Taiwanese Women''s Experiences in Interracial Intimacies with “Desirable” White Men: A Postcolonial Perspective

• Main Authors: De-Ying Chang, 張德瑩
• Other Authors: Chin-ju Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/00424631649980744033

碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 性別研究所 === 97 === Owing to an increasing trend of transnational flow in recent decades, people nowadays have gained more opportunities to meet one another across borders, thereby it is not uncommon that transnational romance has become a part of our daily life. Still, it should be acknowledged that stereotyping remains the issue as a Taiwanese woman dates with a white man, rendering her to be sexually stigmatized. Even though this interracial/interethnic relationship have been discussed and explored in terms of postcolonialist framework, as theorized by male scholars; however, the feminist perspective is lacking in their works. In light of this limitation, this study seeks to adopt a viewpoint of postcolonial feminism, as located the experiences of Taiwanese women in a specific context, to discuss these women’s dynamic of desire, imagination and interracial intimacies with their white counterparts. Based on the interview conducted with 26 Taiwanese women who meet their boyfriends in Taiwan or abroad, and 5 of their white boyfriends, and the author also observes the issue of transnational romance discussed in one of cyber community called Cross Cultural Romance, a space originates in PTT. The findings of this research are the followings. The discourse of sex stigmatization toward Taiwanese women who date with white boyfriends can recourse to the period of Rest and Recreation Program as the culture of bar has been introduced by U.S. Army, a threshold that later transforms into the discourse of night club. Indeed this sexual stigmatization discussed and reinforced in PTT signifies how the anxiety of Taiwanese males is provoked by their fear of castrated or effeminized masculinity and how their anxiety increase alongside a discontent against these women who discharge their responsibility as national/ethnic bears to choose superior white men. In real life, women who date with white boyfriends in Taiwan confront more unfriendly treatment and sexualized discourses than those who date abroad. Nevertheless, these women strive to employ various strategies of resistances as ways to exhibit and proclaim their subjectivities and agencies. Besides, it is worth noting that the wide spread of mass media such as films helps to promote the desire and imagination of the relation of transnational romance based and reinforced by the concept of difference, a desire that connects to the discourse of English itself, which eventually serves to foreground the dominance of West or American culture and its colonization effected in Taiwan. However, most couples in this case show how they subvert their previous imagination, like the characters of romantic or demure, and how most of these women violate the mystified stereotypes they are supposed to display. Last but not least, these couples come to acknowledge the fact that the cultural shock in intimacy serves to exhibit a diverse concept of gender issue, which results in conflict between each other. As the process of negotiation it is these women who compromise to accept their boyfriends’ Western concept and culture, a negotiation that entails the proficiency of English as capitals. Indeed, this process of negotiation shows an imbalanced power relation between the two. Rather, this phenomenon cannot be merely analyzed within the term of colonialism, for these women indeed have learned the significance of respect by virtue of this intimate relation, an experience that changes their attitude toward what an ideal partner should be.