Friday, October 8, 2010

Our Government is a Hopeless Sexist + Racist!

This Taipei County Happy New Inhabitants Quarterly is basically sent out to every foreigner who has marital relationship with a Taipei county resident. So though both KC and I do not reside in Taipei county, as my registered permanent residence is in here, this quarterly is sent to KC on a regular basis. Honestly I found the cover of this quarterly quite bothering. I understand that in a realistic sense the Asian women depicted in here are supposed to be the most vulnerable and unprivileged in this society, but by so doing our government appears just like a horrible sexist and racist - where are the men? where are the non-Asian people? Such emphasis would enhance people's impression and stereotype about these Asian women's negative images, and this is definitely unfair for them. You know, not everyone feels comfortable being ostensibly depicted as vulnerable and unprivileged, and isn't any individual considered innocent before proven guilty? Our government needs to understand that social welfare does not mean the patronizing of others. I am not a hypocrite so I called and told them what I perceive about their cover design, but I have no idea if they will do anything about it. We'll see.


僅管許小臉跟我都不住在台北,因為我的戶籍在台北縣,這份台北縣新住民幸福季刊還是按時寄來。這份季刊旨在傳達政府對於新住民的各項政策及福利措施,以中英越印泰緬日7種語言寫成。我認為這也算是個德政,但老實說這份季刊的設計讓我不敢恭維。我不否認封面上描繪出的那些女孩子確實是新住民裡的大宗,也是這個社會最弱勢的群體之一,但在標榜著給"新住民"的刊物上,卻只描繪出"外籍新娘"這個族群,沒有男性(把我家許小臉放哪裡! 雖然他是不會被我家暴啦XD)、也沒有除了亞裔外的其他民族;這不但顯示出政府對性別多元文化的狹隘認知,而赤裸裸的明示這些亞裔外籍新娘是弱勢族群,將更理所當然的強化人們對於她們的刻板印象,但並非每個人都樂於被描述成弱勢族群、接受人們憐憫的目光啊。這也許不是件大事,但要讓一個社會要能真正以開闊心態去面對"新住民",首先就得從這些小事上著手,才能達到潛移默化的效果。光說不做就是偽君子,所以我當然打電話去反映了,至於他們會不會有所改變,我也猜不到。

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