Markup View

Author: NimmerStill

Oct 23rd 2012 at 11:38:30 AM

^"Stereotypes of Asian American women as sexual and exotic objects can be traced back through European and Western colonization of Asian countries. The colonization of the Philippines by Spain is one of the earliest examples. Colonization means ownership so Asian women were seen as commodities to be possessed."

So yeah, it does. It's about Western perception in general, as a result of both the circumstances of the women involved and the reaction of some such women (that some became prostitutes, as described earlier in the passage).

I don't see anything in your source about the native ideal being responsible for Western perceptions of women. It just says that internal to culture, there was an idea of a proper place for women, which is certainly not a foreign concept to Westerners. It does not in any way suggest that that's what's responsible for Western perceptions of the *difference* between Western women and Eastern ones, or in how they're perceieved.

The reason why the description legitimizes the trope is because it implies that China Doll is a perception by Westerners of a concept native to Eastern culture. The details may be slightly off, but it's implied that the Western idea that Eastern women are submissive has a root in the fact that Eastern women strive to be submissive because their own culture says so. It would mean that Westerners are accurately perceiving some aspect of Eastern culture, and how it differs from their own.

Now, if I'm right, then that's supremely offensive. Because if I'm right, then the very reason that Westerners perceive Eastern women as being *more submissive* than Western women is of circumstances in which Westerners *forced them to be*. To then turn around and say "apparently in their culture, they're submissive" is the height of colonial hypocrisy.

And one more thing: you haven't dealt with the fact that YamatoNadeshiko is specifically Japanese. No one's come up with a parallel native Chinese trope yet. Yes, your source hinted that all heavily Confucian countries should have similar ideals, but again, these are norms for the "ideal woman" common to many cultures, including Western ones, so they don't automatically account for real or perceived differences.