Gender Non-Neutrality

Chinese and Japanese currently use Chinese characters with roots of at least 3,000 years ago that bear nuances on gender. The character for courage (勇), for example, contains the character for man (男). In fact, the character for man itself is a composition of a rice paddy (田) and power (力). The character for wife/bride (婦) is a composition of the character for woman（女) and broom (帚). The character for disturb/prevent (妨) also bears the radical for woman. There are of course many positive characters with the woman radical, such as “need” (要) and “to like/love” (好). I wonder if these nuances have any effect on children’s perceived gender roles. (My guess is characters’ nuances are a relatively small direct factor, but since they cannot be easily updated to reflect changing perspectives, their total stabilizing effect over many years may be significant).

There are many linguistic nuances as well. Women generally refer to themselves as “watashi” whereas men often refer to themselves as “boku”, “ore”, etc., except, for example, in formal settings men use “watashi” to show humilty or respect. However, more recently, some women have started to refer to themselves as “boku”. All together, women generally take a more reserved and gentle approach in social situations, linguistically and otherwise.

Languages, of course, carry a lot of culture in them, and, since learning a new language is difficult, they become an extremely strong cultural preserver/barrier. Of course, for a similar reason, it is very difficult to separate the causality in how languages and cultures effect each other.

Many Eastern cultures, including Japanese, seem so fundamentally different culturally that they they are highly insulated from the Western cultural movements, like neutralizing gender roles. I think this insulation has allowed Japan to carve out its own unique modern gender roles. I think people interested in gender roles could make many useful observations through trying to understand the Japanese gender roles.