I always felt these memes were a bit racially motivated. Lemme explain (sorry for submitting a thesis on a fuckin meme):
Many societies (not all) in this internet age exhibit patriarchal sexism, and the manifestation is different based on culture but it generally leads to the sexualisation of and entitlement to women’s (and fem’s) bodies.
South Asia has hundreds of cultures but most of them are of this form. As a result, sometimes a brown guy will sexually harass a woman online! It’s terrible but unfortunately expected.
However, these cultures aren’t the only ones in which (some) men are pigs! In fact, it happens in Western countries too, and even in other highly populated regions with unmitigated internet access, English language education, and patriarchy (e.g. most Asian countries meet all four requirements, people in China have VPNs, Brazil, etc.)
So, assuming women are probably facing sexual harassment from all angles, why South Asian men? Yes it’s the most populous of the named regions with unrestricted access, but why so many jokes when Western sexism is taken more seriously?
I think these memes serve 3 functions:
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Paint South Asian men as inferior and emasculating them (and almost infantilizing them as well). “Oh look, they’re harassing a Western woman? No chance in hell that’ll work.” Leading me to
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Stereotype South Asian men as uniquely sex pests (as opposed to unremarkable sex pests)
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Make fun of the intelligence of ESL speakers. All the memes rarely focus on the sexual harassment and largely focus on a misspelling or grammar mistake.
I think I’ve made my case pretty well, it’s OK if you disagree, but then the question is: is this a real problem and if so what do we do about this?
I don’t want to be the fun police so keep doing the memes, but maybe we also try and have a separate place where we take all forms of sexual harassment more seriously, and make fun of the audacity and grossness of all sexual harassment (even from women and other genders, which I didn’t even touch on)!
Tl:dr; meme is low key racist, you can still do it if you wanna but I do suggest that we make fun of other sexual harassers as well* (*preferably in a funny way).
Sorry for the essay once again ik I’m a buzzkill
As a South Asian male, I am a lot more concerned at how perverted many South Asian men are, and at how often the police ignore or help cover up crimes against women. And we are racist too - Delhi and the 2-3 states around it are considered the least safe for women, so many people from other parts of India make similar jokes about ‘Delhi men’, ‘Haryanvi men’ or ‘UP men’. There were even news reports of women from other parts of India refusing transfers to these regions.
I think it had to be said, but you are right, it is low key racism. I mean, where are the Italian men for this meme?
Imo, from my experiences on Grindr, while I’ve been hit on by pretty much every ethnicity, the people who disrespected my boundaries the most were white guys. This isn’t to call all white guys bad ofc, but just to say that the “creepy Indian man” experience just isn’t universal
Thanks for sharing.
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