When we talk about Asia feminism, we have to talk about the need to differentiate it from Western feminism.
Western feminism, especially in its earlier days when it was closer to white feminism, tends to be affected with colonial gaze. Western feminists’ patronizing attempt in “rescuing” the uneducated, victimized exotic women of Asia had alienated them from the movement, ending in some of them rejecting feminism as a Western movement altogether.
This ignorant mindset is especially dangerous as Asia women suffer under double colonization: where their subjugation to patriarchal norms are demanded by both local traditions and colonizers.
Two oppressors, one tool, one binary system
While Western imperialism exemplified patriarchal norms and added their own values to make us look ‘primitive’ society needing help, we have to acknowledge that those norms had existed within Asian societies. Before colonizers came, we had monarchs and rulers; and just like those in power right now, they all use the same tool: patriarchy.
Patriarchy is a useful tool in protecting those in power while exploiting the rest of the citizens, because it divides us into two classes: the ruler and the ruled. Men rule over women, kings rule over citizens, colonizers rule over colonies, and masters rule over servants.
This rigid binary system is crucial in securing the rule of those in power, and it needs the society to be ‘orderly’ to uphold it.
How does ‘orderly’ look? We only have to look into the picture-perfect nuclear families cisheteronormative societies demand of us. The father rules the house. The mother serves him, keeps the house clean, and upholds his rule over their children. Girls grow to serve and protect their husbands’s rule, boys grow to be fathers and rule over their wives and children. As long as men are pacified with their own servants and women are subjugated to uphold the men’s rule, the patriarch will always remain a master to them.
That’s why they fear the same thing, the one concept that breaks the binary it relies on to keep existing: queerness.
A world without masters nor servants
Queerness is dangerous to those in power, because it allows us to imagine a world outside binary. When we can envision a world where women can love other women and humans are more than two categories, we also envision a world where women can be more than a wife or a mother to a man.
The true equality and liberation Asia feminists are fighting for can only be achieved together with liberation of Asia LBQ communities. As another step towards this better world, Asia Feminist LBQ Network will be back in celebrating queer joy and building collective power among Asia LBQ communities from 26 – 29 March 2027.
We would love to invite every part of the Asian LBQ community to once again reclaim our space, organise our collective power, and liberate ourselves from the oppressive system together in this celebration. Let’s work towards the queer feminist future we imagine together!
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