Tag:gender

Marching Proudly Through the Storm

Catch the rain-splashed streets of Taipei, and you’ll sense something electric: more than 150,000 people — undeterred by heavy downpours — flooded the capital...

New Maid Café Lets Men Wear the Apron

Ever fancied flipping the script and becoming the one wearing the frilly apron instead of being served? At the heart of Tokyo’s geek-chic enclave,...

Young 40s: When Your Knees Hurt but Your Outfit Slays

They’re old enough to remember dial-up but young enough to own three skincare serums. Meet South Korea’s “young 40s,” a meme-ready species of middle-aged...

A Woman at the Top, Patriarchy Intact

So Japan has its first female prime minister — and she’s here to prove that women, too, can uphold the patriarchy with impeccable discipline....

White Coats, Bloody Hands

Outrage surges as we learn that the very people entrusted with the care of girls—the doctors, nurses and midwives of the health system—are now...

When Punchlines Become Crimes

They say laughter is the best medicine—but in today’s China, it might also come with a dose of caution. In the world of stand-up...

The Men’s Bar That Refuses to Grow Up

It was meant to be a simple name change at one of Singapore’s oldest clubs. Instead, it turned into a culture war with beer...

Pride on Paper, Prejudice in Classrooms

Taiwan may wave the rainbow flag proudly at its Pride parades, but inside many classrooms the colors still fade to grey. A new nationwide...
Auntie Spices It Out
Commentary

Asian Men’s Top Fantasy? The Woman Next Door

January 25, 2026

I’ve lost count of how many times men—usually smug, usually underwhelming—have told me that men are “visual creatures” and therefore need porn stars with impossible bodies and Olympic flexibility. Darling, if that were true, Asia would look very different after dark. What Asian men actually click on, linger over, and return to again and again is not the spectacular. It’s the plausible. It’s the woman who looks like she could borrow your charger and complain about the aircon. This does not surprise Auntie in the slightest. For decades, Asian societies...
Commentary

When ‘Dangdut’ Dancers Cross Religious Red Lines

January 25, 2026

Spicy Auntie has seen this movie before, and honestly, I could recite the dialogue in my sleep. Sexy dangdut singer appears. Hips move. Men cheer. Phones come out. Someone yells “haram”. Someone else yells “culture”. Cue apologies, moral outrage, calls for punishment, and a sudden national panic about the collapse of civilisation — all triggered by a woman doing her job on a stage. What amused me this time is the performance of shock. As if Indonesia woke up yesterday and discovered that dangdut involves bodies. As if villagers have...
Commentary

The Radical Feminism of Studio Ghibli’s Girls

January 24, 2026

Hollywood? Pixar? Disney? Princesses, princesses, mermaids, sparkly eyelashes and sidekicks who exist mainly to applaud? Pffff. Auntie yawns. Give me the girls and women of Studio Ghibli any day, every day, preferably with wind in their hair, dirt under their nails, and absolutely no interest in being “chosen.” What I love about Ghibli women—those created by the wonderfully stubborn Hayao Miyazaki—is that they don’t perform strength. They live it. They work. They get tired. They get scared. They mess up. They don’t strike power poses or announce themselves as icons....
Commentary

The Seductive, Erotic Power of Old Shanghai Style

January 24, 2026

Spicy Auntie has another embarrassing confession to make. I am weak for Old Shanghai kitsch. Put me in a dim bar with red velvet curtains, a jazz trio pretending it’s 1936, and a hostess in a perfectly tailored cheongsam, and my critical faculties immediately start fighting my pleasure receptors. I know exactly what is being sold to me — and yet, like so many of us, I keep buying the fantasy. Because Old Shanghai nostalgia is erotic in a very specific, very manipulative way. It doesn’t shout sex. It whispers...
Commentary

Rich Women, Young Gigolos, Old Hypocrisy

January 24, 2026

I have several friends in Jakarta—well… acquaintances. Women I meet at dinners, at art openings, at those polite, exhausting lunches where everyone pretends not to notice who arrived with whom. Some of them, discreetly, unapologetically, enjoy the services—sorry, the company—of younger men. And honestly? Good for them. I’m not particularly fond of rich ibu-ibu, in Jakarta, Bogor, or anywhere else in Asia, but that’s not the point. The point is the hypocrisy. The thick, sticky, moralistic hypocrisy. When older men do this—especially powerful, wealthy, “respectable” men—it barely registers. A middle-aged...
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