A theory of the JAP

Every American Jewish woman not literally in rags begging for gruel has, at one point or another, been called a JAP. Frustrating as this is to those of us who do not spend our days chatting with the girls over manicures about how to find a lawyah or bankah to marry--and alas, most Jewish women do not fit this stereotype--like all stereotypes, it has some basis in reality.

Rather than looking at the JAP as a slur, we should think of it as a subculture, one no more or less valid than hipsters, bears, or farm-obsessed urbanites. Like any other subculture, one's natural-born physical appearance and background play a part in membership, but it's mostly about performance, about choice of dress, hairstyle, lifestyle. And, if this needs pointing out, not all JAPs are Jewish or female, although the culture is rooted where it's rooted. (As with hipsters, JAPs are, of course, never self-proclaimed, and can be spotted a mile away.)

So, as promised, a theory: why is there a subculture of high-maintenance, materialistic Jewish women? Where do these 'princesses' come from? One possibility is that Jewish women overcompensate with artifice (eating disorders or fancy clothes) for a lack of 'conventional' (i.e. blonde-and-blue) beauty. That's probably part of it--one can make fun of the JAP for hair-straightening, but consider the likely reaction to the alternative. And it goes far in explaining the gender tilt of the subculture.

Here's another idea: Jews, as Jews, voluntarily deny ourselves full participation in mainstream American society. A world of Christmas and ham, Lilly Pulitzer and small-town childhoods, is distant to many of us. But, at the same time, we want in. So we overcompensate in the areas we don't see as threatening our Jewish identity. For a woman to focus on shopping and finding a man is plenty American; to obsess over both must be very American. The JAP is an especially enthusiastic consumer of and participant in the lowest-common-denominator American culture, hoping (subconsciously) that this will be enough to balance out the difference inherent to her non-Christian background.