Let Me Dismiss the Stereotype
Interesting image on Postsecret this week, where this postcard originates.
I'll be honest, I never really understood the whole Asian exotic thing. It wasn't until I began performing mental biopsies on stereotypes did I begin to understand that Asian women are stereotyped as sexual toys, to be dominated, played with, and understood in those contexts.
What could be understood as a trivial stereotype fuels much of the oppression of women and young girls in this world.
The power of stereotype is frightening. I understand it now, in the context of human sex slave trafficking, mail brides, prostitution, and pornography. Asian women, combined with the assumed docile and quiet chacteristic, are viewed as ultimate sexual enjoyment: do whatever you want and they'll never say a word.
I have two words for whomever this postcard was intended: WAKE UP.
The postcard doesn't seem to buy into the exotification, but to try to subvert it in an annoyingly po-mo way. Is that how you're reading it, or do you see it as doing something else?
ReplyDeleteHi ff,
ReplyDeleteMhm, interesting read you have of the postcard.
I guess when I immediately saw it, my initial reaction was the sexualization of the Asian women in the picture and the somewhat sarcastic parting parenthetic words "you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
I took it as the writer pointing out an asian "fantasy" or preference of the reader, based off of a stereotype.
Does that make sense? I see what you're saying as well.