#HOW CAN YOU LOOK AT HER AND FEMINIZE HER EWWWWW

[celuere]

anytime someone argues that arle ain’t masc an angel dies. you wanna try and tell me mcqueer didn’t give herself that undercut in her bathroom randomly at 2am in the morning??? showed her ass to four of my non-genshin friends and they were shocked that butchatron3000 turned out to be a majestic woman. i genuinely think she‘d kill your ass at the mere suggestion of her dressing even remotely feminine🙏🏼

[terralia]

In Defense of the White Girl wearing a Qipao, from a Chinese-Canadian girl.

I missed this while it was topical, but let's talk about the whole Qipao as a prom dress thing (also obligatory this is just my opinion and I don't speak for all hyphenated Chinese people). Also, y'all better finish reading my screed if you want to comment "y'all are being too sensitive about this", because I will return with fire and brimstone and personal insults about your intelligence.

So if you missed it on Twitter (because that's where all the important stuff happens, am I right?), a girl posted a pic of her prom dress, which was a qipao, and Asian Twitter went after her with fire and brimstone. She also posted a group picture of her with her hands palms together in front of her in that pose I hate because it's very servile and reminds me of hundreds of bad roles for submissive Chinese women in hollywood. To me, the fundamental question is did she do wrong? My answer, maybe surprising to some people is not... exactly, no. Is Asian twitter wrong to go off on her? My response is also... not exactly no.

First, is this cultural appropriation? I have a three part cultural appropriation litmus test for this:

Was she claiming the dress as her own and being ignorant of the culture? 

Is it being used in a way that is disrespectful of the original cultural intent of the piece? 

Is there a double standard between her wearing this and a Chinese girl wearing the same thing?

Using this test, I personally don't think that this isn't cultural appropriation. 

She's not a budding fashion designer being like “look at this new silhouette I thought of, all by myself!” nor is she claiming anything besides, “look, it’s my prom dress.” Obviously, while she didn’t know of the feminist history of the qipao (which, because I’m a mainlander and also have lived my entire life in the West, I didn’t know either, but am now fascinated to read about), she’s not claiming it’s not part of Chinese culture, so she passes the first test.

It’s her prom dress, which I think is not disrepectful of the Qipao’s original cultural intent, which is a formal dress for special occasions. While yes, there is a history of feminism in the Qipao, today it’s used as formal wear by diplomats and beauty pageant contestants alike. Therefore, I think she passes the second test

This is a gross generalization, but I don’t think there’s a double standard between her wearing this dress and a Chinese girl wearing the dress. The Qipao is pretty, and in the west, there aren’t like negative connotations relating to the qipao, that comes with, say, locs. Therefore, she passes the third test.

So, not cultural appropriation to me. That being said, I don’t think it was exactly in good taste either. When I saw the picture I instantly thought of a little girl stealing her mommy’s lipstick and smearing it on her mouth. The little girl smears the lipstick on because it’s pretty, and she’s seen mommy do it, and mommy may wear lipstick for a variety of reasons, from self care to patriarchal standards. It’s just a cringe reaction to the little girl wearing smeared lipstick from me, and then a big smile to pretend I find it cute when I’m internally crying in sympathy for the poor woman with the ruined lipstick

I think she also lacks the maturity to pull it off as “appreciation” (god I hate that word sometimes), especially given her asinine response to the initial criticism and the unfortunate hand gesture in the picture (which is understandable, since she’s in High school). There is a long and dirty history of Asian discrimination in America that is still there, under the guise of the myth of the “model minority” and the rep Asian woman get as either “Tiger Moms” or “Madame Butterflies”, and I get that a white girl playing dress up would rub people the wrong way. I'm more removed, since I’m Canadian, and thus the racial situation and power dynamic here is different, but not dissimilar, so I can’t speak for how American Asian twitter lashed out, but I do understand the visceral “Ewwwww” reaction. That being said, I don’t think white people wearing Asian clothes is automatically wrong, but I am really tired of false equivalencies on the whole “why don’t you like mixing cultures thing.”

I guess my main takeaway from this is I wish as part of her “appreciation” process, she’d spared a thought for the cultural boundaries she was crossing, and why those boundaries exist. I wish she’d taken a few minutes to read up on it, and I wished her response had been a little bit more than “I’m appreciating it because I’m wearing in, and I’m totally not racist guys, and love and positivity guys” (Memo to others, you don’t spread love and positivity by saying you’re spreading love and positivity, you do it through empathy, kindness, understanding and a deep breath to try to see their side before you respond). I also kind of wish the people blasting out in anger and outrage had put their phones down for a minute before turning it into an us vs them situation and then tweeted, but ehn, who am I to judge people instantly reacting to things?

(Also, there are fascinating conversations to be had about Asian appropriation vs Chinese appropriation, Fast fashion in Asia, colonialism in Asia vs China vs elsewhere, etcetc. But that can be for another post.)