In Asia, women’s bodies are big business. From whitening creams sold in corner shops to fertility apps quietly harvesting menstrual data on smartphones, a vast, profitable ecosystem has emerged around what advertisers politely call “intimate needs” and feminists increasingly name for what it is: vagina capitalism. It is a market that promises confidence, control and empowerment, while often reinforcing old hierarchies about beauty, purity, fertility and female worth—now turbocharged by technology and data.
Take the whitening cream aisle, still a defining feature of pharmacies from Manila to Mumbai. In India, Thailand, Indonesia and across East Asia, lighter skin continues to be marketed as a shortcut to success, romance and respectability. The rebranding of Glow & Lovely—formerly Fair & Lovely—did little to change the underlying message. “Glow” is simply the new euphemism for fair. Ads may now talk about confidence or “bright futures,” but the visuals remain strikingly consistent: lighter skin, straighter hair, softer features. A Filipino sociologist once put it bluntly: “Colorism didn’t disappear. It learned marketing.”
South Korea offers a different, but related, version of the same story. The country’s globally influential beauty industry sells not just creams but surgical precision. Double eyelids, V-line jaws, poreless skin—women’s faces become investment projects, framed as self-improvement rather than conformity. Clinics promote procedures as tools for “self-branding” in a hyper-competitive society, where looks are openly listed on résumés and dating profiles. Choice exists, yes—but within a narrow corridor shaped by patriarchy, capitalism and relentless visual culture.
Then there is femtech, the newest and fastest-growing frontier of vagina capitalism. Across Asia, fertility and period-tracking apps are booming, especially among urban, middle-class women juggling work, marriage pressure and delayed motherhood. Apps like Flo or regional startups promise insight into cycles, ovulation windows and hormonal moods. In markets like India and Southeast Asia, where sex education is limited and gynecologists are expensive or judgmental, these apps feel like lifelines. “My app explains things my doctor never did,” a Vietnamese user told a local newspaper. “It feels private, safe.”
But safety is often an illusion. Researchers have repeatedly shown that many fertility and period apps collect extremely sensitive data—sexual activity, pregnancy intentions, mental health notes—and share it with third parties for advertising and analytics. In conservative Asian societies, where reproductive choices are deeply politicized and socially policed, the risks are magnified. A missed period is not just biological information; it can be social dynamite. As one Indonesian digital rights activist warned, “When data about women’s bodies is monetized, it can also be weaponized.”
The language of empowerment is everywhere. Beauty products promise “confidence.” Fertility apps sell “control.” Egg-freezing clinics in Singapore, Japan and South Korea market themselves as feminist solutions to career pressure and shrinking birth rates. Yet the burden always lands on women: fix your skin, manage your hormones, optimize your womb. Structural problems—gendered labor markets, unequal caregiving, stigma around childlessness—remain conveniently untouched.
What makes vagina capitalism in Asia particularly powerful is how seamlessly it aligns with cultural expectations. In many societies, a woman is still judged on appearance before ability, on fertility before freedom. Markets do not create these norms, but they profit from them expertly. The body becomes both the site of anxiety and the solution sold back to women, monthly subscription by monthly subscription.
Resistance exists. Asian feminists are pushing back against colorism, data exploitation and the quiet surveillance embedded in “wellness” tech. Younger consumers increasingly question why confidence must come in a tube, or why bodily data should belong to venture capitalists. Still, the industry grows, because it speaks fluently to fear and desire.
Vagina capitalism does not shout. It whispers. It tells Asian women that everything is a choice—while carefully shaping which choices feel possible, desirable, or respectable.
Spicy Auntie is tired. Not jet-lag tired, not menopause tired (well, that too), but tired in her bones of watching women’s bodies in Asia treated like unfinished products on an assembly line. Too dark? Buy a cream. Too round? Buy discipline. Not pregnant yet? Download an app. Too pregnant? Different app. Everything monitored, optimized, monetised. Welcome, sisters, to vagina capitalism.
Let’s start with the whitening creams, because Auntie grew up with those ads whispering poison into young girls’ ears. I still remember them: sad, dark-skinned girl, no boyfriend, no job, no future. Cut. She becomes lighter. Suddenly—promotion! Marriage! Smiling mother-in-law! And people tell me, “Oh Auntie, that’s old-fashioned.” Is it? Walk into any Asian pharmacy today. The shelves are still glowing… white. They just changed the words. Now it’s “bright,” “radiant,” “healthy.” Same message, prettier font.
Then we moved on from skin to souls. Fertility apps. Period trackers. Ovulation predictors. Marketed as empowerment, sold as sisterhood, backed by venture capital. Auntie is not anti-technology. I love a good app. But tell me: why does empowerment always seem to require women to hand over the most intimate details of their bodies to companies whose business model is data? My cycle is not a commodity. My womb is not a spreadsheet. And in Asia—where abortion is restricted, sex is policed, and unmarried women are judged—this data is not just sensitive. It’s dangerous.
What makes me angriest is how cleverly this whole system wraps itself in feminist language. Choice! Agency! Self-care! But whose choice is it really when society punishes you for ageing, not marrying, not reproducing, not looking “right”? When beauty standards, family pressure and state anxiety about birth rates all point in the same direction, the market doesn’t liberate you—it herds you.
And notice something else, sisters? The work is always ours. We must fix our skin, track our cycles, freeze our eggs, manage our hormones, stay sexy but respectable, fertile but not desperate. Men? States? Employers? Oh, they’re just watching the dashboards.
Spicy Auntie is not saying throw away your skincare or delete your apps. I am saying: open your eyes. Ask who profits from your insecurity. Ask why women’s bodies are always framed as problems to be solved. And most importantly, remember this: your body is not a startup. You don’t need optimisation. You need respect.
Now excuse Auntie while she moisturises—for pleasure, not patriarchy.