For Asian American Women, Racism And Misogyny Have Always Been Intertwined

A new report lays out how AAPI women have experienced the toxic combination of racism and misogyny throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, when a white gunman in Georgia killed six women of Asian descent in a string of shootings, many Asian American and Pacific Islanders, especially AAPI women, were horrified — but not surprised. AAPI women and girls know all too well the toxic combination of racism and misogyny, which is often reinforced through media and culture. And, as a new report released Thursday lays out, AAPI women have experienced the consequences of that toxicity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Since last year, Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition of advocacy groups and scholars that has been collecting incident reports to document the surge in anti-Asian racism catalyzed by the pandemic, has continually found that AAPI women are twice as likely to report racist incidents than AAPI men. “Racism intertwined with misogyny has always been a part of the lives of AAPI women, and the pandemic merely laid bare what went unnoticed before,” the report, a collaboration between Stop AAPI Hate and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), concludes. The report is based on findings from Stop AAPI Hate’s ongoing database of self-reported incidents, as well as a national survey of AAPI women that NAPAWF conducted in February. The majority of racist attacks reported by AAPI women involved them experiencing verbal harassment or being called derogatory names and slurs, according to the report. The incidents most commonly occurred on public streets and/or sidewalks, as well as in businesses.  ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS via Getty Images Asian women at a protest in Washington's Chinatown on March 27, 2021. One woman is holding a sign that reads "6 women were murdered." Another woman is holding a sign that reads "Not your sexual fantasy, not your docile wife, not your model minority, not your scapegoat, not your punchline, not your doormat, not your punching bag."