Greetings to all, first post here.
I live in Japan and work in the international relations office of Yokosuka, a city hosting an American naval base.
Recently, a conversation with my Japanese boss drew out an observation I couldn't resist posting here. Boss, who has excellent English skills and loves showing them off, was discoursing to a captive mealtime audience on gendered nouns in English...ships and cities, for example, are "she"...
Me, inserting with grin: "English is a sexist language, so ships and cities are about it. Most everything else is assumed to be male."
Boss, almost tripping on his enthusiastic agreement: "Yes! Absolutely! When I was first studying English [note: about 35 years ago], I saw that the basic versions of nouns were usually male...waiter/waitress, steward/stewardess etc...but then I came across widow/widower, and I thought, boy, that's weird! The original noun is female only for bad or unlucky things."
Huh...I had never noticed that one before.
On a broader introductory note, observing modern Japanese culture is an everyday women's studies class for me. I have been thinking for a while of starting a blog about being a feminist in Japan and I'd curious if there are readers here who would be interested.
A brief teaser on possible posts:
- how women are treated in Japanese literature (my special interest)
- what advertising in Japan reveals about expectations of women
- cultural considerations in Japan that aggravate and/or obscure gender oppression (extreme materialism and the value placed on self-deprecation, for starters)
- things that are definitely worse over here (systemic workplace sexism)
- things that aren't as bad over here (the sexual double standard)
If these topics sound interesting to you, please leave a comment!
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I'd be absolutely fascinated by this.
I am not native english speaker at all. But it seems that the "widow" is the base form just because historically there were (and are) much more single women with their husband lying in the grave than otherwise.
I dunno, is that really true? Historically men may have been more likely to go off to war and die, but many women died in childbirth. Other causes, like disease, were probably about even.
I dunno, is that really true? Historically men may have been more likely to go off to war and die, but many women died in childbirth. Other causes, like disease, were probably about even.
My guess off the top of my head:
Historically, a man whose wife dies doesn't have that much change about his place in life. He might feel a need to remarry to have someone to run his household, but he doesn't really have to.
But a woman whose husband died was bereft-- there goes her means of support, and quite possibly her house. Its a real change to her position in the world. If she hasn't inherited wealth, which was unusual, she HAS to remarry or find some other relative to move in with, or she's screwed.
So being a widow was much more of a big thing than being a widower.
Yep, your arguments are reasonable. Besides, in Russian, these 2 words look similar but there is no base one among them.
Leaving a comment. My friend went to Japan last summer and spoke to me about it. She had known that I had learned about Japan in my anthropology course, but didn't realize to what extent. "Did you know they still expect women to stay at home?" she asked with such shock. "Yes," I replied. "Japan is still patriarchal."
So, yes I would love to read more about your stay in Japan and your analysis therein.
I'd be very interested. Learning about similarities and differences can help lead to change for both sides.
I notice too that the "female" nouns - ships and cities - are things that in their function are controlled by men.
I am taking a class on language and sexism, actually. Also, I'm a Japanese minor going to Japan XD The funniest thing is, my Japanese teacher (a Japanese woman) is in my Rhetoric of Women's Discourse class, and I have mostly gender indifferent girls in my class (4 girls and 2 boys.) We get off topic a lot about sexism in American and Japan anymore, and always conclude it's worse in Japan and how my Sensei is no longer a Japanese Woman, but an American woman. She even leaves chores for her (White) husband to do sometimes.
But yeah, in rhet we discussed a lot of interesting things so far.... some is very radical.
My take on widow/widower is that it is term for a person which defines them via their relationship with a spouse. Women are far more frequently defined by their relation to their (assumed male) partner than men are.
Just a little nit, cities and ships are not gendered nouns. They are gendered objects. Nouns are not gendered in English.
Studying sexism in languages is a very fun activity. In Portuguese, my mother language, it's obvious - If there are a group of women, as large it can be, but there is one man, you call it "eles" (They, masculine form). If there are a large group of men and one woman, it's still "eles". You only call them "elas" (Feminine form) if it's a female-only group. Also, the first "e" in "eles" is a closed one, and in "elas" is a open one, giving it a higher-pitched sound. I think it's the same thing as "he/she" ("he" sounds stronger) and "der/die" (Same thing, "der" sounds stronger).
Also, NOTHING is gender-neutral in Portuguese. Everything is an "ela" or and "ele".
At least, methinks, you can call a group a "they" in English, not an "elas" or "eles".
And yup, I'd love to read about feminist in Japan. I have so many otaku friends that would love to go to Japan, but... I don't know. I'd love to hear your opinions.
(And sorry about that extensive rant on the Portuguese language XD)
is there any movement for gender neutral pronoun language, anything like in english (ze/sie/hir/etc)?
think not, woolf. Sexism in Brazil is in the country's roots, actually, and I never knew a feminist here (When I said to a friend of mine, "I'm a feminist", she said "Ewww, me not. I'm not a lesbian". Yes, wtf much).
Sometimes we use "ele(a)" or "ele/ela" or any possible combination of it, but, more commonly, the male pronoun is used. Sad, actually.
Metra, you got a fellow feminist from Brazil here!
I actually wrote a community post about the lack of neutral pronouns in portuguese, a few weeks ago. Gotta find it to recommend it to you.
marj, i'd def love to read that post
I remember from Spanish classes in high school that there is a similar principle regarding ellos/ellas. Would a native speaker care to weigh in before I go talking more about a language I don't know? :p
IRONY - I can't learn Spanish to save my life. I can learn Italian, German, English and even Japanese, but Spanish is just too hard for me. But I think I can say something regarding at least Spanish and Portuguese: They aren't gender-neutral. There isn't something like "das" in German, it's "o/a" forever and ever and there isn't a "i/u/anythingneutral".
That is rather fascinating. I took a history course called "Women in East Asia" and we discussed several of the things that you mentioned. I really like the history department here, all of the professors are self-proclaimed Feminists. Including the one that I took the course from, he is the Chair of the Women Studies program.
I'd love to read your blog. I lived in Japan for 3 years, and it was great fun, but I noticed a lot of bull**** that I just didn't write about. By the way, have you been to Kyoto? If not, GO! Kyoto rocks hard.
Running off of the nitpick from above, English has "natural" gender which means that if the thing has a biological sex, its grammatical gender matches it in use. So, for instance, tomcat and queen, man and woman, bull and cow, and so forth. What's happened in your ship/city example is a gendering of the place, not necessarily the noun itself. It's no weirder to say "Paris, it's a wonderful city" than "Paris, she's a wonderful city". Unless you've lived/grown up in a major city, I don't think it'd be normal for someone to say "Skowhegan, she's a wonderful town in upstate Maine" or whatever (also, not my home town).
It's not necessarily built into the language for the noun itself (pronouns get funny with people, but that's a gender binary issue more than anything else) but the usage by the particular person.
thanks so much for all the comments! I'll plan to launch the blog next week and cross-post here.
and thanks for nitpicking me to enlightenment.
Yeah, I have been to Kyoto and yeah it is great. I have lived in both Osaka and Hyogo, and actually I plan to go head to the Kansai area after another year and a half of this job. i heard Kansai.
Just my two cents: would love to hear from your blog. I replied in the inquiry a couple of months ago that I would be interested in hearing from other countries besides the US.
(And since I've made an account so I can comment...)
When I said "womanly body" I mean that every woman, regardless of size, should embrace their body. For me, part of being a feminist is embracing what makes me a woman. So if some hips and breasts make me a woman, than I embrace that. If one is more slender and less curvy, they should embrace that. In the case of Jessica, she has bedroom furniture curves, thus that is her womanly body and should embrace it.