Trigger Warning: APISAA trauma; mentions of sexualization and sexual violence, etc. This content could be triggering for some.
I.What is Fetishization?
Fetishization is defined as a sexual interest in an object, a part of the body that is not a sexual organ, or a person as if they are an object. Specifically, racial fetishization is objectifying someone and racializing their body, using sexual fantasy to further dehumanize someone. Specifically pertains to the ongoing violent experience of fetishization of APISAA community and APISAA women, these fetishized practices / violence often draws on Orientalist tropes that seeks to exoticized and alienates APISAA women–cementing the trope of the ‘perpetual foreigner’ and ‘unassimilable person’.
II. Racialized Gender Violence
Fetishization has been known to play a role in occurrences of racialized gender violence. 1 in 3 Asian American and Pacific Islander women experienced sexual assault victimization. Moreover, 23% AAPI experienced contact sexual violence, 10% experienced completed or attempted rape, and 21% had non-contact unwanted sexual experiences. During the pandemic, 68% of the incidents reported to Stop AAPI Hate—a nonprofit organization that tracks self-reported incidents of hate and discrimination against APISAA community—between March 2020 - March 2021 targeted women. These statistics do not stand in isolation, but come from a violently exclusionist history of U.S immigration and exploitation. This gender violence is rooted in a fetishizing history that seeks to objectify, exoticize, and hypersexualize APISAA women.
III. Origins
Asian fetishization is also known as “yellow fever.” This term originated in the 18th & 19th century when Euro-Americans highlighted Chinoiserie—adapting Chinese and other East Asian styles in Western art, which objectified Asian female bodies as ornaments. This history has had a considerable influence on the portrayal of Asian women in pop culture. Idea of geishas, or female Japanese artists trained in traditional Japanese performing arts, has contributed to the stereotype of Asian women as submissive (Britney 2021). Asian women have historically been portrayed as one of two archetypes: the “Dragon Lady,” who is exotic and dominant or the “Lotus Blossom,” who is sexually subservient to white men. Popular films portray these tropes, such as “Madame Butterfly” and “Kill Bill: Vol 1” (Ryu 2022).
The 1967 James Bond film “You Only Live Twice” also features two Asian women as Bond girls. While it is impressive as Asian women are rarely featured in popular films, the movie portrays Ling, played by Tsai Chin, through both the “Lotus Blossom” and “Dragon Lady” stereotypes. Ling plays into Bond’s sexual pleasure and portrays herself as submissive while she threatens Bond’s life a moment later, manipulating her sexuality. While the “Dragon Lady” stereotype may initially seem positive because it goes against the stereotype of Asian women as submissive, it is yet another extreme stereotype because it portrays them as violent and hyper-sexualized. Though these two stereotypes are significantly different, they sexualize Asian women and force them into “male-driven fantasy.”
Image Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023169/
IV. History of Colonization, Orientalism & Gender Violence
U.S Imperialism
Southeast Asian countries have a history of colonization, violence & imperialism from Western countries such as during the Vietnam War & Indochina Conflict. During these conflicts, white soldiers sexually assaulted Asian women while they were deployed in these countries. Throughout the Korean war, Philippine-American war, and Vietnam War, there were various instances of the U.S military soliciting sex workers and patronizing industries that encouraged sex trafficking. The legacy of western imperialism has contributed to fetishizations and sexual violence towards Southeast Asian women.
U.S. Immigration History
The Page Act of 1875 prohibited immigration of women to America for “immoral” purposes, which presumed (im)migrant women as prostitutes in order to uphold bachelor societies so that Chinese men could remain as laborers. The Page Act has left a violently dehumanizing and vicious legacy for the APISAA community and immigrant populations. It reinforces the perception that Asian women coming to America are prostitutes and temptations. Simultaneously, it upholds and institutionalizes a history of hypersexualization of Asian women. Which, in turn, fostered the over-prevalence of Asian women in pornography, the mail-order bride phenomenon (MOB), the Asian fetish syndrome.
Specifically, the MOB phenomenon refers to international marriage brokerage agencies. “Mail order brides” are usually from developing countries, such as the Philippines, Thailand, and Cambodia, as well as Japan, Korea, etc. Many come from less privileged backgrounds. These women register with MOB agencies in search of a spouse. Often, such practices happen in the context of white soldiers being deployed in these areas. At times these are also of women who are in search of a new life due to the circumstances of their inhabited nation. However, the term “mail order bride” is demeaning and highlights an unequal relationship based on asymmetrical power relations that disempowered ethnic women, contributing to the commoditization of the women who are involved in the exchange (Sarker).
V. White Sexual Imperialism
Orientalism & Sexism
Orientalism is defined as “Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said 19778). The foundation for Orientalism perpetually treats the APISAA community as the ‘forever foreigner’, leading to the exoticization and hyper-sexualization of Asian women to uphold this violent logic. A quote from 1999 by Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter highlights the convergence of orientalism and sexism: “[the local] women are usually the creatures of a male power-fantasy. They express unlimited sensuality, they are more or less stupid, and above all they are willing.” When a woman's sexuality is surrendered, the nation is more or less conquered, thus, a sexual conquest of Asia’s women correlates with the conquest of Asia itself, which is the idea of white sexual imperialism. White sexual imperialism arises out of America’s history of militarism and imperialism in Asia, and this kind of rhetoric instills Asia as a place to dominate and fetishize.
America’s persistent military presence in Asia has led to an occupation of Asian women’s bodies. Camp towns surround military bases, where there is a strong presence of sex work with participation from GIs and soldiers–through these institutionally erected camps. There was an association of being in Asia with sex workers, even though Asians are not more likely to be sex workers than any other race or culture. This simply reinforces attitudes that permission is granted to Asian women’s bodies.
The disparate power dynamic arising out of these degrading imperialistic practices led to exploitative relationships, founded on the notion of unlimited sexual access to Asian women. Inexpensive and continual access through those camp towns contributes to the notion that Asian women’s bodies are just for white male pleasure and may be treated as an object for western consumption and the satisfaction of western desires. The vestige of Western imperialism has left women of color subordinate to white men even today.
Atlanta Spa shooting (2021)
On March 16, 2021, a white man shot and killed eight victims. Six of the victims were Asian women at Atlanta-area spa and massage parlors. It is important to note that not all massage businesses provide sexual services. So, to assume as such, as the suspect of the attack did, is a racist assumption, one that is immensely tied to the fetishization of Asian women. Asian women seem to exist solely to derive sexual gratification from as hypersexed and unconditionally submissive. This tragic shooting is a tripartite combination of imperialist thought, racial inequality, and sexual inequality that perpetuate violence against Asian women by white men.
VI. Examples of Fetishization
There are generalized beliefs that Asian women are experts in Anime, animation originating from Japan, as well as hypersexualized stereotypes about their anatomy. Asian women are often criticized as being “whitewashed,” or not being Asian enough, when they are not matching “exotic” preconceptions. Another example of fetishization is saying that someone resembles a popular Korean celebrity. Pornography that portrays Asian wearing ethnic clothing also leads to exotification and hypersexualization. Some common archetypes of Asian women, aside from the lotus flower and dragon lady stereotype, are Temptress, Alien, and Manipulator.
VII. Impact on Asian Women
Because of positive stereotypes of Asian women as exotic & beautiful, people may brush off fetishization as appreciation or attraction. However, fetishization oversimplifies Asian women and strips them of their individuality, making them feel depersonalized to an object. Asian fetishization upholds a power hierarchy where Asian women are “exotic” individuals, further asserting the perpetual foreigner and so inferior that they cannot exist in the same world as white individuals. Nancy Wang Yuen, sociology & author of “Reel Inequality,” eloquently reveals the detrimental impacts of the stereotype on Asian women: "The shadowed side of that is they then become targets of hate, sexual violence and physical violence when they aren't perceived as fully human and deserving of rights to be safe."
Asian fetishization further has an economic impact on Asian women, as the fetishization and hypersexualization feeds into perceptions of Asian women as cheap and disposable workers. Many Asian American women work in service industries, such as beauty salons, hospitality, and restaurants: “working [in] highly vulnerable and low-wage jobs during an ongoing pandemic speaks directly to the compounding impacts of misogyny, structural violence, and white supremacy” systems continually entrenched (Phi Nguyen, litigation director at Asian American Advancing Justice. Nguyen’s statement emphasizes the urgent need to address systematic inequalities that perpetuate the exploitation of Asian women.
VIII. How to combat/moving forward
The rise in popularity of Asian pop culture in America—manhua, bollywood, kpop—has demonstrated that people are overall more open-minded towards. Conversely though, it is used as a metric to judge someone’s “Asianness”, while also, at times, leaving room for fetishization of the culture when consumed without cultural awareness and respect. To combat Asian fetishization, it is important to recognize that appreciating a culture is different from assuming that somebody who fits your ideas of a culture.
Visibility of the APISAA experience, the painfully lived reality of APISAA women and APISAA femme-identifying individuals need to exist, institutionally. As long as Asian and APISAA women are overlooked, this kind of violence will continue to exist. There need to exist institutional recognition, resources, assistance, and understanding of the multifaceted issues facing APISAA women. Simultaneously, it is a moral imperative that universities provide support for ethnic studies and related faculties/staffs, and increase representation of ethnic histories in curriculum. It is through a combination of solutions, including genuine cultural appreciation, visibility of Asian women, and institutional support and education that are starting steps toward combating Asian fetishization.
- The activist
Works Cited
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Britney, says:, A. O., & Onadipe, A. (2021, March 23). Fetishization of east and Southeast Asian women. North Carolina Asian Americans Together. https://ncaatogether.org/2021/03/23/fetishization-of-east-and-southeast-asian-women/
Fetishization definition | cambridge english dictionary. (n.d.-a). https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/fetishization
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Kaur, Harmeet. “Fetishized, Sexualized and Marginalized, Asian Women Are Uniquely Vulnerable to Violence.” CNN, Cable News Network, 18 Mar. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/us/asian-women-misogyny-spa-shootings-trnd/index.html.
Ryu, J. (2022, May 13). The dangers of dating as an Asian American woman: “fetishization isn’t appreciation.” USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/05/10/asian-fetishization-isnt-flattery-how-weve-dehumanized-asian-women/7450959001/
Sarker, S. (n.d.). The “mail-order-bride” (mob) phenomenon in the Cyberworld. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16389924.pdf
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TodayShow. (n.d.). Here’s how pop culture has perpetuated harmful stereotypes of Asian women. TODAY.com. https://www.today.com/popculture/here-s-how-pop-culture-has-perpetuated-harmful-stereotypes-asian-t213676
Tsong, Yuying, and Sarah E Ullman. “Asian American Women Sexual Assault Survivors’ Choice of Coping Strategies: The Role of Post-Assault Cognitive Responses.” Women & Therapy, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366838/.
Woan, Sunny. “White Sexual Imperialism: A Theory of Asian Feminist Jurisprudence.” Washington and Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons, scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol14/iss2/5/. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.