Patriarchy and Invisibility: An Asian American Woman’s Silencing

Asian American woman have lived and suffered in a problematic cycle of racism from the wider community and patriarchy from within the Asian American community.

I attended my first Feminist Studies in Religion (FSR) Leadership meeting in June 2014 and learned a lot about its history and its organization. Through this meeting, I came to appreciate the long historical development, as well as the goals and achievements of the FSR.

During a casual lunch conversation, a few of us were brainstorming on what the next roundtable topic might be for the next FSR journal publication. I suggested that we focus a roundtable around Asian American Feminist Theology. I wondered if there had already been a journal edition that already covered such an issue.

While going through the archives of the journal publication, we discovered that there has never been a roundtable on Asian American Feminist Theology during the past thirty years. This reality hit me hard. It reinforced my own understanding of how Asian American women and their role have become invisible within the dominant culture and society. This is another example of how woman are pushed to the margins and left there. At the margins is not a suitable place to be as they are often unseen and unheard by patriarchal leaders of their community.

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