"Patriarchy is So Third World": Korean Immigrant Women and "Migrating" White Western Masculinity

Previous studies have found that immigrant women prefer and fight to maintain gains in gender status brought by migration. However, few studies address how hegemonic ideals of white Western masculinity (e.g., as gender progressive, heroic) may also be an influence. In addition, women from U.S.-dominated countries engage masculinity ideologies both before and after they immigrate in a cross-border process. Using a case study of Korean immigrant women, this article addresses both the influence, and the women's transnational engagement, of hegemonic ideologies of white American masculinity. The author conducted 26 in-depth interviews with first generation Korean immigrant women in Los Angeles and 22 supplementary interviews with women in Seoul, South Korea. This study finds that the women used hegemonic notions of white American masculinity to resist Korean patriarchy, especially co-ethnic men's resistance to their gender empowerment in the United States. To be certain, the women's subordination by racial/national inequalities fostered their derision of white American men, such as soldiers, in South Korea. Yet, the women's racialized lens on gender relations tended to affirm their use of one form of hegemony—white American masculinity—to challenge another—Korean patriarchy. In light of these findings, future research on gender and immigrant women of color might consider analyzing racialized hierarchies of masculinity and their global-local and transnational contexts.