The Asian aunty has a lot to teach us about gendered stereotypes and how to fight them. The term, often used as a sign of respect, has also become a way to disparage and indicate that a woman is past her prime. It is not unusual to hear younger men and women call their older female colleagues or friends “aunties” as a put-down, only half in jest. However, some Asian women are challenging that narrative and offering alternative models of aging.
Politically, those women are important: They are voting in greater numbers than before. Parties from India to Indonesia — where they make up half of the voting population — are now targeting female voters. Governments around the region should take note of that increasingly powerful force.
It makes economic sense to do this. By 2050, the number of people aged 60 or older would reach 2.1 billion globally, the majority of them women. They play a pivotal role in society, as providers of childcare, eldercare and domestic labor. That unpaid or underpaid work allows their families to work and save more, indirectly contributing to GDP growth. Yet they are too often economically excluded, socially marginalized, and vulnerable to abuse, neglect and exploitation.
Illustration: Yusha
Aging can be grim. Put aside the physical and mental deterioration, perhaps one of the most insulting aspects is the discrimination older people experience.
One in two people might harbor ageist attitudes, the 2021 WHO’s Global Report on Ageism said. It is the most socially normalized prejudice and, like many others, relies on the concept of “othering,” where we see a group of people as being unlike ourselves.
The irony of course, is that most of us grow old — or turn into “boomers” — sooner or later.
The bias is particularly acute for women, who experience the twin difficulties of both ageism and sexism, highlighting how we are underrepresented in media, and often ignored in consumer, social and public spaces.
We are also “grandmotherized” and assumed to be incompetent, the study said.
It can be even more of an issue in Asian cultures, as Geetanjali Shree wrote in her novel Tomb of Sand, which won the International Booker Prize in 2022. Her work explores themes of invisibility among Indian women, often considered to be a natural state for so many, where despite much progress, men are still the priority in families and society. Shree’s observations of the inner secret lives of women are strewn through her books.
“We always knew mother had a weak spine,” her debut novel Mai (Silently Mother) begins. “Those who constantly bend get this problem.”
Increasingly though, older Asian women are refusing to be invisible. Zeenat Aman, a Bollywood star from the 1970s, has found a new life for herself on social media as she ages.
“Which genius decided that ‘aunty’ is a derogatory term?” she wrote on Instagram, calling out the prejudice against older women. “I’m an aunty, and proud.”
Addressing the taboo of aging was also the thinking behind Lisa Ray’s content on social media. The Indian actress, author and entrepreneur has refashioned herself in her early 50s, breaking through the negative stereotypes about women “of a certain age.”
“Extreme ageism in India exists,” she told me from Dubai, where she now lives. “Comments online say things like ‘old aunty, why are you wearing this?’ That is the general attitude. Women of a certain age are expected to present themselves in a certain way, know their place and follow the script. Society doesn’t like it when they are different.”
Older people used to be respected in wisdom cultures such as India’s, but that is not the case anymore, Ray said. Women were released from their responsibilities by that point, and so could help to pass down life lessons to the next generation.
“Instead, you now have the archetypal image of the crone, in place of a wise woman,” she adds.
Ray is not alone. The anonymous Singaporean artist “niceaunties” is using artificial intelligence to create a virtual “auntysphere” to turn the stereotype on its head.
“I guess the point is, to do whatever the hell you want,” she said in a podcast. “That to me is really being an auntie.”
The hyper-sexualization of younger women combined with an antiquated view of older females are deeply rooted in our youth-obsessed culture. That can make the entire experience of growing older an exercise in humiliation, compounded by a lack of visibility in the workplace and in the public eye.
For the vast majority of Asian women, particularly in emerging economies with large populations such as India’s and Indonesia’s, most would never get a chance to rise up. It is a privilege for a select few, with the means and education to express themselves.
Still, women such as Aman and Ray are helping to craft a fresh narrative for a new cohort of older Asian women; one that is not content with fading into the background. So this year, I would like to suggest that if you are an aunty (like me) then wear that title proudly, be whoever you please and refuse to comply to a fixed stereotype. The next generation would thank us for it.
Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia politics with a special focus on China. Previously, she was the BBC’s lead Asia presenter and worked for the BBC across Asia and South Asia for two decades.
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