Quick one before I jump into a plane –
I was just at a small wedding in Manila. One of my oldest friends in the world got hitched to a lovely Pinoy girl here, and will soon whisk her away to Australia and all that. Great, very happy for the couple; very pleased to see him too, because I only get to see him every few years.
But then I was stuck for a few hours in a small room with two tables (I told you it was a small wedding) in a Chinese restaurant in downtown Manila. At one table was the Filipino family, full of wonderful and lovely people I spent some time with. Present at the other table: the family friends and relations, mostly Hokkien-speaking Chinese people originally from Singapore. The Hokkien-speaking drove me mad (because I speak and understand it quite well and why is it that these conversations are always so inane?), but what really got me was the chauvinistic Chinese Singaporean men and their distasteful ways.
They saw fit to use me as an example of a ‘young Singaporean woman who’s picky about men and who puts her career first and won’t stop until I’m 30 and then by then it’s too late I can’t have a family because I’ve missed the boat’. All that, in the context of how Singaporean women are so picky and Filipino women are not, which is why they prefer Filipino women. For being more submissive.
Wow, that’s a lot of assumption for people who have only met me for 20 minutes. And a lot of gall for people who are guests in someone else’s country to dare to speak of its women in that fashion, with those very women present. Especially when it isn’t true (Pinoy women are FAR from submissive!!). Saying it in a different language doesn’t make it better. It’s not about being picky; it’s that I have taste, career, and choice. It’s not like people who thoughtlessly refer to the entire female species as the “weaker gender” (how old-fashioned) would ever get it.
I spent a lot of time being angry — I know people are stupid, I know it’s pointless arguing. The gall! The cheek! The hypocrisy! (All the MCPs who were going on about female submissiveness were also, in the same breath, discussing the finer points of having more than one family, one in a different country. And then also lecturing me, somewhat, on family values.)
But I’m just reminded of how the reason I never have to tolerate people like that, what more marry men like that, is that I get to choose. And I get to infuriate men like that whenever they appear, because I can.
As the incisive @illyrica puts it: “picky” = “insufficiently grateful that an actual man is willing to bestow validation upon your worthless life by choosing you”
I thank God every moment for the empowerment that is not needing this validation, not needing men, not needing to pick through this garbage, and indeed for not needing to pick. At all.
for more angry feminist ranting: why i am still a feminist
Bah. Manila was great fun (five days so far; more on that city soon), jumping into a plane to Singapore, and then into another one to Bangalore.
8 Comments
Good post. I can feel your frustration. Men like those you described are low lifers. It's a shame, however, that there will be some women out there who may not venture far beyond mop and market basket because they took these dogmatic, paternalistic views to be true.
So traditional custom. We learn more a bout our friend country through these customs ! Thanks for your great sharing post.Koozies
Then why u nair kao peh them back in hokkien?
This was an excellent post–exactly how I feel these days! It is so annoying to hear such comments–which just sweep more than half of the Earth's population under such a narrow descriptions.
Esp the following :
'.. . I thank God every moment for the empowerment that is not needing this validation, not needing men, not needing to pick through this garbage, and indeed for not needing to pick. At all. ..'
To clarify–I like the part in quotes the best!
RE: Too late to have a family; FYI: Ready when you are ;)
I was just reading articles about mainland Chinese men marrying women from Vietnam for the same reasons, because they're “docile,” because Chinese women “only want them for their money.” And I've been living in (greater) China for almost a decade, listening to foreign (mostly white) guys tell me that's why they love Chinese women – they aren't argumentative, they don't put their careers first, they are more attentive. Western chicks apparently are too independent, too demanding. The stereotypes are stifling and infuriating, but if you complain, it's because you're fat (and that just means you are bigger than a small Asian woman…not that they are all small) and you can't get a boyfriend (until they meet him and then you just must be one of those confounding feminists, and then there's really just no hope for you). Nobody ever talks about the reality of economics in all this, which isn't romantic but it's a heck of a lot more honest. Hell, if a dude from Luxembourg was scouting around for American chicks and I had no education, no money, and no job prospects, I might be a little more “compliant,” too. Talking about sexism in Asia…one conversation like the one you overheard/participated in would take hours to dissect how wrong it is on how many levels. And why is culture some sacred cow we can't slaughter? If you get to have two families that don't know about each other or wish you didn't have the other family and a woman or two in your life that wishes things could be different but has no power to change, then it's wrong!
Ew. I get that lots too. There is something seriously wrong with Singaporean/ Chinese men – somehow they think the only plausible and imaginable route to happiness for women is to say 'yes' to a life of housewifery/childbearing in which the only travelling you do is via Star Cruise and Chan Brothers. I say, total crap.