Today, I watched several YouTube videos about interesting things to do in Bangkok. I will be visiting Bangkok this month, and I will have to make a decision soon about how long I should stay there. So, I decided to devote a few minutes of my Sunday to conduct a little bit of research. I stumbled upon this video of a couple of Singaporean female YouTubers on tour in Bangkok. In the market that they visited, a white man came up to one of them and asked whether she is an SPG. She was mortified! I didn't know what SPG was. I googled it, and I was mortified myself. According to Wikipedia, a sarong party girl (also known as an SPG) is a woman in Singapore and to a lesser extent Peninsular Malaysia of Chinese ethnicity who exclusively dates or socializes with men of European origin. Que horror! This dude had the gall to ask a woman to her face whether she is a Singaporean woman who only dates Caucasian men, along with the other derogatory stereotypes that come with being an SPG, before he even asked her for her name. I wonder if this guy would go up to a random Caucasian woman and ask her whether she prefers Caucasian men to Asian men. I bet not. Where does this creep get his sense of entitlement from? There are apparently many Caucasian men who believe that most Asian women, especially those from developing nations, prefer them over Asian men. I am sure that there are Asian women who exclusively date Caucasian men: are they racists, and should we blame them for the creepy white male tourists who target Asian women as subjects of harassment? Have they unwittingly reinforced white supremacy? Or, should we blame the white men who have yellow fever?
Race makes a demonstrable difference everywhere: in the workplace and in neighborhoods, in print and on screen, in schools, hospitals, and prisons. We should not be surprised to see the effects of race on even the most intimate spheres of our lives: dating, sex, romance, and marriage. A common defense of racial fetishes is the claim that they are ‘just a preference.’ Everyone is a bit superficial when it comes to dating. Certainly, we will not deprive people of the gift of our friendship because of their height, eye color, or income. But we will be happy to swipe left because of a wrong haircut, a cringey personal motto, or because their job is not "creative" enough. And, everyone has 'preferences' when it comes to dating. Dating everyone makes no sense. No one has time for that. Hence, superficial filters are necessary. So, is a white man who prefers an Asian woman racist, while a white man who prefers a woman with blue eyes and blonde hair is simply a guy with a preference? When is a preference cringey, and when is it acceptable?
When a white man says that he prefers a woman who has blonde hair and blue eyes, it sounds like he just has an 'aesthetic' preference. But when a white man says he dates only white women, it sounds a bit racist. And when a white man says he dates only Asian women, it sounds problematic because racial fetishes always depend on racial stereotypes rather than pure aesthetic features. Of course, we cannot help what we are attracted to. Some SPGs and men afflicted with the so-called "yellow fever" prefer to date Caucasian men and Asian women, respectively, because it's just an 'aesthetic' preference and not because they subscribe to stereotypes. If we are all horribly superficial when it comes to our dating preferences, why are racial fetishes problematic?
Just because people with racial fetishes are not racists, it does not follow that there is nothing problematic about their preferences because whether or not some particular case of racial fetish is caused by an individual’s harboring racial stereotypes at some level, it inevitably has the effect of reinforcing racial stereotypes. This was why the creepy white man at the Bangkok market had the gall to ask an Asian woman whether she was an SPG, and this was why the Asian woman was mortified. The creepy dude stereotyped all Asian women as being sexually open to white foreigners because he came across a handful of SPGs previously, or has heard of them. On the other hand, the Asian woman has to bear the significant emotional labor required to resist the racial stereotypes against Asian women because she knows that Asian women are stereotyped as "easy" or submissive. And if she was indeed an SPG and enters into a relationship with the creepy guy, she likewise has to bear the significant emotional labor to fulfill, resist, or otherwise negotiate those stereotypes. It’s a double-edged sword.
The existence of SPGs reinforces white supremacy, whether unwittingly or otherwise. Interestingly, the existence of men with yellow fever does nothing to elevate the social status and privileges of Asian women. In fact, many Asian women- like the Singaporean YouTuber- are targeted and harassed because of these racial stereotypes propagated by the yellow-fevered .
So, what's the solution here? Should all interracial dating stop? Or should all dating be interracial? Both options won’t change anything if we don’t collectively accept that race is nothing but a construct.
In television shows with a female lead, e.g. Sex and the City, Emily in Paris, why is it that the female lead’s friends’ love interests cannot be more attractive than the female lead’s love interest? For instance, in Sex and the City, all of Carrie’s friends dated men far more attractive than Mr. Big. The writers apparently thought it was best to taint Miranda’s Robert (played by Blair Underwood) and Charlotte’s Trey (played by Kyle MacLachlan), both successful and more physically attractive than Mr. Big, with some serious character flaw. In the television series, Samantha ended up with budding male model Smith Jarrod who is objectively hotter than Mr. Big. However, in the first Sex and the City movie, Smith Jarrod had become a successful movie star. At this point, the writers just had to break up Samanta and Smith Jarrod because Carrie’s friends cannot have a boyfriend who’s both hotter and more successful than her boyfriend. This is a pattern we can see in several other television shows. I wonder why this is so. Do television writers think that women are so competitive against each other that we cannot be happy for the success and happiness of our female friends? Or do the writers think that we are only happy for the success and happiness of our female friends as long as they are not more successful and happier than ourselves? Are they wrong?
Do you know what a tradwife is? So a “tradwife” is a woman who doesn’t work so as to look after their children, their husband, their home, and then talk non-stop about how great this is on social media. These tradwife content creators on YouTube and TikTok espouse nostalgia for the 1950s housewife, a la Betty Draper, that ignores the stifling limitations put on women in the 50s like not being able to get a credit card or having to submit to their husbands without question. I understand that in certain parts of the world, and in some situations, women have no choice but to be tradwives. I also understand if there are some women who truly enjoy domesticity. What I don’t understand is why some of these “tradwives” have to promote ridiculous and dangerous ideas, such as women having to be submissive to their husbands, and supporting patriarchy, on social media. If you are making money out of creating content and posting it on social media, are you truly a tradwife? These tradwives on social media should really stop calling themselves tradwives. They have nothing in common with Betty Draper. They should really call themselves what they really are: entrepreneurs.
Speaking of tradwives, I wonder if men prefer them over working women? I wouldn’t be surprised if they do. What if I have a husband who takes care of the cooking and the laundry, treats me like a baby, spends half his day grooming himself to look good for me, and whose very existence revolves around my satisfaction for as long as I am providing for him financially? Would I be happy? The real question is: why wouldn’t I be? What if the State allows me to marry more than one of these tradhusbands as long as I can afford to financially support them? Many men across the world live this way. No wonder some of them don’t want things to change. What I don’t understand is why tradwives don’t want things to change. Yes, making a living may suck sometimes but not as much as when you have to suppress who you are to be “pleasant” for someone else.
This is Kirbee’s Newsletter, a newsletter about Interesting thoughts.
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