It’s been interesting to read the comments people have left on that article I wrote for Vagabondish. While the article was entitled ‘What It’s Like to be Female and Foreign in Japan’ (foreign as in non-Japanese), the focus of discussion has strayed from the topic of a western woman’s perspective on dating abroad and zeroed in on the subject of North American women and how self-centered, demanding, spoiled and unattractive they all are.
I wish I was exaggerating.
Here are a few of the comments:
“I have traveled all over the world conducting a multi-billion dollar business, and American/Canadian women are valued about as much as a homeless man in New York City. They are viewed as feminazis, narcissistic, histrionic, materialistic, shallow, and useless.
Now I am not one to generalize, but even from my own experience, I cannot say this viewpoint is not that far from the truth. Why else do you think America has one of the highest divorce rates in the world? Generally speaking, American women make the worst WIVES, but are known for being great for CASUAL UNATTACHED SEX.” – Allan
“…Western women have ridiculous material expectations of their men and expect to be put on a pedestal at all times (instead of being equitable partners). Bringing little to the sexless & boring relationship other than expensive bathroom faucets, obesity, credit card debt and demands to work harder to afford undeserved luxuries to fit in with their consumer culture.” – Tommy
“The problem is that American women are known the world over as being self-centered and demanding princesses who feel like men should be kissing up to their posteriors. Not so in Europe, and most assuredly not true in Japan.” – Jeff
“You can keep the Western women in the west. They are fat, evil and smell like yeast. in addition, they think that everyone should be nice to them. They seem to be expecting some thing that they do not deserve. I say stay away eeeuuuwwww!” – Unchi-kun
Holy cow.
I don’t know about you, but while reading some of these, I had a mental image of a giant, Godzilla-sized slice of wonder bread stomping around Tokyo hollering “Be nice to me or else I’ll eat you! Muahahaha!”
If this is how men abroad view the female population of North America, well then forget sewing a Canadian flag to my backpack, next time I leave the U.S. I’ll wear a fur hat and pretend to be Russian. I’m kidding.
But in all seriousness, if you think that those few comments are an anomaly, try googling “demanding American women” or “spoiled American women” and you’ll see how many blog or forum posts have been written on the subject. Some of the sites even encourage men to boycott dating American women altogether; as if they were toxic mold or a hazardous chemical, more deserving of a warning label than any decent man’s attention.
While it would certainly be easy to write their blog posts and comments off as the bitter words of the burned and broken-hearted, I think there’s some truth to their assertions. I’ve written about how Americans have a reputation for being shallow and superficial in the past and as anyone would agree, Americans won’t be winning any awards in the healthy eating department any time soon.
But aren’t these stereotypes (the idea that all Americans are overweight, demanding and superficial) equally true for both genders? Why are the female half of the population being given all the blame here?
Whether these mens’ reasons for their ban on North-American women are justified or not, it would seem to me that finding a life partner is hard enough as it is. Why make it any more difficult by swearing off 180 million citizens of this planet (the approximate number of women living in Canada and the US) just because they happen to be born in the wrong corner of the globe?
I think that so long as you and the other person share common values and interests and there’s some chemistry there, that little line under ‘place of birth’ in a person’s passport shouldn’t matter much.
What do you think? Is there any truth to the North American woman’s bad rep?
