Culture Sexual Orientation

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. 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 masculinity can be far more problematic for mental and community health than constructed femininity. The pressure to align ones role in the community, including career path and social status, with traditional gender roles causes distress for males, particularly when their female partners outpace them in earnings or status.
A similar pattern in gender role conflict has been shown among Arab Americans. For example, for Arab Americans, experiences of discrimination have led to greater problems for men than for women (Assari & Lankrani, 2017). Yet for Arab Americans, gender roles are more proscribed for women than for men in general. Gender norms within Muslim Arab communities can constrain gender roles in the family and community. New immigrants and those who fiercely cling to traditional roles, values, norms, and institutions may exhibit more patriarchal gender roles, mitigated of course by socioeconomic class and level of acculturation (Cainkar & Read, 2014). Gender roles in Arab American communities can be varyingly fixed or fluid depending on the culture of origin. As with Asian Americans, Arab Americans do considerably change gender roles and norms upon immigration to the United States, leading to greater participation of women in the public sphere and increased access to economic and social capital among women. However, women in both Asian American and Arab American communities share in common with their counterparts from other cultural backgrounds a subjugation to the service sector and to unpaid domestic labor (Tzu-Chun Wu, n.d). Gender roles will be strongly linked to socioeconomic class background. Outmoded gender roles in Asian American and Arab American communities have been steadily transforming to become more aligned with the changes taking place more generally in mainstream American society (Tzu-Chun Wu, n.d.).
Asian American communities tend to be heteronormative, particularly East Asian and South Asian populations. Individuals who transgress from heteronormativity within Asian American communities may be ostracized, leading to high rates of non-disclosure among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals (Szymanski & Sung, 2013). Attitudes towards sexuality and sexual orientation will differ between specific families, as well as vary depending on variables like culture or origin, age cohort, gender, education level, and socioeconomic class. Even when homosexuality or bisexuality becomes tacitly tolerated within an Asian American community or family unit, tolerance does not translate to an acceptance of same-sex marriage, which challenges the traditional definition, concept, and structure of family and social structures (“Asian-American Families-Family Structures and Gender Roles,” n.d.). Among younger age cohorts, it has become increasingly common for Asian Americans to embrace non-normative gender identities and non-normative sexual orientations (Tzu-Chun Wu, n.d.). Attitudes and behaviors will differ significantly based on culture of origin and level of acculturation.
Among Arab Americans, heterogeneity also prohibits a reasonable generalization about attitudes towards sexual orientation. Generally speaking, Arab American communities are heteronormative with identity conflicts emerging among those who come out of the closet (Ikizler, 2013). According to Smith (n.d.) Arab Americans who do come out of the closet and identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender experience multiple forms of discrimination: from their communities but also from the LGBTQ community for being of Arab descent. Sexual identity development does occur within the strictly confined institutions of traditional Arab family life for both Christian and Muslim members of the population, but attitudes towards sexual orientation will 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.






References

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