The Page Act Of 1875: The Sexualization Of Asian-American Women

Everyone here has thoughts and feelings, right? Imagine not being seen as an individual with thoughts and feelings of other people. Instead, you’re degraded into being treated like an object and used for the pleasure of those people over a stereotype that has been around for centuries. Unfortunately, Asian and Asian-American women have been experiencing objectification and sexualization because of racial stereotypes for many years, especially by white men in the U.S. military. On March 3rd, 1875, the Page Act of 1875 was put into effect and it became the first restrictive immigration law in the United States. Even though the act has been repealed, it was the beginning of the dehumanization of Asian women through sexualization and objectification. This law prevented East Asian women from coming into the nation because people

The U.S. military’s presence in East Asia increased the demand for Asian sex workers. It also created the stereotype of Asian women being submissive, as many of these women were forced to surrender themselves to men for any means of survival. Western media such as movies and TV shows used sexual stereotypes like the “dragon lady” or “china doll” on characters who were Asian women. The “dragon lady” stereotype describes an East Asian woman as strong, mysterious, and sexually alluring. Meanwhile, the “China doll” stereotype refers to a young Asian woman who is feminine and submissive. There have been many effects of racial stereotypes against Asian women, one of the most recent being the Atlanta spa shootings on March 16, 2021. The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, claimed that his sex addiction was the motive and he wanted to eliminate the sources of his temptation. Due to the long history of Asian women being objectified, there is no coincidence that most of the victims in the shootings were Asian women that the shooter saw as his sexual