Julia Shung, A04, Week 3

In this week’s reading, “The Time to Fight is Now” Asian American Women, Academia’s Socially Engineered 'Privileged Oppressed,’ Go Rogue” (Valverde & Dariotis, 2019) the authors’ discussed the Asian American community in higher education and challenges educators have faced regards to their race, gender and sex. To highlight this issue, Valverde & Dariotis define the term social engineering as the intellectual, physical, and psychological manipulation of populations involving centralizing planning and modification to manage social change and regulate the future development of society (2019). Asian American women who are trying to earn their place in the academia are being oppressed and perceived as easy targets when it comes to discrimination within institutions. The reason why Asian American women experience oppression is due to race and gender hierarchies and stereotypes that people have labeled them. For instance, Asian American women are supposed to be submissive, passive and silent. However, when they do not conform to this stereotype White men who see themselves as superior are intimidated or frightened that a woman of color could do their job as well or exceptionally well above their own capabilities. Valverde & Dariotis, address that “We do not aim to dismantle institutions like academia to only learn how to replicate detrimental models that have served to destroy society and people. We dismantle to build tools for change, healing and knowledge” (2019). This became a woke moment for me because Asian American women are often underestimated and we are thought of as being silent and submissive and as a result people think they can use someone’s stereotype to their advantage to get a leg up in the academia hierarchy.

This pie chart represents the percentage of educators based on their sex, gender and race in earning their tenure. It is unfair that we live in a society that has created a social construct based on these characteristics and by privileging one group and taking away power is discriminatory. Educational systems have positioned individuals who think they have power over a group of people to abuse their power and dismiss anyone who does not fit in within their in-group and set them up as failure. There have been so many Asian American women in academia whose voices are being shamed into silence. However, I admire Asian American women who have fought against unfair treatment and have proved to themselves and to others that they have every right, as much as anyone else to earn a higher education.

References:

Steinmeyer, Theresa. “The Tenure Game.” Yale Daily News The Tenure Game Comments, yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/03/22/the-tenure-game/.

Valverde, K., & Dariotis, W. (2020). Fight the tower : Asian American women scholars' resistance and renewal in the academy.