Underarm femininity : orientalizing the chinese national.

• Main Author: Lee, Xin Fei.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social behavior
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/48257
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

“I won’t say that underarm hair brings people in, but I guess its marks people out.” The presence of the underarm hair provides significant information in the “shared vocabularies of body idiom” (Goffman 1963) that has allowed Singaporeans to identify and label a woman with underarm hair as a “China woman” or “PRC”. By using qualitative responses from a total of nine respondents (five Singaporean women and four Chinese National women), I would argue that Orientalism can be used as a concept to explain the Singapore phenomenon where by a Chinese woman spotted in the public space with underarm hair is immediately identified as a Chinese National.