Coetzee and the Filipino Woman

Abstract: The character Anya in J.M. Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year whether knowingly or unknowingly, reinforces white Australian stereotypes of the Filipino woman that Filipina feminists in Australia have tried valiantly to dismantle since the late 1980s. Placing Anya in the context of the history of Filipinas in Australia underscores the unique politics of race and gender that this group experienced. The stereotype of the sexualized Filipina that Anya represents contrasts greatly with the lived experiences of Filipina migrants in Australia, and Filipino cultural constructions of the feminine. Hence, while Filipinos will be offended by Anya, the danger is that Coetzee's Anya normalizes and affirms the white male construction of the sexual Filipina to a non-Filipino readership, further entrenching this image of the Filipina in the popular imagination of white Australians.