Sexism in the Chinese Languages and Society

Tai Lam
California State University, USA
2009

Introduction

Language as a sociocultural phenomenon (Arndt et al, 1987) is closely

associated with the social structure, values and norms of behavior. It arises with

the formation of human society and varies with the development of social life.

Such co-variation between language and society enables the linguistic

phenomena to reflect the social customs and values of life. Gender differences

and sexism in language reflect each specific social values, concepts and

national modes of thinking. China has gone through a long history of feudal

society in which women did not enjoy any prestige of social status. Sexism has

pervasively existed in the Chinese languages and society and has reflected both

in written and oral language.

In the general linguistic literature, hundreds of popular and academic

studies on language and gender have been conducted since the early 1970's in

the United States, prompted by the women's movement. For the Chinese

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 language and its dialects, during that period and into the 1980's, scant attention

was paid to gender-differentiated speech aside from language variation research,

in which sex is an important independent variable. Owing to the scarcity of

adequate empirical research and on the pavement of prior literatures and studies

on gender discrimination in Chinese culture and society, the article attempts to

conduct a comprehensive study on the Chinese language by analyzing the

Chinese word structures, lexicon and sociocultural contexts.

Background

Western linguists have been studying various aspects of sexism in the

English language for several decades. Following the influential works by Robin

Lakoff (1975), and Miller & Swift (1977), and some others, many of the

researchers began to identify and categorize types of sexism marked in

linguistic features such as vocabulary, grammar, discourse, and even intonation

(Baron, 1986). Recently scholars have turned their attention to sexism in

Mandarin Chinese as well, finding remarkably similar sexism phenomena in

linguistic aspects on Chinese words, vocabulary, idioms, and proverbs. (Shih,

1984). The most notable treatment of sexism in the Chinese language is that of

Yan (2003) and Pan (2004), whose works have greatly influenced the direction

of this article. Since the mid-70s, Chinese sociolinguists have presented this

topic from several different perspectives. Current studies in this field have

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 shifted its focus from single linguistic variables to context-specific connected

speech, drawing on approaches from discourse analysis and the ethnography of

communication. Recent work also tends to be based more on empirical

research rather than on casual observation or introspection. However, the

studies of sex differences and language have been carried out in English-

speaking societies. Relevant research on the Chinese language is still in its

infancy. Moreover, very little has been done from the new perspectives on

language and gender concerning the Chinese language.

Sexism in Chinese character structures

Chinese is one of the world’s longest-standing languages, whose

characters are the important carriers of its culture that is the base on which

Chinese words are shaped. Chinese is the world’s only existing language, which

is characterized by ideography and which represents connotation by

pictography. The Chinese pictographic words contain and convey plentiful

cultural messages. One of the six categories of Chinese character formation is

pictographs which display the meaning through directly depicting the

appearance. Right from the early period of the word formation, the word “女”

(woman) in Chinese ancient oracle script (甲骨文 jiaguwen) emerged the

low social status for women in ancient China. The hieroglyphic character

shaped reflecting a kneeling woman with her hands crossed. When two points

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 (breasts) are added, it becomes “母” (mother). Oracle Bone Script is one

of the oldest known forms of Chinese written language. According to recent

archaeological research, it dates back as far as 4,800 years ago. It was likely

used from the Middle to the Late Shang dynasty. Oracle script was etched onto

turtle shells and animals bones. The shape of these characters are often

described as "pictographic", in that they resemble stylized drawings of objects

they represent. Such pictographic words illustrate that the females were in

dominated position. The ancient pronunciation of the word “女” (woman) was

read “奴” /nú/ meaning “slave”, (connoting a woman “女” with a big hand

“又”). In Chinese slavery society, daughters were used for debt mortgage.

Afterwards, a great quantity of Chinese ideographic words combined with “女”

as feminine morpheme are formed mostly of discrimination. From the onset of

Chinese character formation, it is obviously seen that the women in Chinese

society were in low position. According to Modern Chinese Dictionary ( Wang

et al, 1995), besides the single word “ 女 ” (woman), there are 202 words

consisting of “女” (woman) morpheme as the word root. Based on the statistics

of some Chinese scholars, words with the “woman” morpheme are found in

《辞海》"Ci Hai" (literally translated “Sea of Rhetoric, published in Hongkong,

1989) with a total of 257 words, in which 100 characters are of medium

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 evaluation in realty, 35 of derogatory, 47 of praise and 18 of half-and-half

praise or derogatory evaluation. Let’s see some examples of this type

“女”component which are detrimental to women : 妒 /dù/ (jealous)- woman 女

+ household 户/hù/; 嫉 /jì/ (envy) - woman 女+ disease 疾 /jí/; 妖 /yao/

(demon) - woman 女 + die young 夭 /yao/ ); 娼 /chang/ (prostitute) - woman 女

+ flourishing 昌； 妓 /zhi/ (prostitute) - woman 女+支 branch store); and 嬲

/niǎo/ (flirt) (man + woman + man); 嫖 /biào/ (act of visiting prostitutes); 奸

/jian/ (wicked or evil); 姘 / ping/ (have illicit relations or sexual intercourse

with); 嫌 /xián/ (suspicion); 娛 /yú/ (give pleasure ) and so forth.

In addition of the word structure with the left-side morpheme of

“woman” mentioned, Chinese people, in cognition of up-down spatial system,

have a tendency of superior-and inferior concepts and discrimination. The loss

of female identity consciousness is superficial cause that emerges come into

gender discrimination of Chinese character structures. For examples, 妾 /qiè/

(concubine)- consisting of ‘set up’ 立/lì/ and ‘woman’女; 妄 (absurd, arrogant);

妥 / tuǒ/ (proper, suitable)、妻 /qi/ (wife); 婪 /jìn/ (greed); 耍 /suǒ/ (weak,

play); 嬖 /pi/ (show favour to); 姦 /jian/ (rape) and much more. Those are made

of a “女” (woman) morpheme and another component word. Such kind of

words in the up-down structure occupy 3% of the total words with “woman”

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 ("Ci Hai"《辞海》, 1989). Chinese people ancestors might have thought of

peacefulness by positing women in a deep room under the roof ( 安 /an/). Such

structure of “安” (peacefulness) further reflects obviously the male-dominance

ideology in Chinese languages and society. If those words are dissembled，

they can be interpreted as women's common failing，a gender-based failing to

the exclusion of men．Those Chinese characters seem to pass on the message

that women are characteristic of those negative emotions，disposition，and

maneuver．

Sexism in the Lexicon and socio-cultural contexts

Another biased representation of the sexes that concerns the portrayal of

man as the norm and women as the appendage can be seen in Chinese lexicon.

The article tends to focus on the manifestation of sexism from the angles of

generic masculine, naming and addressing terms. The Chinese lexicon has

many depreciative terms of address, a lot of which are directed at women. For

example, a man can call his wife 內人 /nèirén/ (a person inside the home),

means a woman can only stay at home without freedom of movement or

engaging in political and social activities. Another term 賤 內 /jiàn nèi/

illustrates the lower status of a woman as “humble and lowly person inside

home”. 荊釵/jingchai/ (thorn hairpin), meaning a woman who is very poor as

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 she uses a thorn as her hairpin. 貞潔 /zhenjié/ (chastity and virginity), these are

specially prepared for women. Chinese lexicon has 貞婦 /zhenfù/ (chastity

woman) and 節婦 /jiéfu/ (widow) but it has no 貞男 /zhennàn/ (chastity man)

and 節 男 /ji é n á n/ (widower). This illustrates that in terms of sexual

relationships, the chains are only obligatory to women. A man can remarry after

his wife’s death, and his newly-married wife is then called 添房/tianfáng/

( added room) or 續絃/xùxián/ ( continued string, meaning a woman who

marries a widower). But there are no corresponding female-centered characters

in Chinese in this regard; as a result. Chinese traditional principle of “no

posterity as the greatest of the three unfilial acts” firmly legalizes the male

dominance.

The male-dominant trend of modern Chinese characterized by

polysyllabic words are only aimed at or centered on men. The generic words

like 法官/fǎguan/ (judge), 州長/zhouzhǎng/ (governor), 政治家/zhèngzhi jia

/(politician), 校 長 /xiàozhǎng/ (principal), 部 長 /bùzhǎng/ (minister), 將 軍

/jiangjun/ (general), and 總統/zǒngtǒng/ (president) are specially denoted and

referred to male. When referred to female, the morpheme “女” (female) /nü/ is

added to the existing as a prefix, such as 女部長 / nü bùzhăng/ (ministress) 女

總統 / nü zǒngtǒng/(female president ) and so forth. The sexism in Chinese

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 can be reflected on the order of word combination involving sex. In collocation,

many polysyllabic words denoting male are placed before those denoting

female. For example, 男女/nánnü/ (man and woman or boy and girl), 夫妻 fuqi/

(husband and wife), 兒 女 /érnü/(sons and daughters). This mentality of

regarding men as taking precedence over women exists not only in Chinese

culture but also in Western culture.

In Chinese lexicon, there is an imputation of sexual immorality to

referents of the woman’s term, but with the man’s term carrying very general，

usually favorable implication．Another astounding fact is that there are far and

away more words for prostitutes than for their customers．In Chinese, many

terms refer to a prostitute，such as examples above，but there’s the only most

frequently used for a man as “ 嫖 ”/biào/ ， still with Chinese compound

character “女”(woman)．

Like English, in Chinese, masculine pronouns are mostly used as a

general reference. For example, 他 /ta/ (he) referred to both generic gender.

Similar cases include 他人 /tarén/ (others), 其他人 /qí ta rén/ (the rest). In

speech, women like to express themselves as 人家 /rén jia/ (another person)

instead of using “I” due to social expectation that women are said to be indirect

and invisible. Sexism in Chinese sociocultural contexts can be observed in

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 Chinese slang and idioms which also reflect the social ideology of less-

dominance upon women. For example, Chinese has expressions 男不跟女鬥 /

nán bù gen nü dòu/ ( man will not argue with a woman) or 雞不跟狗鬥 / ji bù

gen gǒu dòu/ (chicken will not fight with a dog), 女子無才便是德 /nü zǐ wú cái

biàn shì dé/ ( a woman of ignorance is a virtue, or an unaccomplished woman

is a virtuous woman), 女人是禍水 /nü rén shì hùo shǔi/ A woman is a disaster-

maker), and 三個女人一台戲 /san gè nü rén yi tái xì/ (Three women can stage

a performance, equally English, “ many women, many word” ). A common

theme here is that women are liable to gossip；they are talkative，and noisy.

They are stereotyped as gossip- laden, tentative, discursive and fussy which

again echoes how important language is to the social construction of gendered

identity．

Conclusion

Since human being existed on the earth, there have been presented two

different genders-male and female. On account of the differences between their

physiological features and the superiority and inferiority in social activities,

men and women are differentiated from each other in individuality, value,

image and status, which give rise to variations in their language styles and

language uses. From these linguistic evidences of sex discrimination existing in

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 the Chinese language and male-governed society, a woman was always in the

less-dominant position. Sexism phenomena present in the formation of the

language, but it originates from its sociolinguistics and socio-culture. The

differences refracted from the linguistic aspects and sexism are not determined

by natural property of the language itself, but are naturally refracted in the

language by specific concepts of social values and national modes of thinking.

Many attempts nowadays are made to eliminate as much as possible the gender

discrimination both in the cultural-linguistics and social identity.

Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society Lam page 10/12

References

1. Carfleron Deborah. 1990. The feminist critique of Language. (2001)

2. Ci Hai (辭海,香港), 1989. Rhetoric Dictionary, Hongkong.

3. Defeng, Yang. Chinese and Cultural Communication. Beijing: 2001.

4. Freeman，R. and McElhinny，B.“Language and Gender”. InMckay,

L.S. & Hornberger, H. N. (2001). Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching.

Shanghai.

5. Modern Chinese Dictionary, 2001. Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, 现代汉语词典,

北京新华书店总店北京发行所,Xinhua Book Store, Beijing, 2001.

4. Sunderland, Jane. 2006. Language and Gender. Routledge, Taylor &

Francis Group.

5. Zhang, Aiping (张爱萍译音). 1995. Another look at the “sajiao”（撒娇）

phenomenon. Manuscript, Ohio State University.

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Appendix 1

Some Oracle Bone Scripts found related to woman. ( pictographic words were

found at http://www.shufa.org 書藝公社網-交流論壇 (translated and arranged

by Lam)

Appendix 2

Pictures from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Bone_Script

: 虎 Tiger : 目 eye

馬 虎 豕 犬 鼠 象 豸 龜 爿(床) 為 疾

‘horse’ ‘tiger’ ‘swine’ ‘dog’ ‘rat’ ‘elephant’ ‘beast” ‘turtle’ ‘bed’

‘do’ ‘illness.

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