Japanese language have gender roles built into the very characters, but only for men

wisty · 2017-01-11T02:54:13+00:00

On the other hand:

奻 = argument

姦 = lewd behaviour.

(Chinese, which is generally the same as Kanji)

It's just characters.

mikesteane · 2017-01-11T02:15:34+00:00

Lets not also forget 'garcon' in french means both server and boy while 'fille' just means girl.

Christiaan31 · 2017-01-11T01:55:49+00:00

First, you're not wrong that Japanese language has it, and you do mention that Chinese is the same, but your title makes it seem like you are only talking about Japanese.

Second, I am no expert on Chinese characters, but I think there may have been another character that was used to encompass all men before 男 took that area over completely. 男, if you look at the parts, only refers to farmers, and I doubt the scholars of that time would have referred to themselves as such. Another thing that could have happened is that it was originally its own character like 女, but that it changed into 田 and 力 because it looked like that and to make it more easily to write.

Whatever the case, this is a relic from so long ago I hardly think it influences the way anyone thinks today. The reverse is true in English, where woman comes from wife+man, as if women are just a subset of men rather than an equal category.

fengpi · 2017-01-11T02:18:58+00:00

Writing is a highly superficial aspect of language, seeing as how spoken language predated written language by millennia, some languages didn't even have writing systems until very recent history, and written languages can often tell you little about linguistic origins (some languages have utterly changed their writing systems multiple times; Uzbek went from using a Persian script to a Cyrillic script to a Latin script over the past 100 years). I think you may be barking-up the wrong tree.

pumpkinsnice · 2017-01-11T02:09:26+00:00

You're partially correct; otoko isn't exactly the word for "man", its the word for "boy". It implies a younger male. Keep in mind all japanese kanji is just simplified chinese; its derived from a chinese character that means "man who works in the fields". (Note: Theres no real word for "man" other than to add 人 to the end of boy, making it "boy person" thus implying adult)

The kanji for woman is the same as the chinese character, BUT, the original kanji was a LOT more complex. It was more a pictograph of a woman with distinct breasts (sorry for the wikipedia link but its the best i could find https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/女-oracle.svg )

The word for woman was originally the chinese word for mother, but japanese just simplified it. So, in the end, the word for man is "boy who works in fields" and the word for woman is "mother". They're both pretty sexist in general.

Sorry if that was confusing, I havent studied chinese beyond the japanese kanji classes i've taken and what they taught us about the origins. So I'm uncertain what chinese kanji are called (and i'm a bit all over the place trying to describe it lol). But anyway yeah, I have a bachelors degree in Japanese, so thats my source.

bufedad · 2017-01-11T02:05:26+00:00

English does too, but the opposite.

'Men' carries no connotations. It is a blank slate.

'Woman' = Womb + man. In other words men with wombs.

Remember men are not called 'Dicman' or anything like that which implies (and is biologically supported) that people value wombs over male reproductive organs.

Also, fireman, policeman and so on. Those are man + job. Womb + man is kind of their "job" if you look at it that way.

Title	Japanese language have gender roles built into the very characters, but only for men
Author	TrulyStupidNewb
Upvotes	7
Comments	30
Date	January 11, 2017 1:16 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/5n93p5/japanese_language_have_gender_roles_built_into/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/japanese-language-have-gender-roles-built-into-the.934272 https://theredarchive.com/post/934272

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