Wheldrake
Posts: 477
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quote:
ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious quote:
ORIGINAL: domiguy ...still no word on the embalming situation... (kidding, kidding...) Seriously: what Pompeii said was unpleasant. It was an exaggeration, it was a generalisation, it was the perpetuation of a negative stereotype. But stereotypes and archetypes don't come out of nowhere. I'm not sure I buy your 'blame it on the economics' theory-and moving to another country doesn't entirely invalidate your original culture, so I don't think you can dismiss what sunshinemiss had to say as off-topic quite so readily. Saying 'you're an Asian, therefore I expect you to be quiet and passive' is flawed. But saying 'some Asian cultures traditionally value passivity and quietness in a way that wider American society doesn't, and therefore some Asian American women are quieter and more passive than your average white American woman as a result of the influence of their primary culture' is more understandable (if much more long-winded). Having lived in both America and east Asia, I would completely agree with everything you wrote here. The east Asian version of patriarchy broadly encourages women to behave like cute, passive little dolls, and many of them seem happy enough to conform to these expectations. Of course there are also a lot of individual exceptions, and they strike me as all the more impressive (I'm personally not much of a fan of female passivity and quietness!) because of their willingness and ability to swim upstream against the attitudes of their own cultures.
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