Chinese Women Modify to Western Ideals

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Recommended: Assimilation into the American culture

Chinese women in the U.S are pressured to reconstruct their identities to assimilate and conform to be accepted in American Society. Julie Chen, Chinese American TV Host, recently decided to get a double eyelid surgery to achieve a more “westernized look” and to look less Chinese. She was tired of having small Asian eyes, in Asian cultures the bigger the rounder your eyes are the more beautiful you are considered. Julie Chen was pressured by a big time agent to get the eyelid surgery done to guarantee career advancement. The agent basically said, “ I cannot represent you unless you get plastic surgery to make your eyes look bigger”. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Asian women around the world get the double eyelid surgery to look more Caucasian. Minority women in the U.S are also encouraged to get rid of their ethnic features to assimilate to western ideals. In the U.S Caucasians women are seen as normal, beautiful, and accepted and every other race has to meet up to the Caucasian standards. If women do not meet to that standard they are encouraged to modify their body. The purpose of my paper is to give an insight of the pressures of cosmetic surgery that Chinese women undergo to assimilate to western ideals. Women are pressured by American society to get rid of their ethnic markers to adapt to their new racial identity by reconstruct their body’s to western ideals to be more appealing and beautiful to media and men and are encouraged to modify their body to guarantee career advancement in American Society. Chinese Americans as well as Chinese women in their homeland have grown an obsession to double eyelid surgery. The surgery has become extremely popular among Chinese women in the last couple years. Plastic surgery or cosmetic s... ... middle of paper ... ...d their way of thinking by making them self-conscious of what is real beauty. Chinese women are denied their knowledge, intellectual capabilities if they do not fit they western ideal. These women are humiliated, controlled, oppressed and are denied any privileges if they do not fit the Ideal standard beauty by a male dominant society. Works Cited they do not fit the Ideal standard beauty by a male dominant society. References Grewel, I., & Kaplan, C. (2006). An Introduction to WOMEN”S STUDIES: GENDER IN A TRANSNATIONATIONAL WORLD. New York: McGraw-Hill. Hua, W. (2013). Buying Beauty. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press Munzer, S. R.(2011). Cosmetic Surgery, Racial Identity, and Aesthetics. Configurations 19(2), 243-286. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved December 7, 2013, from Project MUSE database.

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