Rescue Me
MULTIDIMENSIONAL MASCULINITIES AND LAW: FEMINIST AND CRITICAL RACE APPROACHES, Frank Rudy Cooper & Ann C. McGinley, eds., New York University Press, 2012
15 Pages Posted: 31 Aug 2011 Last revised: 1 Oct 2012
Date Written: August 30, 2011
Abstract
Asian American men, simultaneously racialized and emasculated, are victims of both racism and sexism. This interplay of racism and sexism affects race and gender dynamics for Asian American men both within Asian American communities and more broadly. In this chapter, I argue that this interplay of race and gender renders the Asian American male firefighter discursively impossible. The discursive impossibility of the Asian American male firefighter can be seen in popular depictions of firefighters in television shows such as Rescue Me, as well as in the absence of such a figure in the iconography of the fallen 9/11 firefighters. The discursive impossibility of Asian American male firefighters plays out in the real world in their near absence in fire departments, evident but unremedied in recent litigation involving the Fire Department of New York (FDNY).
Keywords: Feminist theory, gender, critical race theory, employment discrimination, antidiscrimination law, law and popular culture
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