Asian Women in the West

Urvashi Butalia

Women's pages in newspapers and magazines, women's programmes on radio and television are relatively recent phenomena on the media scene. A few years ago I attended a panel discussion at which editors of women's pages from some of the major London newspapers spoke of the content of their pages and the kinds of stories that interested them. They talked of fashion, food, travel... Greatly disturbed at this, I asked them a question: I worked for a publisher who published books on and by Third World women. If I was to send them these books, would they be interested in reviewing them? Were they interested at all in the concerns and struggles of Third World women, particularly given the fact that 'immigrant' women from the Third World now formed an integral part of the population of England?

My question was greeted with some surprise. The idea of Third World women writing, doing or having anything interesting to say, had never occurred to them. And these were media women that we were talking to. The question was passed from one panelist to another, until one of them (from the most liberal and outspoken of the newspapers) said defiantly: 'Well, if I receive anything written by Third World women I simply pass it on to the editor of the Third World page. I am concerned with the quality of my pages and I think most of the stuff Third World women write is rubbish.' 'And I', said another (this time from a conservative newspaper) 'have to be aware of what my readers are interested in — and if they're not interested in Third World women why should I publish anything on them?'

Although the first statement made me more angry — coming as it did from a representative of a newspaper which 'should have known better' — it was the second one that had graver implications — and a great deal of truth.

That all forms of media are sexist and that they project negative and stereotyped images of women is not new. However, in criticising the media for its errors of commission (portraying women as sex objects, etc.) we often tend to forget the equally serious implications of its errors of omission. In the two years or so that I spent in England I found that black people (and I use 'black' as a political term, thus including in it Afro-Caribbeans, Chinese East Asians and other 'ethnic minorities') figured very little in the media; black women even less. They did, however, make the news at Carnival (a major West Indian festival, full of colour and music and dance), Chinese New Year or when race 'riots' erupted in Brixton.

Thus, if you looked in mainstream media for a reflection of culture and life as it existed in the streets of England — where 'minority' communities played a real part — you would look for it in vain on television or in the papers. In a sense, this was a reflection of society — clearly the white English did not want to know about the minorities. So they simply omitted any mention of them; or they mentioned them in contexts that clearly defined them as the 'other' — sometimes exotic, sometimes troublesome, but if one ignored them perhaps they would go away.

Although this is a problem that affects the whole of the ethnic community, it has particular implications for women. They have to face a media that is not only sexist, but also hostile and racist. So that, in England, Asian women are degraded further than their white counterparts — they are typecast as immigrants, people who do not really belong. And they are cast into very definite roles: the Chinese woman, for example, is almost always seen in the context of the Chinese food takeaway: she does not exist as a person in her own right. The Indian woman is one who works with her husband in the grocer's or the news agent's shop, or one who works in a factory in Birmingham; the Pakistani woman lives behind her burkha (veil) and seldom steps out of the home; the Bangladeshi woman is frightened even to open the windows of her house, she doesn't know the first thing about being polite; the Filipino woman is best confined to the 'ethnic' part of town... On the whole these women are different: they are dull, passive, unintelligent, unglamorous (there is, of course, the fashionable exception, when black, particularly black African, women are used as sex objects because 'black is beautiful'. The dangers of this are as great, and need a more detailed discussion than we have scope for here.)

If it is possible to increase the invisibility of women, and to create a further stereotype, this kind of media neglect does so: that of the timid, inelegant, gauche, uneducated immigrant woman, one who is happiest sewing buttons onto clothes in a factory or tied to her stove and family at home. These women are not sex objects. As the media portrays them they are objects of contempt, and therefore to be disregarded. To take just one example: English television at the moment is glutted with nostalgia about the Raj. Almost every other month a new film series is commissioned on the British in India; at a given time there may be two or three such films running concurrently on different channels. The Indian women in these films are a different brand altogether — exotic, beautiful, regal, capricious. There is little resemblance to the immigrant woman. Such is the wilful ignorance of the media that neither of these two stereotypes bears any relation to the reality of the complex personality of the Indian woman. Although this example relates to Indian women, the experience contained in it is not unfamiliar to the broad spectrum of Asian women in England. British media thus, see the Asian woman as the British want to see her, not as she really is.

Among feminists all over the world there has been a great deal of criticism of the images of women in the media, particularly in the field of advertising where women's bodies are used to sell certain products, and women are generally portrayed in stereotyped roles. Once again, here the errors of omission go virtually unnoticed. In any given advertisement on British television — whether it be for food or drink or a 'civic' advertisement which warns you against fire or teaches road safety to children — minority communities are markedly absent. All one ever sees is white, Anglo-Saxon people and children. It is as if no one else existed. Recently, when the fourth channel (with its special brief to give television time to minority communities) began in England, the first 'black' advertisement which featured black people and advertised a shampoo suited to Afro-Caribbean hair was greeted with great joy by black people. One does not need to spell out the dangers of this: in rejoicing at the presence, after a nonexistence for so many years, of black/ethnic/minority communities in, say, something like advertising, one is apt to ignore the role stereotyping that exists even here.

While the (largely) male-dominated media is both sexist and racist (as we have seen earlier), mainstream (and even some alternative) women's media is also guilty of such racism and stereotyping. Thus, while some editors refuse to carry anything on black and Asian women, those who do almost invariably speak of the 'problems' of such women. Even when there are programmes produced by black or Asian men there are such errors of omission. The BBC for example runs a programme for Asian (in this case from the subcontinent) women called Ghar Bar (the home and hearth) every Wednesday morning. The general content of the programme is exactly as its title describes it. And indeed, one does not need to look further than the title itself to see the implicit stereotype in it. To me, the really pertinent comment on this and other such programmes came from a Pakistani schoolteacher in Bradford. 'We're sick of being told what's good for us,' she said, or how to adjust to this society. I'm proud of being Asian. I think our women have a lot of energy and power. Why doesn't this media reflect our achievements as well? The fact that we're changing, that this is our country as much as it is anyone else's ... that they need to adjust to us more than we need to adjust to them. ...'

Such instances are legion. And yet, when you go to Soho and Croydon, in shopping centres in Southall or in the centre of London, in universities, in political debates, there is a different, a new Asian woman everywhere in evidence. You see her in the picket line at Grunwick, fighting for her children at Heathrow, in the frontline at Brixton, in community centres all over the city. Her laughter rings out at you from the streets, she walks with confidence, she speaks with commitment and she is proud of being black and Asian. Her age ranges from sixteen to sixty, her lifestyle spans the deeply traditional and the most modern. But she is nowhere to be found in the media.

Nowhere that is, until one comes to the alternative media; newspapers, magazines, video-tapes, films, posters, books, etc., brought out by voluntary groups and social organisations all over the country. As women have begun to fight in the streets and in their homes, a parallel fight has taken place in the arena of the media. For access to information and the use and control of information to gain solidarity and strength is crucial to any movement. Not only have Asian women in the West rejected mainstream media, in many instances they have also opted to run and control their own media forms, rather than allow men, whatever their colour, to take control. Some women have chosen to work in 'mixed' groups — mixed both by colour and sex — others to work in Asian or African or black groups. Similarly, some have looked for alternative space for their newspapers, magazines, films, etc., and others have chosen to struggle for space in mainstream media.

Outwrite, a women's newspaper, was started some two and a half years ago: Run by a mixed collective of women, this newspaper is published every month. It lays particular stress on Third World women and takes a much more positive approach than mainstream newspapers do. It is a celebration of women's power, their energy, their achievements. It is a campaigning newspaper as much as it is a visionary one. Some of the headlines in the 1983 March 8 issue (also Outwrite's first birthday issue) are indicative of this. The first few pages of the paper read: 'Outrageous Women', 'Success Story', 'Lesbian Custody Victory', and the centrespread, on International Women's Day, is entitled Strength, Struggle and Solidarity'. Outwrite carries regular news, features, information about meetings and events and in its pages one comes across the real Asian woman — the Thai, the Chinese, the Pakistani, the Bangladeshi — in all her strength. Mukti (liberation), a more recent magazine, was started about a year ago. Mukti is run by an Asian (largely Indian) women's collective and is published in 6 languages: Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali and English. Speaking about the magazine the Collective members say: 'the need for Mukti has arisen in part from having no access or control of the white male-dominated media which usually ignores or distorts our views and experiences.' Criticising existing literature on Asian women for its racist bias Mukti hopes to 'go' further than merely examining (such literature) by challenging (it) and through the challenge bring about an awareness that will teach us to fight back. Language and cultural barriers have isolated many of us. We feel it is time we shared our experiences and learnt from one another. Spare Rib, a feminist magazine that has now published well over 100 issues has been, and is, an important medium for women to exchange experiences, ideas and information. Over the years, its support to the women's movement has been considerable. Here too, Asian women have begun to assert their right to their own space, and Spare Rib now carries a mix of stories about western and Third World women.

A little over a year ago the King's Cross Women's Centre in London became the regular meeting place for a Third World women's group. This group, made up of Burmese, Thai, Indian, African, Latin American women, met regularly to discuss various things and share their experiences. All the women involved in it felt that, although they came from different parts of the globe, in many ways they shared a commonality of experience. They met in order to understand their backgrounds, their experiences as Third World women, and to take the discussions further into their different fields of work. Many of them are involved in the media: in writing, in film making, in theatre, dance, music, and the substance of the discussions at the centre informed their work in the media in a very vital way. There are several other such groups all over England, and indeed all over the West wherever the Asian 'diaspora' exists.

In the field of theatre a young and committed theatre group, the Tara Arts Groups (with both men and women in it) has been producing plays on Asian/Indian themes, many of them to do with the experiences of Asian women, particularly East African Asians, in Britain. Tara also organises workshops in community centres, where women can learn to use the medium of theatre as a weapon. Similarly, there are independent film and video groups who work with Asian women. Some of these films are shown on 'alternative' circuits, while other film makers look for space and time on British television, particularly in the prestigious new fourth channel. All over the country, and especially in ethnic minority areas, there are community centres that run their own printing presses and that offer a facility to small, alternative groups who wish to use whatever expertise is available to print posters, mount exhibitions, make pamphlets, magazines or to run campaigns. Although between the communities themselves — for example the Chinese and the Indians — there is not the degree of solidarity that would give real strength, what is certain is that the process of feeling the need for, and creating, an alternative means of communication and dissemination of information has well and truly begun, and from now on the direction can only be forward.

Although I have spoken only of England — and this is because my own experience is limited to this country — there is no dearth of similar material coming out from countries which have an 'immigrant' population, for example, the USA, Canada, Holland, France. Everywhere now the mood is changing: immigrants are no longer willing to accept a marginal or peripheral status. They can no longer be made to feel that they are the 'other' in the 'host' country. And, as in every such country the women begin to find a voice, the voice will surely demand an outlet. It is only a short step from there to building our own communications network, our own system of information.