ASA002 A02 Yvonne Peng Week 3

Yvonne Peng
Week 3
4/12/2020

My original feeling towards feminists was quite neutral, which may be formed from the personal background, living environments, and my own boyish personalities.
Being in a family that the father was a businessman, grandparents prefer boys more than girls, and parent is in charge of everything, I have seen my father going out for social parties and back home when he was drunk and messy. My grandparents taught me that no matter how good or how great I can do in life, once I got married, all their effort on raising me will be gone. My parents did all the plans, which school I should try to get in, how long I should study for a day, and so on. I started to get a sense that if I were a boy, I could be able to take all the drink shots for my dad and let him relax more. If I were a boy, my grandparents would love me more, and maybe stop my father divorcing my mother. If I were a boy, I may have more time to chill and do those things I want unlike girls because youth and beauty mean a lot to girls, and time should never be wasted on anything unnecessary. At that point, I still didn't realize I was actually influenced by the male dominant society. My brain was also imprinted that boys were superior to girls.
Also, I have many people who support women very strongly, maybe a little bit too much, and what they post on the Internet along with their comments on some sexual harassment cases just can't hit my soul. And I generalized the impression that people who support women always talk about things in a very extremely angry way. With my peace-loving characteristic, I wasn't able to relate to them. I understood their anger and their disappointment in all these unfair cases, but I just couldn't relate. To all those unfair employee contracts, sexism, and paid pregnancy break, I can relate more because I was put myself in the position of a CEO, and if I want to maximize the profit, I prefer workers and employees who can work as long as possible, also with no additional requirements.
Just all of a sudden, I found I was way wrong. I put gender as the priority while making employment decisions and ignore what achievements or personalities one person may have. I did the same thing just like all other male administrators. I ignored all the unfair things happening to women and took them as normal events. Sexism is too normal to be recognized as an existing problem. People from different levels, different locations, and different industries all know the unfairness and trained to accept unfairness as the usual event. The reason I can't relate to my feminist friends may also result from the careless public awareness of equal rights of women.
From week 2's reading, I knew now there are so many crude things happened to knowledgeable women in the academic area. Asian American women have to face both racism and sexism. The doubled pressure from racism and sexism plus the culture of being tamed and silent have brought strict suffering to Asian women in the world. However, only more pain and discrimination will accumulate if nobody speaks out.

But before asking the equal treatment and rights for women group and colored women group, what advantages and disadvantages we women have while debating with administration level and stubborn "old-fashioned" people? What things and roles we women can offer to the public? How to offer something that no one can say no?

Reference
Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2020). Fight the tower: Asian American women scholars resistance and renewal in the academy. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press.
Picture from The NewYorker https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/one-year-of-metoo)