Asian feminism is a badass vehicle

Asian feminism is a badass force to be reckoned with as it grows to embrace so much more than the traditional fights.

While once it embraced women's rights to simply speak up about what they thought would make their lives better, autonomy in other words, Asian feminism now is a broad church. A quick scan of Asian activists on social media sites like Instagram demonstrate fights against colourism, Chinese 'slit eyes' stereotyping, impressions of women from the Asian continent being 'tight' and 'tiny' and 'doll like' and, even, encompassing racism against Black women.

How far we have come. When I was growing up Indian women were cautioned against 'speaking up' and this was often meant in the literal sense. Speaking loudly was seen as a sign of a maverick woman. A loose cannon female would never find a man to marry her and this was considered to be the ultimate in the land of shamedom. 'Shame' and being Indian were firm friends. 'Shame' was a useful patriarchal tool used to keep us low down in the pecking order of social hierarchies.

What better way to fight the stigma of shame which places our so called 'foibles' in the private sphere than to go public with what makes us feminists.

When Asian women of all nationalities speak up our stories combine to create a rich and varied tapestry of our feminisms. We intersect at various points and the unifying factor is our fight for equality.

Each and every one of us who believes in Asian feminism ought to tell and keep retelling our story. A combined effort will be one of our greatest achievements in making breakthroughs.

The curry vote which went wrong

An Asian man, Oli Khan who is secretary general of the Bangladesh Caterers Association, has written in The Guardian about his regret over his ‘leave’ vote and the fact that he influenced 150,000 members and 12,000 restaurants to vote leave. In effect, he feels that he was put up as an Asian poster boy by Tory Brexiters.

There are two parts to his regret. Firstly, that he allowed himself to be used by Priti Patel and Boris Johnson to spread their “lies”; and secondly, that he used his influence to enable a large number of ‘leave’ votes.

Being Asian and a curry lover you would think that I would feel sorry for him but I don’t. Those from immigrant communities who vote or advocate for narrow interests always draw my ire.

Even if Oli Khan had voted ‘remain’ for similar narrow interests I would feel the same (but, inherently, the ‘remain’ vote was for a more inclusive society).

The basis of his voting intention was to exclude others. Pure and simple. From a business point of view he states that Asian restaurants are struggling to bring in qualified chefs from abroad. He was promised looser immigration laws to rectify the recruitment problem which involved paying lower wages.

Somewhere in there he forgot about the other staff equation in the Asian restaurant trade – EU workers. I myself frequent an Indian restaurant in Central London which employs Eastern European workers. It doesn’t take a numpty to recognise that businesses have to rely on a myriad of nationalities to keep their concerns going.

Immigrants forgetting about the greater good of other immigrants is a common affliction. Oli Khan, in his defence, isn’t the only one.

According to psychology professor Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton based at Berkeley in America who studies stereotypes and inter-group relations, newcomers who arrive in the midst of a stable population that’s already worked out who gets what will have the most “ common human reaction” which is to hog resources and not to share.

Unfortunately it doesn’t take a PhD qualification to work out that if you vote against your interest you will bear an end negative result. Oli Khan forgot to define his own interest in a broader sense in the first place and now testifies to the rise in racism post Brexit, which I have blogged abouttoo. He talks about an ‘inward looking nationalism’. Somebody ought to tell him that nationalism is inherently an inward looking concept.

As a quick fire solution to the problem of chef recruitment in the UK Asian restaurant business why not consider employing women? There are millions of Asian women in the UK who cook delicious curries at home but it’s still a male dominated industry.

Conflating one’s racial identity with business interests and bundling it up with politics is a recipe for disaster.