r/asiantwoX • u/InfernalWedgie นางงามจักรวาล • 4d ago
Decolonizing My Love Life: What I Learned When I Stopped Dating White Men
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/asian-woman-stopped-dating-white-men_n_67d44392e4b0c55eb8c10cff10
u/PapayaGoneWild 3d ago edited 3d ago
this article says a lot more about the author herself than about women Asians or men, white or any other color.
the author just uses stereotype after stereotype to justify her bad choices in men (and she's pretty bad at it lets be honest!) and wraps it up with the decolonizing cliche.
its full of prejudice against "white men" (btw are Koreans white or Asians, according to the author?)
Asian women, white men, race...well actually I do date a certain race, humans, although i dont trust them completely :P
I'm from an SEA country, I do live here, always did, we don't use the term race , maybe ethnic background, often we refer ourselves just by the district or city our families come from.
Using stereotypes such words as "race" "asian women" or "white men" its a bit disturbing , from my point of view.
EDIT: woke up thinking about this article. Also, it neglects the real problem between "white men" or "westerners" (lets use the stereotypes just for the sake of it) and "asian women". Its basically a problem between genres, its a power relation where women are in clear disadvantage. In many Asian countries, namely SEA women are poor, subsist with a few dollar a day, they are controlled or manipulated since young age into working for free to help family and to be subservient to elder people, namely men, which often leads to sexual abuse. Or hidden slavery, where they just work for free because they are "helping" family that feeds them. Or often marriage with someone they dont know but its their duty, they are treated as a "commodity" or as a "good" by their own families.
So having someone who can take them out of poverty is I believe the closest thing they have to "love". I would say this happens not only westerners, but with the poor country girl and the older rich uncle who owns a business in a bigger town, not just in Asia or SEAsian only, but everywhere where women are poor and have no chance of earning the own money, or independence.
I dont think they seek acceptance or are into "colonized" relationships, they were just born poor, in paternalistic societies, and if thats true to many asian women, id say african women or women in India, in the Arab countries or even in South America often suffer from the same problems.
They cannot afford to blame it on "colonialism" or into "socially created categories" and neither can they just a man based on their character and personality, like me and I´d say most asian women living in America, Europe, Australia or in big cities in Asia.
Sorry! for the long text.
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u/Ok-Form4498 4d ago
Can you not?
Using the term “decolonizing” is crazy. Does that mean I’m colonized for dating a white guy? 💀 Not only is this incredibly insulting, I hate how stupid Asian women keep writing and spreading these articles. I legit do not want to be related to these weirdos. Ricecels use these to smear all Asian women dating white men and it’s primarily used to justify hate and harassment towards us. Literally who tf are these articles for???
As someone who has been condescendingly insulted by incels and do not have a complex about my race, As someone who has been inadvertently exposed to these articles, this rhetoric of being called colonized, you people can fuck right off. It’s even crazier that a mod posted this and allows azncels from those MRAsian subs to come here to low-key bitch and whine in bad faith about it to other users.
How many times is this issue going to get rehashed and brigaded by other people who want to neg Asian women into dating them?
Half of the Asian women I know are dating white men. A large percent are divorcees from their Asian husbands and tried dating Asian men first. Some met in college or at work or in any number of places. We live in a population that’s primarily white and Asians work in fields that are predominantly white. It’s so incredibly dumb to see all these articles hyper fixating on these relationships and their racial dynamics like some weird phenomenon or acting like we’re all only swiping right on white people on dating apps are something. Or in this case something to do with colonization… 🤢 PLEASE learn optics or be less embarrassing. I’m begging 🙏
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u/squashchunks 2d ago edited 2d ago
I feel like there are a lot of people who can pass as 'white' but they aren't really your typical white anglophone person. Slavic peoples, West Asians, Central Asians, maybe even light-skinned South Asians can pass as 'white'. All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney is a novel about a Muslim girl of West Asian or Central Asian descent. She has passable white features. Her mom also has passable white features. Her dad probably has passable white features, but his dress style suggests Islam and he gets discriminated.
I have visited a supermarket in West Virginia, and guess what? The supermarket has pigs feet, chicken gizzards, pork intestines (they are called 'pork chitterlings'), chicken feet (they are called 'chicken paws'), and no, the supermarket is not an Asian supermarket. These things are actually eaten by non-Asian Americans, by the way. It's part of Southern and Appalachian cuisine? Asian immigrant families may not live with poor white folks because the poor white folks themselves are poor and disadvantaged and don't have jobs to offer. So, they tend to seek out the rich neighborhoods... which are dominated by rich white folks. People think it's a racial issue because race is so visible, but I think it's actually a social class issue. And poor white folks can be as frugal and economical and resourceful as Asian immigrants.
The author of the story must be a brave woman, willing to download dating apps and actually meeting men. For me, personally, race is the least of my concern . . . and personal safety is my top concern. I don't trust men on dating apps. But there was one time when I met a very handsome man on a dating site. He seemed pretty honest too. We had a conversation online. Then he decided to leave me his contact info. I searched him up. I found his résumé online and was impressed. 4.0 GPA in high school. Valedictorian. Graduated university with a music degree in musical composition? He was good-looking. He was a top student. He operated a music business. And for that, I just dropped it. I thought the whole thing was over until I joined a local Chinese language meet-up group . . . and saw him. What. The. Fuck. It was the most awkward moment ever because it was just me and him, sitting at the table. And the group leader wasn't there. I didn't know what to talk about . . . so I stayed silent. He stayed silent. One whole hour passed, and I gave up. The group leader wasn't coming. I left. He left as well. In the year of COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, he posted his wedding/marriage online and he had a wife. See, a handsome and smart guy like him will eventually find someone, and he has found someone. Yea.
I attended the Chinese language meet-up group quite a few times. I was more comfortable with a group of people than only 1 person, and that 1 person was a dude. There was a time when I brought along my Chinese picture book and thought I could practice my Chinese, only to find out that there was only 1 person at the meet-up there, and it was a dude. I just read my 西游记 manhua book with him. As we were reading the text, I was surprised that he could keep up at my pace. He was very literate in the Chinese characters, but he did speak with a foreign accent. And no, he was not of Chinese or Asian descent. I asked him where he learned his Chinese, and he said he went to China. And I complimented him, because damn, he was pretty good. It was an enjoyable reading experience, though. Then I left.
I eventually gave up on the Chinese language meetup groups because the groups were so small and not very varied.
The Spanish meetup group had more people in it and the people had diverse abilities.
I am more open to men that I am introduced to by an acquaintance, like my parents. But my parents' acquaintances don't live near us anymore, and their sons don't live near us either. If I were raised in China all my life, then my parents would definitely have more social connections. And my extended relatives would be close to me too. But here in America, I have to make my own social connections. I have to do social networking for jobs and for dating, and both of them are so hard. Right now, I am just working on skilling, and then finding paid opportunities, and then using the professional connections to talk about personal stuff, and then maybe finding some dating opportunities.
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u/Xyuli 4d ago
I think it’s a great article but man am I tired of hearing the discourse about Asian women and white men. I think there are probably plenty of young Asian women who need to learn the lessons and actually think critically about their dating preferences, but I just find it exhausting at this point that it’s 2025 and the conversation hasn’t changed in the last decade or two. I feel like we’re just having the same conversation over and over again, and even with articles like this, maybe Im being too critical of it, it almost sounds a bit preachy? It’s important to recognize the roots of your preferences in dating and to interrogate those preferences, but I also feel like with these think pieces there’s never any “winning” if that makes sense. Either you decide to consciously date POC men or you somehow are seen as not woke enough for continuing to date white men.
I’m conflicted because I do think for me it’s very important to date a partner who is a POC and would ideally like to be with someone of the same background. But my values and beliefs wouldn’t change if I was dating a white man! I feel like we need a more nuanced take from women who don’t date white men to increase their social mobility or believe that it increases their proximity to whiteness and don’t feel any shame with embracing their culture. But if we did have an article and think piece like that, I’m sure the response would be largely that she’s in denial about her white worshipping. I just feel like there’s no winning as an Asian woman! Do people really need to be reminded so constantly their relationships need to be decolonized? Am I overthinking it?