[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
[quote]Cortes wrote:
Without going into too much detail, I have witnessed first hand this Asian woman hatred, and I can only surmise that it stems from fear and insecurity. If a woman, intuitively, knows that another woman is more desirable than she is, but she only possesses the tools she’s been given to deal with this, and it just so happens that these are the very tools that sabotage her…well I imagine that must feel rather frustrating.
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I’m not challenging that this has been your experience, but reading it and looking to apply it to my own experience, I find nothing. I don’t have any feelings whatsoever regarding Asian women and their threat to me, nor have I ever heard any animosity expressed toward them from other women.
I think in my case that their physical type is so different from my own that there would never be any real overlap of men who are attracted, so I’ve never picked up any ogling vibes from the men I’m with. I’m tallish, have an essentially Barbie shape (slender but also much curvier than most Asian women), Irish skin tone, and very curly hair. I’m like the anti-Asian. lol
Usually I can relate to the stuff I read posted here. I’ve definitely heard women express the stuff orion posts about, have seen awful marriages and even worse divorces, etc. But I have never encountered this particular mindset.
I’ll have to be on the lookout for it.[/quote]
Watch out for Eastern European women.
[/quote]
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1717&context=greatplainsresearch
Eastern European women feel gender relations in the West are a clusterfuck- admittedly this is my spin on this, but near with me:
I try to be myself, but I don’t want to scare them with who I am, so
first I put on their mask … the Minnesota nice … and when I enter
a class or group I look around and survey the territory, and when
there are a couple of people with whom I can make friends, with
whom we are on the same wavelength, then I take off the costume
layer by layer. (Hungary, age 22, 2 years in the US)
I enjoy certain activities. Why I enjoy them, I don’t know. Their
assumption is that if I do cooking every day, I necessarily do it
because I’m pressured by my husband. On the contrary, I enjoy to
cook for him, and my favorite part of the day is when I serve the
meal and we sit next to each other and we talk. I’m not pushed to do
it, I’m not pressured to do it, I do it with pleasure, and I don’t want
to give it up. (Bulgaria, age 35, 6 years in the US)
I won’t refuse to be a woman in any way. On the contrary, I insist to
be treated in a certain way, and I think I deserve it. You cannot have
a man walking next to me and I’m carrying something heavy, and he
comes and asks me to carry it and I would say, “No, I’ll carry it,
because you know, I wanna show you that I’m as strong as you.” Give
me a break! Of course he will carry it. He is three hundred pounds more
than me, he has muscles that are … Why should I carry it? And if he
comes, boy, I appreciate it! (Bulgaria, age 35, 6 years in the US)
Bulgarian society remains a very traditional society in many ways,
but I think that women are quite liberated there, and I think that it
has to do with this cultural notion that women bring certain things
to certain areas that men cannot. And men respect this and they love
it, and it seems to me that they believe that without this sense of
woman in certain things, from government to the shopping mall,
they just can’t survive without women. (Bulgaria, age 35, 6 years in
the US)
BUT
And I had this argument, with [an American woman] recently.
I was trying to explain to her that I am an educated person, I come
from a very liberal background, I certainly read a lot of stuff about
feminism … The misunderstanding between me and her comes at
a point where she refuses to realize that I feel my mind, my body,
I’m free as a bird. I want my rights, my civil rights. I, however, do
not insist in bearing arms, on being asked to do things that I do not
enjoy.
And I tried to tell to her that the feminist movement in Bulgaria
is not as popular as it is here precisely because of some history of
gender relations, precisely because they are quite different than
gender relations in the United States. She jumped from her chair,
and she declared that I was not correct, and that the movement, the
feminist movement in Eastern Europe is very strong … I’ve read
East European Women and the Battle of the Sexes
many feminist writings and it seems to me that they equate their
experience with women throughout the world.
[She implied] that I wasn’t understanding what American feminism
was about. I think I perfectly understand. And the other thing
that struck me was her aggressive attitude. We weren’t discussing at
a point. She was patronizing. She was telling me that I don’t understand.
And I think I do understand. And I backed up, and I thought
it was not worth it, because she wasn’t listening to me. (Bulgaria,
35, 6 years in the US)