← New Books Network
New Books Network
Monica Liu, "Seeking Western Men: Email-Order Brides Under China's Global Rise" (Stanford UP, 2022)
00:41:24
An interview with Monica Liu
Loading summary
Transcript59 lines
- [00:04]
A
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart move Another smart move having State Farm help you create a.
- [00:42]
B
Competitive price when you choose to bundle.
- [00:44]
A
Home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state.
- [00:53]
B
Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings and.
- [00:57]
A
Eligible vary by state. The holidays have arrived at the Home Depot and we're here to help bring the excitement with decor for every part of your home. Check out our wide assortment of easy to assemble pre lit trees so you can spend less time setting up and more time celebrating. And bring your holiday spirit outdoors with unique decor like one of our Santa inflatables. Whatever your style, find the right pieces at the right prices this holiday season at the Home Depot. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:37]
B
Hello everybody and welcome to the New Book Network. I'm Deidre Tyler, host of the channel. Today we'll be talking with Monica Lu, author of Seeking Western Men. Email Order Brides Under China's Global Rise how are you doing today?
- [01:54]
A
I'm good, how are you?
- [01:55]
B
Great. I wonder if you could tell us something about yourself and how you got started on this project.
- [02:03]
A
Sure. I was actually born and raised by my grandparents in China and I moved to the US to join my parents when I was eight years old. And because I was a business major in undergrad, I actually came into graduate school wanting to study guanxi or business relationships in China. But actually during my first semester in grad school, I got a phone call from my dad asking me if I could talk to one of his old classmates about Western men. So this lady was actually in her 50s, she was living in China at the time. She didn't speak any English, had never left the country, and she was dating an American man who wanted to meet her in person. So she wanted some dating advice and my dad thought I would be the perfect person to speak to because I grew up in the us so through this family friend I learned about this transnational dating agency where this lady met her date. And it sounded so fascinating to me. And since I was visiting China that summer, I just asked her if I could visit the dating agency and check it out. And coincidentally, it actually turned out that the manager at this agency was my uncle's old office mate from 20 years ago. And she welcomed me with open arms to do research at her company. So that's how I went from studying economic sociology in my first semester in grad school, shifting to learning about online dating and cross border marriage. And here I am today.
- [03:29]
B
Well, you went to Ms. Me's agency. What did you find out there?
- [03:36]
A
You know, I found the women at this agency to be just absolutely fascinating. And I just couldn't help but wanting to learn more about their lives. And the thing that they really impressed me most during my first summer at the agency was about their openness, just their willingness to share the most private aspects of their lives with me. For example, some of them were mistresses to married Chinese men. And they shared that experience with me. Their sexual preferences, their grievances with their lives in China, and why they have this very strong urge to leave the country for good. And over the years, I've witnessed my respondents leave behind their families, their careers, selling their homes. Some people depleted their savings just to join the dating agency. I've even seen some people attempt suicide. And while it might feel like watching a soap opera on my end, for a lot of these women it was really the reality that they had to confront day in and day out. So by comparison, I felt extremely privileged. And I was a highly educated woman, had a promising career, and being in my 20s at the time when I did my research, I didn't have to worry about things like marital infidelity, divorce, or retirement planning. So in my field notes from my first summer on site, I actually, I have only been here for two weeks, but I feel as if I've been here for a decade. The life I once experienced and lived in a land called the United States of America feels so far removed. The women here live such different lives and hold such different values. I suddenly realized I have so much going on for me, which some people here would never even dream of.
- [05:20]
B
Now, let's step back and I want you to tell us about your research methods.
- [05:25]
A
Sure. So my method consists of both interviews and observation. And by interviews, I don't mean formal sit down interviews at an office where I would voice record my respondents. In fact, instead I chatted with people on set at the dating agencies. I chatted people with off site. When we would go out to eat together or go shopping together on a girls night out type setting. I also observed how the Chinese women interacted at their dating agency with the dating agency staff. And when the Western men flew to China to visit the women, usually for one to two weeks at a time, sometimes I actually tagged along their dates as the third wheel and I was providing them with free translation. I also attended a lot of engagement parties and weddings for the couples, which typically were held in China. And finally, after the women married and moved to the us, I actually followed up on their postmarital lives by flying out to where they are and visiting them in their new homes, staying with them for one or two weeks at a time.
- [06:30]
B
Could you give us a profile of the women that signed up at the agency?
- [06:34]
A
Sure. So, contrary to the stereotypical media image of a so called mail order bride as someone who's young and never married, actually the majority of the clients at the agency where I studied were middle aged. Meaning? Meaning they were aged between 40 and 55 ish, and they were divorced with kids from previous marriage. And they came from very diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Some women were wealthy, even by American standards, being millionaires, while others were middle class. And there were some that were poor, earning less than $5 a day. And interestingly, one thing I noticed about their personality was that nobody was actually shy and quiet, which is very different from the Western media stereotype of Asian women. So the women I saw on site tend to be extroverts, and they were really not the innocent, demure type as portrayed in the media, but rather I found them to be much more worldly, much more experienced in life, and sometimes even a little bit jaded.
- [07:34]
B
Did the women pay anything for being a part of the agency?
- [07:39]
A
Yes, both the men and women had to pay. And the agency actually charged the women around US$1,000 per year in annual membership fee. So renewal was much cheaper. It was less than 1/10 of the original fee. But the original membership fee is high and certainly in China this was not cheap for the women. Some women who were financially struggling actually had to borrow money from their friends and family just to join.
- [08:04]
B
The agencies connected women from developing countries with men from advanced countries. Tell us more about this.
- [08:13]
A
Sure. So usually the men and women would meet online through the platform that the agency provided, and they would exchange email for a couple of months. And during this email exchange process, translators at the Chinese dating agencies would help the women translate their email exchanges. So if everything goes smoothly, usually the men will fly to China to visit the women for about one to two weeks at a time. And during those visits, when they meet face to face, the translators will also facilitate their conversation, similar to the way I would tag along these couples on dates as a third wheel and translate their conversations. And eventually, if they like each other, he'll usually fly to China again to meet her a second or third time before they marry and she moves abroad with him.
- [09:02]
B
Why really did the Chinese women seek Western men?
- [09:06]
A
You know, the Chinese women sought Western men for a couple different reasons across the board. One main reason I saw was that the women felt aged out of their local dating market because men of similar age and economic standing tended to prefer much younger, never married women without children. And so women believe that Western men are more open to dating women their own age. And there's also some differences based on the women's socioeconomic class. A lot of women who are financially well off have previously been married to very wealthy Chinese men that cheated on them and left them for younger women. And so they think Western men are going to be more loyal and more family oriented, that being the primary reason, while women who struggled financially have often divorced Chinese ex husband that lost their jobs and couldn't support their families. And so these women are also seeking financial stability in their new marriages. Finally, there's also a group of women who wish to send their kids to college in the US to escape the very, very brutally competitive college entrance exam in China. But they couldn't do that as single moms that were financially struggling.
- [10:18]
B
What is happening in China that is pushing the women out of the area?
- [10:23]
A
You know, a lot has changed in China since the socioeconomic reform that started in 1979. And since then, the nation's GDP has grown very much dramatically. But alongside this economic growth, we also see increasing income disparity. So the reform has really led to the rise of a new rich business class dominated by men who while women's wages have declined a lot, and this has led to rising rates of divorce as these new rich men now leaves their wives for younger women. Also, in China today, women are considered leftover and unmarriageable as young as age 27. In addition, age discrimination is not only big on the dating market, but also huge on the labor market, especially for women without college degrees. So during the 1990s, a lot of state owned factories were dismantled, and at this time, middle aged women were laid off at higher rates than any other group in factories. And at the same time in China today, really only attractive women below the age of 30 can get hired in the retail industry and service industry as well. So as a result, older women who are laid off from factories really, really struggled on the labor market when they were trying to regain employment. And many of them were forced to take on very low paying jobs in contingent employment sector, working as nannies, maids or street vendors for very little pay and no benefit. So I can totally understand why this group of women would want to get out of China through marriage.
- [11:56]
B
Tell us about the global financial crisis 2008 when the men lost their jobs. Did this impact the dating scene?
- [12:07]
A
Yes, this certainly impacted the dating scene at the dating agencies. Before the 2008 economic crisis, there would be this idea that many of the men were possibly financially well off. But actually after the financial crisis in 2008, a lot of women were actually discovering on site that those men that they thought were financially well off were actually not in that position. And as a result, one of the tactics that the agency used to promote these men to the women is that these men are loyal, devoted, caring and family oriented and thereby worthy of marriage, even if they're not particularly financially well off.
- [12:53]
B
Tell us about the surrogate dating and translators.
- [12:57]
A
So this term actually refers to the process by which the translator act as the women's online surrogates during the email translation process. And I came up with this term because I actually noticed that even though the women technically were supposed to provide translators with Chinese content for the email exchanges, some didn't. Some women have this mentality that because they paid really high membership fees, the translators should perform the labor of dating for them. Also, the women feel that the translators are better versed in Western culture and can represent them in a way that's going to be more appealing than they can themselves. So some women would provide basic information to their translators for reply emails, but some and have their translators elaborate a little bit more on that, while others would let their translators take over completely. And in fact, I've seen clients rush into the office, sit down with their translators and read the men's emails all in one sitting, right before the men would fly to China the next day. And in fact, the agency actually will require the women to sign this waiver stating that they've read all of the men's emails before meeting them in person person, just to make sure that the women actually know what they're talking about when they meet the men.
- [14:14]
B
Tell us about the structure of the dating agency.
- [14:18]
A
So the dating agencies, these, the companies that I visited in China, were local companies that worked in partnership with a much larger company outside of China. That recruited the western men. So this larger company worked with not only local business partners in China, but other agencies in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America. So they were really a part of a very large global business chain. And the local Chinese dating agencies I did research at had three different offices across two cities. And at this time they had a total combined total of 1700 clients. And each of the three offices had around seven to 10 translators and one manager.
- [15:01]
B
Now, I thought this was interesting. In your book you talked about the discrimination against black men with the Chinese women, but not other racial groups. Tell us more.
- [15:12]
A
Sure. So when I stepped into the agency, I found that the Chinese women were very reluctant to date black men. And for that reason, the agencies actually had a policy where their translators don't entertain emails from black men unless given special permission from the women. Right. In order not to offend the women, quote, unquote, offend black. So I'm not exactly sure what their personal reasons were for not wanting to date black men, but I do know that China has a long standing history of anti black prejudice where blacks are stereotyped as savage, hypersexual and violent. However, the women didn't seem to discriminate against other racial groups and to them, interestingly, the term Westerner included not only Caucasians, but also Latinos and Native Americans. And occasionally some women actually would refer to Western men of northern or Central European ancestry as pure white and Latin American men or men of South European ancestry, for example Italian men or Native American men as non pure white. However, being pure white didn't actually seem to boost the men's desirability in the women's eyes. And in fact, I saw that some women actually preferred the non pure white look and they found the darker eye and hair color to be more Asian looking and more familiar and more pleasing to their eye than someone who is say blonde hair and blue eyed.
- [16:44]
B
On an average, how long did the couples email each other before they actually met?
- [16:51]
A
This really varied from couple to couple, but usually typically I would say a few months and it could actually be up to a year.
- [17:00]
B
Tell us about the focus of hiring younger women in the beauty economy. What happened to the older women in the beauty economy?
- [17:11]
A
So what I notice is that as China transitioned toward a market economy, employers were increasingly prioritizing efficiency over equity. So in this newly emerging private business sector that started engaging in the so called beauty economy market practices, right, this is when they would only hire attractive women below the age of 30, particularly in the high end retail industry and service sector such as real Estate companies, high end department stores, etc. And because of these new types of hiring practices, a lot of older women, particularly women without college degrees, would really struggle on the labor market, particularly if they were laid off from, from state owned factories that shut down. And sometimes these women would end up having to take on low paying temporary jobs that don't offer benefits to make ends meet. And this, as I previously discussed, is one reason driving these women to seek marriage migration. Or they would have to continue struggling financially in China. And they may not have, they may not be able to have a smooth retirement because the new jobs that they find don't actually offer benefit.
- [18:32]
B
Why study China in the past couple.
- [18:36]
A
Decades, you know, we've all seen China undergoing dramatic social, economic and cultural changes. And for these reasons, from a sociological perspective, it's really a great place to observe how these macro level structural shifts are actually shaping people's private lives. Since the 1979 Reform and Economic opening up, China has turned from a poor, centralized, socialist state to the world's second largest economy, projected to become the world's largest economy. But we have to realize that alongside this economic progress, we also see a lot of new social problems emerging, such as rising rates of divorce and extramarital affairs, increasing wealth gap, this revival of a traditional patriarchal ideology emphasizing feminine youth, which obviously puts middle aged women at a disadvantage on the marriage market. Also this increasingly competitive educational system that puts children under tremendous distress alongside the privatization of health care and social welfare as support from the state wanes. So a lot of these economic, cultural and social changes actually drove the women right to seek out migration through marriage, even though the nation has experienced overall economic growth.
- [19:56]
B
Now give us the profile of the Western male seeking a Chinese woman.
- [20:02]
A
Sure. So the majority of the men enrolled tend to be older, divorced, and they tend to come from a lower middle class or working class backgrounds. Although some were middle class, I've seen a lot of truck drivers, lots of small business owners. And these men tend to feel left behind by globalization as agriculture, manufacturing and small businesses started declining in the era of globalization. So these men actually view this changing economic landscape as a threat to their masculinity. Now, a lot of sociology studies show that marriage rates have declined among working class men and poor men because women within their own class find them to be too poor to be marriage worthy. So for these men, having slipped down the socioeconomic ladder, they really struggle to hold on to what privilege they have left by pursuing so called traditional marriages, possibly with foreign brides, because they think this would allow them to exert some kind of dominance and control at home. And there are also some middle class men who, despite being financially stable, they still feel left out of place within the new gender norms that have emerged in Western societies dominated by feminists whom they see as destroying the family and nation through their spoiled behavior and materialism.
- [21:26]
B
Now, what about the poor men that marry? Tell us what happens. Usually.
- [21:33]
A
You know, the dating agencies portray the poor Western men as still marriage worthy for being devoted, loyal and caring family men who are open to dating women at their own age. And this image certainly has a lot of appeal to Chinese female clients, right? Whose ex husbands either became rich and abandoned their wives for younger women or lost their jobs and then could not regain employment. And to a certain extent, the agency's portrayal of poor men from Western countries as being loyal to their wives is true because many of these men, they're socioeconomically disadvantaged, they tend to live in remote areas, so they don't really have too many options on their local marriage market, which stands in contrast to the wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs who have a lot of young women to choose from. But at the same time, American men who are truly poor, who can't afford, wouldn't be able to afford sponsoring a foreign spouse for migration as the law, the American law actually requires them to have an income level at or above 125% of the federal poverty level at in order to sponsor a spouse. So the Western men at the agency are neither wealthy nor are they poor there are they truly poor. So they're definitely better off than the Chinese men who lost their jobs and got into debt from drinking and gambling. So in this sense, the these men are what these women are looking for. And looking at the types of marriages that I've seen through the agencies, I see very low divorce rates. I've only seen a couple of cases where the women divorced most of the time after they marry, even if the marriage is not perfect, both parties would stay married. And one of the reasons being that they're both middle aged looking for second chance marriages, and neither of them have too many opportunities to change. So. So the divorce rate coming out of these marriages, I would say is definitely much, much lower than the 40% that we see here in the United States.
- [23:46]
B
Let's look now at some of the theories about Western masculinity. What did you find concerning race, class, gender, globalization and migration?
- [23:57]
A
Sure. So first, I challenge readers to rethink the relationship between race and class in this new world order where wealth is decentering across continents and world regions. But becoming polarized within each country and under these kinds of conditions. The question I ask then is, does Western masculinity still command some degree of hegemonic power in China despite China's global rise? And I confirm that it does by showing how the dating agencies market their Western male clients as morally superior to Chinese men, despite their lack of wealth. So the fact is that this portrayal sells in China and this reflects this continued superiority of Western culture within the Chinese women's imagination. However, I also in this book, show a lot of moments when Western masculinity is starting to lose its hegemonic power. And this typically happens in the latter phase of the courtship process, when the couples go offline and start meeting face to face. And in this book, I show how some of these women quickly rejected their working class Western suitors once they realized that these men didn't embody the type of elite masculinity that they were seeking in a partner. And instead, some of these women would actually choose to continue having affairs with their local Chinese lovers, even if those men were married and were not willing to leave their wives. And this is because the women's Chinese lovers had these refined tastes, lifestyles and sexual know hows that a lot of their foreign suitors lacked. So in the west, race remains a very important marker of status independent of class, because ethnic minorities still hold significantly less economic, political and social power than the white majority, even if some racial minorities accomplished great things at an individual level. But in Asia, this old racial hierarchy that featured white men on top is now being realigned in light of a changing global economic order, as shown by the Chinese women's preference for their wealthy local lovers over their modest earning foreign suitors. So my work really captures this shift in the relationship between race and class as an affluent capitalist class emerges in both Western and non Western countries. So my book also has very important implications for how we understand and theorize global migration, especially the way we think about new differences of wealth between sending and receiving countries. Today, China occupies a unique position on the world stage. On the one hand, it's an emerging superpower projected to overtake the US to become the world's leading largest economy. But on the other hand, China's growth has been very uneven, is still considered a developing country by its GDP per capita. So given this economic diversity, we really can no longer make very generalized predictions about Chinese migrants on the basis of macro level economic trends alone. And instead I argue that we have to focus on intra group differences, that is differences between wealthy Chinese migrants versus poor Chinese migrants because their motives, aspirations and mate selection strategies are going to just be completely different.
- [27:17]
B
Financially burdened women in the dating situation and the financially flexible what were the differences?
- [27:26]
A
The financially flexible women were women who had medical insurance, they had guaranteed retirement funds, they're not struggling with the cost of raising children, and they were not in debt. So in other words, these women were financially comfortable. They were in a good place. By contrast, the financially burdened women include those who are in the contingent employment sector, who want better social services as they approach retirement age. And they also include women who have other urgent financial needs due to circumstances like debt from a failed business. And what I observed at the agency is that most of the financially flexible women actually ended up rejecting their Western suitors, while the financially burdened women married them at much higher rates. In fact, a lot of financially burdened women would even compromise on other aspects of their marriage, such as romantic attraction or sexual compatibility, because they were desperate for financial security or green card. Now, after moving abroad, the financially burdened women were also more likely to tolerate abusive marriages, while the financially flexible women could afford to end things quickly if they felt unhappy.
- [28:42]
B
Tell us about the traditional values of women in China. Is it changing?
- [28:49]
A
Yes, certainly. So a lot of my respondents are identifying now with a strand of, a new strand of Chinese style feminism that scholars Angela Wu and Dong Yike call entrepreneurial Chinese feminism. And this is a very interesting model. And it's not what we traditionally think of as the traditional women. So it's some hybrid. So this model encourages women to actually abandon traditional virtues like submissiveness and self sacrifice, but it does not associate female empowerment with participation in the paid labor force. Instead, women are encouraged to capitalize and cultivate on their sexual attractiveness, including their femininity and domestic skills, but they're doing it to maximize their material gain. So popular sayings that emerged in the post reform era that speak to this strand of feminism include things like, women conquer the world through conquering men. A man shows his love for a woman by handing her his wallet. So the idea here is that rather than gaining direct access to power through the paid labor market, women are better off using their feminine appeal to control men and entrepreneurs. See, feminism really resonated with a lot of my respondents who lived in China at a time when the country became governed by a market logic that emphasized women's economic dependence on men and their sexual objectification by men. So under these kinds of conditions, a lot of women aim to achieve leverage over men by cultivating their attractiveness through performing conventional femininities rather than by competing with men directly on the labor market. But at the same time, they're performing femininity in a way. Right. That does not. That, that does not assume submissiveness or self sacrifice, but rather self empowerment.
- [30:45]
B
In chapter one, you went into detail about the motives of Chinese women seeking Western men. Can you give us examples?
- [30:54]
A
Sure. So, as I previously said, the majority of the women were middle aged. And this revival of traditional patriarchy ideology in China today, which emphasizes feminine youth, puts them at a disadvantage on the marriage market. And also I found the women's class positions shape their decision making differently. A lot of financially flexible women included millionaire entrepreneurs, ex wives and mistresses of new rich businessmen and middle class professionals. And a lot of these women wanted foreign husbands because their new rich ex husbands or lovers left them for younger women. And they wanted to marry someone of similar economic caliber as their previous partners. And they find that very difficult in China now. A lot of the financially burdened women, right, who were struggling single mothers whose ex husbands lost their state jobs and ended up drinking, gambling and avoiding family responsibilities, these women really experienced downward mobility during China's economic reform, and they see marriage migration as their ticket out to financial freedom. So really, even though China is growing a lot economically overall, right. It's experienced very differently by women across different class sectors. So we really can't make generalized predictions about the women's aspirations based on just the simple fact that they're Chinese. And instead we really have to look at different, a lot of different factors like the women's age, their parental status, their income, and. And by doing that, we can really understand that women's individual positions on the global marriage market and what they want unlucky brides.
- [32:44]
B
Can you tell us more about these unlucky brides?
- [32:48]
A
Sure. So let's use an example of Joanne. So Joanne was a divorced single mom in her 40s with a son in high school. And when I first met her, she worked in retail and she struggled to make ends after her Chinese ex husband had gambled away the restaurant that she owned. And later she met and married Frederick, an American businessman in his 50s. So while Joanne initially thought Frederick was a rich businessman, as that's how he projected himself, but it turned out that he actually lost a lot of money during the 2008 financial crisis. So when she moved to the US with her son, they lived in this small town. He rarely worked. She just didn't see him working that much. Although he claimed that he owned a fact tree in China and He didn't have much money to give her, so he really wasn't holding up his end of the patriarchal bargain as a wealthy provider. But he still expected her to do all the housework and be this gentle, submissive woman and who's taking care of his two young daughters from his previous marriage. So this couple ended up fighting a lot. There was domestic violence, there was domestic emotional abuse. She ended up calling 91 1-once and ended up. And later he forced her to go back to China for a period of time and actually threatened to take away her green card. So eventually this couple reconciled and Joanne came back to the US but their relationship had been damaged and she felt very much powerless in this relationship because he couldn't really provide her with the lifestyle that he promised. And he made her feel like a maid and a sex worker at home. And she really had a hard time getting a job since she didn't speak English and she couldn't go back to China because her son was going to school in the US So really I felt that this example showed us that if we consider these women right as a group instead of as individuals. Right. These kinds of patriarchal bargains would still put women at a structural disadvantage. So for unlucky brides like Joanne, who end up in these conflict ridden marriages for reasons beyond their control, really, their financial dependence on their husbands made it really hard for them to fight back and leave the marriage when things weren't working out.
- [35:06]
B
You discussed the rule to urban migrants. What are the rewards in the industry in dating in the place locations?
- [35:19]
A
Well, a lot of translators were rural migrants who have no pedigree or social connections to get jobs at large companies. And although they have a college degree in English, China has an oversupply of English majors. So they really feel lucky to have found a relatively well paying job at the dating agency so they can stay in the city instead of going back home. And after working for a year or two, some actually decided to stay at the agencies and they tried to get promoted to become the managers, while others would actually leave and start their own business. So the computer skills, customer service skills and marketing skills they gained on this job really helped them learn how to run their own business. Some of the top performing translators at the agency actually made a lot of money. One was able to actually buy a home in one of China's most expensive coastal metropolises. And another woman saved up enough money to help her parents purchase a home in her rural hometown. In just a couple years, another girl saved up enough money to go to grad school and now works as a college English teacher. Other translators married Western men and moved abroad and became mothers. So for these rural girls who had no money or no connections in China, migrating to the west was actually a big step up for them in the way of social mobility.
- [36:39]
B
What is the message you want the reader to leave with once they finish your book?
- [36:46]
A
I think the message is that a lot of the stereotypes that we have about the so called mail order brides as someone young and never married and financially struggling, this is actually not necessarily true in real life. So a lot of times real life situations are much more nuanced. And through my research, what, what I'm finding is that in China, for example, women from diverse economic backgrounds seek Western men. It's not necessarily all for the money. And then whether or not the marriages work out would very much depend on both parties. And a lot of times the conflicts arise from differences in their, their values and their the way they think about how to share fiscal responsibility. And the divorce rates are not necessarily extremely high in these kinds of marriages. So there's a lot more nuance to these marriages than we may stereotypically think of through the images that are being projected in the popular media.
- [38:04]
B
Well, I've taken up enough of your time. Can you tell us the next project you'll be working on?
- [38:11]
A
Sure. Since I specialize in the areas of gender and race, my new project will look at racism and sexism against Asian women entering leadership positions in academia. So Asians make up about 6.5% of college students and 8.4% of faculty members, but only 1% of college presidents. So among Asian college presidents, only 22% were women. And so my new work, my new study will ask this question, why are Asian women so underrepresented in leadership positions in academia? And a couple of existing studies show that Asian women struggle to obtain leadership positions because they're often stereotyped as too smart and too research focused, too devoted to family to make time for work, or they're sexualized as youthful looking and exotic, but unassertive and inexperienced. So my new study is going to further explore whether Asian women's lack of representation in leadership positions stems from issues that women have with their own personal identity, or whether it's due to some kind of institutional barrier like lack of mentorship in the workplace, or is it some combination of both. So I'm working with two other colleagues. We've designed a large scale survey and we will implement it soon. And I will also be interviewing a select number of Asian women faculty, especially those who have obtained leadership positions to give their experience and insight on what steps can be taken to promote more Asian female representation in higher education leadership.
- [39:43]
B
Well, we'll be looking forward to that research. Again, we've been talking with Dr. Monica Liu, and the book is entitled Seeking Western Meal Email Order Brides Under China's Global Rides. Thank you for being on the show.
- [39:59]
A
Thank you.