As I mentioned previously, face mask culture had been normalised in Asian countries through propaganda , making it an essential to use but also promoting it's use to the public as it's "...one of the easiest and cheapest means of preventing these outbreaks..." as well as fashion accessories and using celebrities to wear masks, showing them in magazines as well.
In modern Eastern Culture, face masks are still prevalent and are normal. As it have become normal to wear face masks in countries such as South Korea were fine dusts are a serious problem especially in cities, as well as China and Japan where it has become common practice since the influenza outbreak and people wearing them for hay fever. Especially among the younger generation it has embodied a fashion accessory reputation. Like Japanese students using face masks to hide their face in lectures or a 'lookism' culture to hide female student's faces when they have no make up on. This association in Eastern culture with face masks may have trickled down from the previous fashion paradigm of face masks in the East during the 20's and 30's.
Mask Culture in the West
Wearing masks is not a common thing in the West, such as that in North-America wearing masks has retained it's association with Asian people (much like what Christos Lynteris said - associating it to 'mask-ophobia'), as Maria Sin Shun-ying from the University of Hong kong wrote how Sars has been connected to wearing masks that in in itself "...served to delineate the disease's identity" and has been linked to Western media cover ups and censorship during the outbreak. Pictures of "...masked crowds walking the streets of Asian cities...were disseminated globally." racialising and constructing the mask as a 'distinctly 'Asian phenomenon.' This is also true, in the COVID-19 pandemic such as that outlets like the NY Times use stock images of Asian men and women wearing masks in their articles when reporting the first virus in New York City which was from a woman who traveled to Iran. The information and the image does not correlate in any way whatsoever and can be fear-mongering that entices racist incidents towards Asians. Rita Pin Ahrens, executive director of OCA_APAA said, "It's extremely disappointing that ubiquitous new sources, such as the New York Times and the New York Post, are perpetuating coronavirus-related hysteria and discrimination against Asian America and Pacific Islanders due to lack of oversight."
Wearing masks is out of the norm in the west therefore creating a stigmatising symbol whereas in Eastern countries where it is, it does not have a stigmatising value and may in fact be the opposite. As said by Harris Ali, a sociologist at York University in Canada, "In a more collectivist culture, the wearing of mask takes on more significance than it does in the Western World". In places such as Oklahoma were the local government has been driven to change their mandatory mask wearing to "...encouraged, not required," stated how people "...who refuse and threaten violence are so absorbed as to not follow what is a simple show of respect and kindness to others." People are going against mask wearing requirements stating how it's an invasion of their personal liberties as experts describe face masks as a considerate act towards others, apart from yourself, as Dr. Deborah Birx from the White House pointed out, "We need to protect each other...at the same time we're voicing our discontent." People have opted to not wear face masks they feel that maybe the virus has been overblown or used the fact that they were outside so it was okay, and that to wear a mask you have to have the virus in the first place, but health experts have also pointed out that people can also be asymptomatic.
Ethical issues regarding face masks should be preserved for key workers - which is true for N95 masks and other medical-grade masks. People don't want to wear them as they think it's for the frontliners only. There's also hoarding, just like toilet paper, people may try to hoard masks too and especially in times like this, nobody would want to be seen as selfish and misguided.
Although, things are slowly changing, or it may that be as more people are being seen with face masks, homemade or not, the sight of you being the only one not wearing one could be embarrassing or make people conscious wearing them. It has also quickly become a fashion trend/accessory with brand such as Off-White producing their own face masks, ranging from the price of £75. But, perhaps, this new meaning of a face masks being the new "best-selling accessory" has become a way for people to cope with looking less conscious about the fact that they are wearing face masks and to make them feel more confident. It's also quite interesting how the fashion aspect is outweighing the idea of protecting others apart from yourself with people so invested in how they are perceived wearing masks in public.
Thoughts & Reflection:
The idea of collectivism and individualism can definitely seen from the differences in Eastern and Western Culture. With the idea of being considerate and protecting others a normal characteristic and idea when wearing masks in the east, wearing a mask in the West at first can be triggered by feeling self-conscious about not wearing a mask when everyone else is, though at the end they are also protecting others and themselves, it has been triggered by feeling different than the majority and the new norm of wearing a mask. It's also due to lose mandating of face-covering in Western countries and a strong sense of individuality and liberty that it this case kind of is doing more bad things that good, and which is also why I think the normality of wearing masks even after a pandemic like COVID-19 would be really hard and slow in the West. As people will still be sceptic of their effectivity without formal data presented and ultimately still their deeply rooted stigmatised meanings that has been cultivated for years.
No comments:
Post a Comment