Culture Sexual Orientation Essay

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Asian Americans comprise an extremely diverse population, representing dozens of different cultures and linguistic groups as well as every level of the socioeconomic ladder, making it impossible to generalize about sociological issues like gender roles. Arab Americans likewise come from varying socioeconomic class, national, and religious backgrounds. Therefore, all analyses of gender roles and perceptions towards sexual orientation need to be cautious and respectful of inter-group diversity. Asian Americans include persons from South Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian descent. Some may be newly arrived immigrants whose gender roles and views towards sexual orientation will most closely resemble those of the home country, whereas others will be second or third generation and hold roles and values more similar to those of mainstream American society. The same is true for Arab Americans: gender roles and attitudes toward sexual orientation will differ depending on degree of acculturation. Generally speaking, Asian Americans and Arab Americans do cling to patriarchal gender roles, with corresponding misogyny in terms of female access to political, financial, and social power. Asian Americans and Arab Americans also hold heteronormative attitudes towards sexual orientation, with heterosexism diminishing with acculturation. Although patriarchal gender roles and heterosexism do predominate among these population cohorts, for both Asian Americans and Arab Americans, gender roles and attitudes towards sexual orientation will be mitigated by a host of additional variables.

East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian communities in the United States retain patriarchal norms and institutions, leading to an expression of patriarchal gender roles. However, immigration itself “disrupts traditional gender roles” in indelible ways, leading sometimes to role conflict and strain within individuals and their communities (Xia, 2013, p. 710). Gender role strain is actually more poignantly felt by Asian American men than their female counterparts, due to the traditional pressure placed on men to fulfill fiscal obligations to the family and to occupy positions of power relative to their female counterparts (Kim, O’Neil & Owen, 1996). Interestingly, the study by Kim, O’Neil & Owen (1996) did not find significant differences between Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans with regards to experiences of gender role conflict.

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Liu & Iwamoto (2006) also found that traditional East Asian cultural values rooted in Confucian societies dissolve upon immigration to the United States, precipitating major crises such as gender role conflicts and related psychological distress—felt most poignantly by Asian American men. For Asian Americans, then, constructs of…

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…vary according to the family’s socioeconomic status and level of acculturation. For both Asian Americans and Arab Americans, the stronger the adherence to traditional values, the stronger will be the tendency towards homophobia (Szymanski & Sung, 2013). Acculturation does not necessarily lead to the elimination of heterosexism, but it is a significant factor in changing attitudes and beliefs in Asian American and Arab American communities.

Variables like generational cohort, level of acculturation or assimilation, and socioeconomic class will impact both gender roles and attitudes towards sexual orientation among Asian American and Arab American communities. These are both patriarchal societies with strongly entrenched social norms and gender roles. Norms of masculinity tend to be more pervasive in forming gender role expectations in Asian American communities versus Arab American communities, which stress the constraints on female behavior. However, both Asian American and Arab American communities promote misogynistic gender role differentiation that enhances male access to power. Gender roles have changed significantly upon encounters with American society, and also due to the need to respond to economic realities. Both Arab American and Asian American communities are heterosexist and heteronormative, revealing the intersections between sexuality, gender, and culture in identity construction.


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