many people can. And there are plants to hide the view inside," I bit back.

"You foreigners are so weird."

Convinced she had the right of it, she got to work on my curtains.

Anyway, looking out on those flowers, I became aware of something: it was a Thursday afternoon.

Life is pretty good. I make good money for Taiwan; we live downtown. How many people with apartments nice enough to enjoy the view and the air from their windows and live downtown can, in fact, look out their window to admire whorls of bougainvillea on a Thursday afternoon? Even in Taipei, most people were toiling away in offices. Night would be falling before they could leave.

So I was thinking.

One of the advantages of being an expat - especially if you're from a country with a wide-reaching, globally-influential pop culture (which, sorry other countries, I know that can be annoying), is that you get to watch your own culture evolve from a distance. You're totally fluent in the sociocultural language of your home country, but you're not there, which lends the whole thing a rarefied distance. Not unlike observing the terrain from a tiny airplane window far overhead.

I have a reasonably broad view for Taipei - more than just the street below (there is no street below) and the apartment across from you is considered a good view in the denser parts of this city, or any city, really. But I can see just one courtyard - a broad view of a small space. The view from that window, past those bougainvilleas and their thorns (did you know bougainvilleas had thorns? I didn't until I inherited one), out on a little slice of Taipei is narrower than my extreme wide-angle view of American goings-on - a broad view but from a tiny little window way up where jet planes fly.

And recently, that American pop culture terrain has been marked by the volcanic eruption that is Women. More specifically, Sheryl Sandberg. Her name is the most ubiquitous, it has the most cache abroad (most of the people I know in Taiwan have heard of her, too) and she, like a lava flow, has mostly succeeded in her concerted attempts to bring the discussion about how we treat working women to the forefront of cultural discourse.

I'm not sure if I'm 100% on board with what she says: I don't wish to contort myself into some pleasing, perfect aggressive-yet-feminine, strong-but-not-bitchy Gumby woman. I'd rather just be me, and if some boss who thinks he or she can either walk all over me or that I'm a "bitch" gives me problems, I'll walk away as soon as I'm able. And I'm not a mom, so her advice to working mothers doesn't really impact me much. If I wanted to devote lots of time to work, I could, with very few consequences. And I see what people mean when they say that she can take her own advice - she's a wealthy, established, distinguished woman at the top of the ladder. It's not exactly useful to single mothers trying to put food on the table with the pay from their job as a receptionist at, say, Southern Oconomowoc County Chiropractic Associates.

It's not only Sandberg, of course, I'm only picking the most famous name from among a few people participating in this conversation.

And what I hear again and again is how a lot of these women - not Sandberg, but others - who write about how being a working mom with a flexible job is a great choice, how it works for them, how more women should do it. Most of these women are writers. That's why they write about this, natch! Which is great, but those jobs tend not to have stable incomes (especially tough if you're single, whether or not you have kids), are often harder to pull of with kids at home than you'd think, and really not available as an option to the receptionist at - say - Southern Oconomowoc County Chiropractic Associates.

Either way, a lot of people - a lot of women especially - seem to covet the semi-freelance flex-time lifestyle. Some make it work, some are trying, some have it but only because they can afford to with a high-earning breadwinner partner, some feel like it's a windmill they're better off not tilting at.

Because, let's face it: it's hard to have that lifestyle in the USA unless you've got the backing of a stable breadwinner. Possible, but hard. I don't know about you, but "I'm freelance (because my husband works long hours in an office so we never have to worry about money)" wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I decided to strike out on my own, work-wise. Of course people do make it work, it's just a lot harder. In Taiwan - especially Taipei - it's much easier. I know a lot of people who are making it work without the burdens of living in the USA. I don't know if any of us would be as successful or self-sustaining in the USA. I've met quite a few independent artsy locals (artists, designers, writers) who manage to live independently on that salary in a way that few Americans would be able to. In some ways, Taipei is a city of independent shopfronts, of indie jewelry crafters, of writers, translators, journalists and editors striking out on their own. I don't see a lot of this in the USA except perhaps in Brooklyn, and I can guarantee we all have better standards of living than the indie and freelance folks there.

Which makes me think from my perch at 30,000 feet above my own culture, that it's really a damn shame that there aren't more expat women in Taiwan. If more expat women lived in Taiwan, more of them would realize that if they want, they can have that kind of life here more easily than in the USA.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that while some people can do it in the USA, I never would have been able to.

You can't get around to meet people, promote yourself and meet clients without a car, so there's a whole bunch of expenses. The only city where you can both live near public transportation and not have a car is New York, other cities don't have a good enough network for you to be able to rove about town making money. Sorry, DC, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago, but it's true. I strongly dislike driving - it would be a major change in lifestyle for me to have to do it, and a major expense I probably wouldn't be able to shoulder to buy and maintain a car with all of its associated costs. People without a lot of money buy cars all the time, sure, but imagine doing it on the freelancer money I'd be making. Yeah, not so much.

If your clients tend not to drive you'll also want to live near public transportation if it's available. Or, if you just want to avoid driving as much as possible, you'll want that too, without having to schlep a mile to the nearest MRT station. So, that'll be a much higher rent or mortgage payment for you. We could conceivably live near-ish a subway station on the American equivalent of my freelance career plus whatever Brendan would do, but it wouldn't be downtown. Forget it. I could not do what I do here and live where I do in the USA. Anywhere in the USA.

Living expenses are astronomical, too. At least, compared to Taiwan, they feel that way. In Taiwan, in months where I earn less, we can squeeze by surprisingly cheaply. We managed it for months without significant problems while doing Delta Module One, when for all intents and purposes I was working part time. You can budget and squeeze in the USA, too, but just not quite to the same degree. In Taiwan it was a matter of "maybe we don't need fancy Belgian beer this weekend". In the USA it would be "maybe ramen is a fine dinner idea every night this week".

In short, I could do it, but my lifestyle would suffer so much that it wouldn't really be the same. I could either have the lifestyle I do now, but work all week and miss out on those sunny Thursday afternoons enjoying the flowers of my labor, or I could have the work schedule I do now but live in a dank little view-less apartment far from downtown and a schlep to everywhere. Other people make it work, but I know that I likely wouldn't be one of them. For everyone who can shout out their windows to the bright, wide world that it's "fine for them! Try it out!", I bet there are ten more people who just wish their windows faced something other than a wall.

Until recently, I wouldn't have been able to pull it off because of this little thing called health care. I'm healthy, but not robustly so. I have had back problems (seem to be fine now) and occasionally get bronchial infections. I get migraines. My family history is riddled with heart problems, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's and a few other fun things, too. I need, need, need health insurance. Taiwan makes that happen for me. The USA...well, we have Obamacare now, and I'm curious about whether that would work for me. But when I left, I couldn't have gone freelance, or entrepreneur, or even worked for a company that didn't have a health insurance benfit, because quite simply I could not afford the health insurance. 

It wasn't a matter of budgeting: in the USA I budgeted myself into rice and lentils, rice&beans, cheap bread and pasta, frozen veggies and carrot sticks with apple slices because carrots and apples were cheap. And I still wouldn't have been able to afford my own health insurance: on an entry-level salary I could barely afford one of the cheaper company plans. Obviously working in companies one would either get promoted or look for something better (not that I thought about such things much back then, within a year I was plotting my return to Asia having decided that the cube monkey life was not for me), but how does one strike out on one's own when one can't afford basic health care?

Side note: this is one reason I will basically never vote for Republicans. Also the "weak track record on women's rights and their party platforms are bigoted against LGBT people", but a big part of it is that they talk big about entrepreneurial spirit, but don't do anything to help would-be entrepreneurs like me. I didn't need lower taxes - I needed health insurance I could afford.

Back to the main topic.

So, while I realize my experience is not the only experience, and my view is not the only view, it's unbearably clear to me that there's no way I could both maintain the lifestyle I have (those gorgeous bougainvilleas in that spacious, sunny, convenient downtown apartment) and have the time to enjoy it (those random weekday afternoons free), as a freelancer in the USA.

I have what a lot of people, especially (but not only) women, want. The freedom to do the job I love on my terms, with flexible time and good pay. I can both have my bougainvilleas and enjoy them, too.

I have this because Taiwan has made it possible. I could not have this in the USA. Even when I needed a visa to stay in Taiwan, I was able to have my own side interests and private classes and more-or-less have flex-time work. It would be remarkably easy for a lot of American women, sick of dealing with sexist workplaces, sick of being told to "lean in" or contort themselves, sick of having someone else dictate when they worked and for how much pay (less than men's), to grab a job that provided an ARC in Taiwan for a few hours a week of English teaching or whatever, and use their extra time to pursue their freelance side work, until they could get permanent residency and chase their dream full-time, or full-ish time - whatever time could be scheduled around not "leaning in", but leaning out of their sunny windows and enjoying a spray of bougainvillea, orchids and mint on a weekday afternoon.

But they're not here, and something tells me they're not coming.

It's too bad. I'd like to share my bougainvilleas.

Normal Women Existing

Image borrowed - please don't sue me! - from here

Yesterday I was sitting on the Taipei MRT in one of those sections where seats run along the walls rather than sticking out in pairs. Across from me there was a string of women - one dozing, one on her phone, one reading, one just sitting. They spanned several decades in (guesstimated) age and were for all intents and purposes, totally normal. Not a one of them looked much like any of these women:

 

From here, here, here and here

(I had to google "asian women haircuts" to even get a search results page not full of softcore porn, but I suppose that'd be true for any search involving photos of women - we're objectified no matter our race). 

I don't mean to say that a beautiful woman can not also be a normal woman, although I don't buy into the "everyone is (physically) beautiful" myth: everyone is beautiful in multidimensional ways, but some people do possess more physical beauty than others and most of us are just average. So those who are notably physically attractive are, in some sense, not normal. That's not a bad thing, or a good one - it just is. 

There was nothing unusual about seeing this group of average women, who ranged from ponytail-sporting student to mom-with-kids to office worker to obasan. But it got me thinking about one tendency in male expat circles to fetishize Asian women (BIG IMPORTANT NOTE: that's not the same thing at all as dating an Asian woman or loving an Asian woman. I'm talking more about the way some expat men - and men back home, too, to be honest - talk about Asian women, and not touching at all anything having to do with relationships). 

You know, the usual: they're all so beautiful, they're so cute, they're so slender, it seems like all of them are! You can't walk down the street without seeing a gaggle of Asian beauties! It's not like my home country, where most women are frumpy, fat or ugly and you only sometimes see ones who look okay. Asian women (all Asian women, apparently - this statement is never qualified) are just so lovely and slim and cute.

There's nothing wrong with seeing beauty and admiring it, but these statements, and the thoughts behind them, are pernicious in several ways.

First, there's a very strong tendency to use these statements to imply that all, or most, or a disproportionate number of women in Taiwan (or whatever country - I am talking about Taiwan because I live here) are somehow better or more beautiful than women in whatever your home country is. And I just don't think that's true. From my observation, anyway, every country has its attractive people, it's majority of average people, and its not-so-physically-attractive people, in roughly the same proportion. To insist that Taiwan has more gorgeous women is to imply a sort of fetishization or racialization: this race is better than that race. Taiwanese women are better than women in my home country...based on what? What's different, other than race? 

I don't see them as all that different. I get on the New York subway, I see a string of average women and a Dr. Zizmor ad. I get on the Seoul metro, I see a string of average women and a plastic surgery ad. I get on the Taipei MRT and I see a string of average women and an overly-photoshopped ad. 

So that attitude diminishes some women based on their race, and elevates other women based on their race, based on very little evidence. 

What that does is imply that all you see are the beautiful ones - which may be true, and in fact probably is true - while not seeing the average ones at all. As though they don't exist. Of course a country would have lots of beautiful women if all you saw - the only ones who existed to you - were beautiful women.

Which leads me to my second point - it adds a layer of invisibility on any woman who does not fall within those magical parameters, if the thing you say most often about the people in your adopted country is how beautiful the women are. It means you don't see all the women who fall in the fat belly of the bell curve. They are quite literally invisible to you; they do not exist. That is a shitty thing to do to anyone. It comes very close to saying - if it does not say outright - that women who do not meet your standards for beauty don't get to be a part of the universe. 

It means you don't notice the diversity of the society whose country you are living in - whose country took you in (perhaps grudgingly - we know how Immigration can be - but they did). It means you don't notice every grandma, every makeup-less office worker, every mom with kids, every manager in a power suit with pumps, every artsy type, every expat woman (not to mention every Taiwanese man - although that's a different post). Even when they're in your field of vision. Even when you are at the same event. 

And don't think we haven't noticed how that manifests in real life. Have you ever had to lead a seminar while your horndog co-teacher salivates over the two pretty female students (and ignores the fortysomething female manager, and the makeup-free student in a plain singlet and ponytail)? Have you ever been walked right into by men and women who buy into the beauty myth, because they either don't see you, or don't think they should have to make space for you so that you can also have space in the world? Have you ever had a shoulder bump, when you saw someone coming and swerved your shoulder, figuring that was all you had to do to make space, while the other person moved not at all and whacked into you anyway - as though you were supposed to make all of the space and they were not required to make any? Have you ever felt unwelcome at an expat meetup because the demographics of the attendees were: average expat men, some above-average attractive Asian woman, one or two average Asian women, and you? And so you and the other average-looking women talk amongst yourselves because you are completely ignored by everyone else? Have you ever read expat blogs or Facebook posts and noticed how often they talk about "Taiwanese cuties" as though they are the only women who exist in Taiwan? As though the only people who exist in Taiwan are "Taiwanese cuties", white men (them - and they are almost entirely white), and maybe their boss? No average women, certainly no expat women, average or not, no older women, and no Taiwanese men of any age? Have you ever seen an older woman - an obasan - get seriously manhandly because yet another person has tried to claim her space on the sidewalk and she's had to literally push to get it back? 

For me, it's a big fat "YEAH" on all of these. And the myth of "all the beautiful Asian ladies" perpetuates it. If it's all the beautiful Asian ladies, then the not-physically-beautiful ladies, of any race, simply don't exist.

I know I'm going to get some shitty comments like "well I think Taiwanese women are just so pretty, but that doesn't mean I ignore other women or Taiwanese men, I notice them too!". Sure. This doesn't mean that every guy who has this attitude towards women in Taiwan walks right into other people on the street - or expects them to move - or that they totally ignore any other people. Just that these attitudes run in tandem and one feeds the other.

Finally, but briefly - it perpetuates a sense of competition among women - women who have bought into the beauty myth, anyway. I don't blame them for buying into it: there are a lot of rewards to playing that game, if you win, or even if you rank. If I thought I could rank, there's a chance I'd take a hard dive into the shallow end too. If it's all the beautiful Asian ladies, then the average Asian ladies feel pressure to try harder to get into that world. Whether or not they give into that pressure, or take care with their physical appearance for their own reasons, is another blog post that I probably won't be making, because while I can talk about a woman's experience in Asia, I can only go so far in talking about Asian women. I'm not an Asian woman; I do not really have that experience. It's just not my turf.

It's what drives commentary that runs along the lines of: if you don't like how you are ignored in favor of Asian women (not a word about how other, less "cute" and "lovely" Asian women are also ignored), then try harder! Slim down, buy some cute clothes, put on makeup, try harder! Basically - don't like the game? Compete anyway! My approval must matter to you. (Fortunately, it doesn't). As though it doesn't matter if the game is valid or not - we all must play. Refusing to play is blasphemy.

It's also what commentary that assumes that everyone who mentions racial fetishization of Asian women - or the comparative non-existence of any person who is not an attractive Asian woman, feels either bitter or threatened. I would not say I'm bitter - annoyed, angry, yes, but not bitter. I do not need or want the approval of these people; but I will insist that I exist. I don't need flirty attention (not only do I not want it from them, but I get all I need at home with my husband, thanks), but I will insist that my race and my looks not demote me to someone who deserves less respect as a human being. I am not threatened: I neither need nor want these men to be attracted to me. I'm not even in the game - I'm married. I simply want to exist. 

That's why it is simply not okay. 

It's time to notice the grandmas. It's time to notice the women over thirty. It's time to notice the moms and the managers, the wrinkled and the portly, the plain-faced and bespectacled, the tired-eyed care workers, the makeupless and the (oh horror) Western. You don't have to be attracted to us, you just have to acknowledge that we exist and treat us accordingly. That means teaching a seminar rather than ogling students. That means giving us space on the sidewalk. That means listening to us without condescension. That means stopping with the whole "Asian women are all so gorgeous!" bullshit, because they're not. Some are. Some aren't. It means acknowledging that someone other than a fellow male expat or a pretty Asian woman might have something of worth to offer, and respecting that person accordingly.

I'm back! And the anthology my work is included in has arrived!

I haven't posted this month because I spent most of it in the US, attending a friend's wedding and visiting family. 

I came home to a keyboard that won't type the letter "f" (I have to copy-paste), dead plants, two healthy but upset cats, a destroyed paper lamp, stuff otherwise taken care of. But overall I'd say more bad than good. 

But I also came home to this! My paper copy of "How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia". I've already read it, of course, but it's nice to have a real paper copy of a book you're included in, in your hands, in real physical print. 

"How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Strories of Expat Women in Asia" launches today!

Guess what!

I'm currently in Seoul - not permanently, just for a short vacation - on the way to the USA to attend my friend's wedding. After our tour of the DMZ, we took refuge from the afternoon rain in a traditional hanok (think like an old-school courtyard house of the similar type found in many East Asian countries, but this one is Korean)-turned-coffeeshop. I'd post photos, but blogging on an iPad is not easy, and I'll have to skip that for now.

And guess what else!

"How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia" launches today! It's available on Amazon as an e-book and paperback, through Barnes&Noble, Apple and several other outlets (check the editor's blog for more information) and coming soon to select bookstores in Hong Kong.

If you're interested in knowing more about the anthology, and my contribution to it, check out Taiwanxifu's review of the anthology focusing on my contribution, titled "Gods Rushing In". 

It's not available in paperback in Taiwan unless you want to pay preposterous shipping charges, so if any Taiwan based folks want a copy in paperback - if e-books just don't do it for you or you want to show off to your friends by having it on your bookshelf - let me know (you can leave a comment with your e-mail address here. I won't publish it, because I bet you wouldn't want your e-mail address broadcast to the world as a spammable or hackable account, but I will get back to you and can arrange a paperback copy).

I'm really excited about this - I'd known it was coming for awhile but it's something different for it to be real, for the book to be available. Even one story in an anthology is something, especially as it is the first thing - other than job reporting on local issues in a regional newspaper in high school - I'd ever really submitted for publication. I saw the call to submissions on a lark, I thought about writing something and put it off for weeks...then on the day submissions were due I sat down in a coffeeshop and hammered mine out. I didn't even proofread it - I gave it to Brendan to read, made a few adjustments as per his recommendations and sent it off...as a first draft. What the hell, right? May as well see what happens.

One always imagines writing as a career - or a side hobby, or freelance gig - as something that you have to toil at for years, submitting manuscripts, stories or pitching ideas, and facing rejection after rejection before you get one fateful acceptance. And I know that while I can write, I'm not the most talented writer ever to walk the earth - I can write, but so can millions of other people. There is nothing particularly unique about my writing ability. So, given all this, I certainly did not expect that my first draft "what the hell" submission would be accepted. I was, frankly, surprised to be proven wrong. What the hell indeed!

I may have written all of that in a post before - I can't remember - but it's what I'm thinking now.

So, I hope you'll check it out. Everyone who contributed to "How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit" put a lot of work and a lot of heart into their contribution, and I do believe - after having read it myself - that it is worth your time.

Happy reading!

Keep Her on the Pole

I'm sure some of you have heard of the just-common-enough-to-be-noticeable practice of hiring dancing girls or strippers (or both) at certain functions in Taiwan: notably weddings, funerals (yes, funerals) and temple festivals.



Well, I came across some at the Baosheng Cultural Festival this weekend, and it got me thinking about an old topic that I thought I'd written about but actually haven't: is Taiwan as "conservative", or at least as sexually conservative, as people think?









There's no clear answer to this but I would put my bets on "no". Not just because of the "pole dancers for the gods" driving around Taipei on the back of retrofitted Jeeps, but for a number of reasons.

My New Life in Asia covered this awhile ago, and his post is worth reading. However, I feel it only covers one aspect of Taiwan's (lack of) sexual conservatism, at least compared to the rest of Asia. Which is good - keeping focus and all - but there's more to explore.

He focused mostly on women leveraging their sex appeal for financial gain, and businesses and marketing doing the same. And there's certainly truth to that: between booth babes, beer girls, betel nut beauties and the blatant hiring favoritism of attractive women over unattractive ones or, in some industries, over men (even attractive men), there's definitely less taboo centered around leveraging female sex appeal in Taiwan - to the point that it sometimes makes my feminist skin crawl.

And the pole dancing girls definitely fit that aspect of Taiwan's relative progressiveness, so I'll talk about them first.

I can't explain the "weddings and funerals" thing when it comes to hired dancing girls - and it doesn't happen all that often at either - but it's common enough at temple festivals that a few of my friends have come across it so far. Once at the Baosheng Cultural Festival, once at God Pig in Hsinchu - and I did see my share of scantily clad "baton girls" with marching bands at the Matsu pilgrimage kick-off.




But why? To quote one of my students: "they do that to show respect to the god. That god probably wants people to have more and more babies and this...helps. And the god should enjoy it too."

And certainly nobody seemed to disapprove - men and boys watching obviously enjoyed the show, but notably, they were doing so right in front of their mothers, wives, grandmothers, daughters and sisters, who also didn't seem to mind (some were even cheering - even grandmas). The dancing took place in front of temples and nobody thought this was declasse or inappropriate (although certainly among Taiwanese who don't commonly watch temple parades for fun, you'll find folks who do think it's declasse). The women certainly didn't think they were doing anything wrong or shameful.

That's significant - there's truth to the idea that whether you approve of it or not, the female body and its appeal does move product. Sex sells.



Until the human race evolves beyond finding sexualized marketing appealing, it's going to happen (just like any number of social ills: abortion, divorce, premarital sex etc.. There's no sense railing against it, because it's going to happen. You have to build your fight for a better world around accepting that fact). The pragmatism of just accepting that rather than wringing hands and clutching pearls, while bracing at times, can also be refreshing.

But there really is more to Taiwan's progressivism than that. So, here are a few reasons why I don't think Taiwan is as sexually conservative as people think, and is definitely not as sexually conservative as most of East Asia.

1.) Love motels -







In the USA they're seen as gross, seedy places where all sorts of nastiness goes down. And certainly Taiwan must have a few grody love motels. But ask most locals and they'll say there's nothing wrong with pay-by-the-hour "rest" establishments, that they're a social necessity in a country where people often live with parents until they marry, and often afterwards as well, or share smaller spaces with multiple generations. Maybe it's a boyfriend and girlfriend looking for somewhere to go when they both live with their parents, or a married couple who needs to get away from Grandma and the Kids, or a truck driver and a prostitute, an extramarital affair or just some kids looking to party. Who knows, who cares, it's nobody else's business and people respect that. And I love it - no moralizing, no soapboxes, no bible-thumping, just not your business, stay out of it, sex is a thing people have.

Thanks to my Christian Guilt (I was not raised Catholic but the guilt thing is very real), the first time Brendan and I (unwittingly) stayed at a love motel, I was a bit embarrassed walking outside (we'd realized it was a love motel after we checked in). It felt like I was on a reality show, looking around shifty-eyed: Who's Judging Me Now? Once I realized nobody was, it made me wonder why this wasn't how things were everywhere else in the world.

And they're openly advertised as such, in ways that could ostensibly point to both male and female desires: Secret Love Motel (advertised with huge LED signs off the main road - nothing too secret about it, ey?), Eden Exotica (home of the Batman Room!), I Need Motel etc. and pictures of hearts or, in one establishment's case in Yonghe, a man and woman making out. The woman sure seems to be into it. The fact that the signs can get that racy at all means that there's just not much of a big deal surrounding them. I could see such a place in the USA being picketed by angry evangelicals.

2 - Prostitution exists (DUH) but it's less acceptable to be a john...not because sex is wrong, but because "decent guys" do it for love.

I feel like in a lot of other countries (*cough* China *cough*), it's still a social "thing" that a man can both be a "decent guy" in the eyes of society, and be someone who visits prostitutes and playboys it up, even when he is in a relationship (assuming it's not an open relationship). It's like, the fact that that guy blatantly cheats on his partner is utterly irrelevant to whether he's a good guy - perhaps because more people think that all men do it, so there's nothing wrong with it and it's women's job to accept and forgive.

Setting aside whether it's OK to visit prostitutes (I err on the side of "no" just because of all the exploitation of women that goes on in that industry, including, if not especially, in Asia, but I'm not against a woman choosing to enter sex work if she chooses to), I feel like while Taiwan has its share of prostitutes (I wouldn't, as My New Life In Asia calls it, say "Taipei is a city of lust" though - it's about as lustful as any other city or even group of humans who live together in a society, no more and no less), that if a man wants to be seen as a "decent guy", a 君子, in society, that man can't (openly, at least) sleep around when he's in a relationship or married.

Note: I'm not including men who sleep around or visit prostitutes when single in this analysis, because that's a different discussion.

I know, I know. Some of you are going to say "doesn't that mean Taiwan is more sexually conservative, not less?" No. To me, that's a sign of progressivism, not conservatism because it includes a feminist perspective into ideas about sex. Openly breaking your romantic promises if you're a man (but not a woman!) is actually a symptom of a sexually repressive society, not an open one. A society in which sex shouldn't be enjoyed by women, and is entirely the privilege of men. That's not openness, it's the opposite! In an open society, that sort of behavior tends to decline because people are more likely to form happy, healthy relationships in which both partners are satisfied.

Oh yeah, and male escorts exist too.

3 - There's been an uptick in using male sex appeal in advertisements and media -

DONE.

OMG Takeshi.

I have heard that apparently 3G service slowed down significantly at Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT when this ad took up an entire wall, and that it was mostly due to women taking pictures of it and sending it to their friends or posting it on social media. That could be apocryphal, but I really hope it isn't. Because OMG Takeshi.

4 - Sex jokes are surprisingly acceptable, especially at weddings but even in other situations -
No really, you wanna hear about the time my friends got married and their friends stuck a banana between his legs and made her eat it? I don't really wanna talk about that time, but I can't imagine most people from a "conservative" country thinking it's OK to pull those stunts in front of someone's grandparents.

What's more, I've found that if I have had a student or group of students for a long time, and they make mistakes that sound hilariously dirty ("I asked her if she could do my English tutor", "I gave my wife a Wang Steak for Mother's Day", "My presentation is in three man parts", "Be careful or he'll knock you up" (they meant "knock you out"), "I like to take out my member to play on Friday night" (he meant he liked to go out with his team members), "My salary is too low, I think. My other friends have big packages but I have a small package", "We will have an oral contest next week to see who does the best oral" etc., I can usually just tell them why they can't say that, and it's wonderfully funny.



Plus you can buy these t-shirts and much, much more in terms of horrible things on clothing.

5 - Sex ed advertisements and pamphlets are much more "open" here than in the USA -




Some of you "enlightened topless Europeans" may disagree, but in the USA it's quite rare to see too many sex ed public service announcements, and how much of it you get in school differs by state. I know Taiwanese schools aren't great at this, but they seem to do a better job of it than any other country in Asia (correct me if I'm wrong), and I've definitely seen pamphlets like the above (nevermind the English - a workman must sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well indeed!) and TV ads on the MRT station TVs that show two cartoon lovers going to a motel, then the cartoon motel starts shaking, and there's an admonishment to wear protection.

Of course, there is a flip side to this - plenty of women don't seem to know how their anatomy even works ("if I wear a tampon, won't I lose my virginity? If I wear a tampon, won't I be unable to pee?") or think that sleeping in the same bed with a man carries a risk of pregnancy. This could definitely be improved.

6 - A majority of Taiwanese are either not opposed to, or actively support, marriage equality, family planning and reproductive freedom -

You don't really hear any objections to the use of contraception (except perhaps by in-laws who want grandchildren yesterday to carry on the Chen family name, because it's in danger of dying out or something), I've not really heard many people ever speak out against the legality of abortion (which is only covered by health insurance if done for certain reasons, but is legal) - at least, the dialogue never gets as vehement and sexist and downright hateful and shameful (on the part of certain conservatives) as it does in the USA, and recent surveys indicate widespread, even majority support for marriage equality.

I've never heard of a "conservative" society being mostly in favor of granting marriage rights to all.

Oh yeah, and support, at least in artistic form, for transgender people exists, too!

7 - There's been an uptick in PDA -

A lot of people writing about Taiwan write about how PDA just isn't done here, it's kind of rude to do that in public, whatever-whatever. I have to wonder what part of Taiwan they're in. Perhaps that's true in rural areas, but I see all sorts of PDA in Taipei - butt-touching on escalators, kissing, hugging, all that stuff. And then a few extreme examples that have attained national prominence, too, like this one, which produced some amazing viral meme material (known locally as "kuso", from a Japanese word), much of which you can find here, including the image above. Or the time a couple made the news for riding a scooter together, the woman sitting astride her boyfriend as he drove (clothes on) - can't find the link for that, but it happened.

8 - For every "using a hot girl to sell product" advertisement, there's another one either implying that their product will give you a big dong, or that guys with big dongs use that product -

I've been trying without success to find the link for some of these products - I don't exactly need them, seeing as I haven't got the organ in question, so hunting in English would be difficult enough. Can't find it at all hunting in Chinese.

But every time I take a taxi with a little TV in the back, there's this commercial where a guy in a blue shiny suit dances around happily until he goes to his girlfriend's house, and it's obvious what they're going to do. Then you see a cartoon blue bird wave at you before growing huge muscles - the product is basically some sort of male enhancement ("blue bird" is local slang for that particular appendage).

And let's not forget how readily available Chinese medicinal remedies are for men who need a little help.

9 - The Kaohsiung Sex cafe exists, yes, and even outside of it I have seen more depictions of sex organs (and underwear just dancing in the breeze, or worn outside by old guys) in Taiwan in 8 years than I saw in 24 years in the USA -



Just not sure I believe many people in a "conservative" country would hang their underwear to dry on an old placard carved with Chinese Nationalist slogans. For women's unmentionables, scroll through here. 

10 - The slang. Oh, the slang.

Taiwanese swearing, when not referencing shit ("shit face", "shock you into shitting green", "Eat shit!"), references sex acts and sex organs far more than you'd think the language, even the dirty language, of a "conservative" country does. There's a slang term for "like throwing a sausage down a hallway" (the Taiwanese translates as "a stick of bamboo in the well"), the two worst insults out there are stinky (man parts) and stinky (woman parts), and an effective way to say that one is angry is to say "My dick is full of fire!", and of course the usual slew of slurs directed at one's mother, but that's true in every culture. I just don't see a "conservative" culture translating "I'm SO ANGRY" as "my dick is full of fire", I'm sorry.

11 - Well, as I said above, pole dancing for the gods. Not only is it totally normal, but the crowds in the street cheering on the pole dancers weren't just men of all ages, but women too. 

12 - Magazines in 7-11 and Zhu Geliang movies - 

Seriously, any kid or grandma can see this at the checkout at 7-11 (sometimes they put it in the magazine rack in back, sometimes they don't, or what's at the register is far racier). 

Brendan disagrees with me about Zhu Geliang, whom I have most recently seen on an advertisement on the side of a bus for his new movie while a woman, ostensibly measuring him for inseam length, is actually measuring his man bits. In another movie, someone kicks him in said man bits and the shot cuts to two eggs cracking over a frying pan.

from here

I say that's a sign that Taiwan is not that conservative. Brendan says "well, it's really no racier than old Benny Hill movies. You know, sex jokes for our grandparents." But for me, the fact that softcore pornographic magazines are not only sold in 7-11, but are right there on the checkout counter where every child and grandma can see them, boobs out and everything, seals the deal. Every country has porn, but "conservative" ones don't put it right at the cash register.

Oh, and one of those magazines is called "Sexy Nuts", which I think is hilarious.

13 - Reproductive health and contraception are all easy to come by, and for women, everything but contraception is free (contraception should be free, but that's another post) - 

"Conservative" countries don't provide free pap smears to women after age 30, nor do they make it extremely easy to buy condoms and birth control pills with no shame attached, no stealing about, no red faces.

* * *

Of course there's more work to be done. Abortion shouldn't only be covered for certain reasons, we need better education towards gender equality, contraception of all types should be available for all at an affordable price for all (see the comments of that post for more on that topic), sex ed in schools needs to be more comprehensive, and there are still folks out there who have old-fashioned ideas about what families should look like, who can be gay ("I don't care if some stranger is gay, but NOT MY SON!" is a common sentiment, but then that's true in the USA too), and how "pure" a woman should be before marriage (again, that's also common in the USA where slut-shaming is surprisingly common).

But overall, I would not say that I find Taiwan to be terribly conservative. I would not say I find it to have rigid, old-school morals. I'd say, if anything, it's the most progressive country in Asia vis-a-vis these issues and in some areas, can compete with the USA when it comes to open-mindedness.



After all conservative societies don't have very many protesters who make signs like this, and have their message get so popular that someone makes a series of stickers based on it to pass out to the public. Which happened. I have one.