Jiyao Liu, A02, Week3

In the article “The Time to Fight Is Now”: Asian American Women, Academia’s Socially Engineered “Privileged Oppressed,” Go Rogue the authors mention a new idea called “privileged oppressed”, which means Asian American women are given false privilege as “model minorities”. In modern society, a common assumption is that most of the Asians are doing fine in STEM major, so it is not uncommon to see Asian faces, including Asian women faces, in those STEM related jobs. However, the advancement of Asian female scientists and engineers in STEM careers lags behind not only men but also white women and women of other underrepresented groups (Lilian & Wei, 2011). Thus, this stereotype not only puts pressure on Asian women, but also does not really allow them to congratulate the society. 

In fact, the scarcity of Asian women in upper management and leadership positions should be the bigger concern right now. According to the 2003 report Advancing Asian Women in the Workplace by Catalyst, a nonprofit research and advisory organization working to advance women in business and the professions, Asian-American women in industry are most likely to have graduate education but least likely to hold a position within three levels of the CEO. Indeed, breaking down the NSF industry workforce data by gender and race/ethnicity, the percentage of Asian women scientists and engineers, including those with PhDs, who are S&E managers is the smallest of any race/ethnicity and gender (Lilian & Wei, 2011). Besides, there are many data showing that Asian women are not viewed favorably in management, and this is the main issue that people need to solve right now. 

Image from National Science Foundation. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering. Table H 34 ,with additional detailed data provided by Joan Burrelli, “Scientists and engineers employed in business or industry, by managerial occupation, sex, race/ethnicity, and disability status: 2006.” Accessed February 13, 2010.

Reference

Valverde, K. C. & Dariotis, W. M. (2013). Introduction. "The Time to Fight Is Now": Asian American Women, Academia's Socially Engineered "Privileged Oppressed," Go Rogue. 
Wu, Lilian & Jing, Wei. (2011). Asian Women in STEM Careers: An Invisible Minority in a Double Bind. Retrieved from https://issues.org/realnumbers-29/.