We’ve all heard of white privilege and male privilege, but what does privilege look like for someone like me: a woman of color? It is easy for me to forget that I do experience privilege in many ways, but I wanted to take the time to analyze my straight privilege and mixed race privilege, because these are types of privilege that I’ve never heard anyone … Continue reading Privilege in Color

The increasing sexualization of racially ambiguous women in the media has recently made my ethnic ambiguity “trendy.” Had I grown up a few decades earlier, my mixed heritage would have made me an outcast, and a stain on my white bloodline. But now, as Jin Haritaworn explains, “the capitalist discourse celebrates and markets multi-racialized people as the superior bodies of the future” (1). Essentially, being … Continue reading Oooo So Exotic!

I recently came across the advertisement above for Asian blepharoplasty, which is the double eyelid surgery that is primarily done in Korea (1). A quick google search led me to discover that it is the most popular procedure in Korea, so much so that it has become a very common high school graduation gift for teenage girls and there is virtually no stigma surrounding it. … Continue reading What is the Korean Double Eyelid Surgery and Do I Need it?

The other day, I had a conversation with my female classmates about the attitudes and expectations that surround makeup at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. We perceive students on our campus to wear less makeup than women at the other Claremont Colleges. I had always felt this was part of Pitzer’s “natural” aesthetic and stereotypically “hippie” student body, but perhaps it goes deeper than that. … Continue reading Not So Natural