Striving for Privilege: How Asian American Men Use Reference Points to Construct their Identities

• In Event: 21058 - Masculinities

Abstract

Literature on hybrid masculinities show that different groups of privileged men selectively distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity yet maintain their privilege. However, less clear is how marginalized and subordinated men selectively incorporate and distance themselves from various masculinities, and the consequences of these practices. This paper combines insights from intersectionality theory and masculinity studies to explore how young Asian American men draw on both hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculinities to negotiate identities within a complicated cultural climate that both exalts and denigrates them. Like all young adults encountering the life stage of emerging adulthood, young Asian American men face challenges shaping their identities. However, they encounter racialized and gendered ideas specific to their demographic that serve as additional obstacles during this period. These racialized and gendered ideas or stereotypes are elements of what I call “reference points”, or broader cultural templates of identity. My findings demonstrate how marginalized and subordinated Asian American men reproduce inequality in their own identity construction processes. Selectively distancing and embracing various elements of reference points, my participants aim to shed racialized and gendered stigma attached to Asian American men and gain privilege. However, in doing so, they reproduce their own structural position by oftentimes degrading other Asian American men in the pursuit of their personal identity project. My research is based on an analysis of 33 in-depth interviews with Asian American men between the ages of 18-25. My findings add to theories of gender relations and hybrid masculinities by revealing how, in the process of trying to distance themselves from these ideas, men with less privilege reproduce stereotypes and their structural positions of marginalization and subordination.

Author

• Corinne Wai Yin Tam, University of California-Santa Barbara