Kanji Hates The Ladies

Sorry ladies. I have bad news. Kanji isn’t a fan of your gender. Now, you can’t go blaming the Japanese for this. They got these kanji, along with their meanings, from China. That being said, no matter where you’re talking about, I wouldn’t say that equal opportunities between genders was a very big thing 3000-4000 years ago. Not to mention that the people coming up with all the kanji were dudes.
So, kanji hates women. Sure. But, perhaps the kanji-creators of old were victims of their very misogynistic time. I can’t say that sexism and misogyny in kanji is “right,” but I can see how it ended up happening. Want to see for yourself?

Kanji Made By Men, For Men

Photo by Arenamontanus

Nowadays a lot of these kanji are just words. It’s kind of like how the English word “Woman” has the word “Man” in it. Most people don’t actually care about it that much. That being said, I went through a lot of kanji today in order to bring you this ultimate list of misogynistic kanji. They will surely be a bit controversial, so please don’t get angry (aka “woman slave heart”), noisy (aka “woman woman woman”) or hateful (aka “woman concurrently”) at me. I didn’t create these kanji, and the people who did are long dead, probably because of their recklessness (aka “dead woman”).

女: Woman

This kanji isn’t particularly interesting on its own, but it’s important to look at first, because it always plays a role in the misogynistic kanji to come, appearing over and over again. Although I’m not putting every 女 kanji in this list (there’s a lot of them), I would like to tell you about a pattern I noticed: Kanji that have 女 in them tend to be about something negative, about getting married, about being a female of some kind (daughter, niece, etc) or about looking pretty. Already a bad start, I’d say. Let’s see what those sexist Chinese monks came up with.

奴: Manservant, Slave

This kanji consists of a woman (女) and the “again” radical (又). I suppose when you’re a woman again, you’re a slave (man or lady). It’s like a demotion to a slave level, aka the level of women. Strangely, this kanji’s meaning also extends to the words “dude” or “guy.” Now we know why it has a slight derogatory meaning.

妄: Reckless, Delusion

This kanji is made of “dying” (亡) and woman (女). So, when women who die are being reckless and delusional. They need to be safe and calm so that they can take care of the children. Much better to keep them safe in the house, right? Right? *segue!!*

安: Cheap, Contented, Relax, Safe

This is a woman inside of a roof. A woman safe inside the house. When a woman is safe within a house, she costs a lot less and you (the man) can go out and do your manly things while feeling relaxed and contented that there’ll always be a meal ready for you when you get home.

好: Pleasing, Like

While she’s at home being safe, it’s good if the woman (女) has a child (子). Us men like (好) this. It helps us to feel 安 that you won’t go out and do anything 妄.

奸: Mischief, Rudeness

I’m not sure I can bring myself to believe that the parts of this kanji mean what I think they might mean… but I guess I can’t put it past a couple of horny old monks whose job it is to come up with new kanji. This is a “dry woman” … I’ll let you come up with your own interpretation on why a “dry woman” would cause mischief and/or be rude.

妓: Geisha, Prostitute

This kanji is woman (女) plus support (支). A “support woman” is, apparently, a prostitute. So, thank you prostitutes. Thank you for all your support, support women.

妬: Envy, Jealous

The kanji for woman (女) and stone (石) combined into one. Perhaps this means a “strong woman?” Ha! No, of course not. “Stone woman” instead means “envy” or “jealousy.” Stay away from them stone women.

姓: Surname

Woman (女) and life (生) combine together to mean “surname.” Since women don’t get to carry on their surname (that’s the family name), it becomes apparent that this kanji is suggesting that a woman’s life is to the surname of her husband. She’s kind of a lifelong 奴 (servant) to the surname, if you will, whether it’s her father’s or her husband’s.

孥: Slave, Servant, Wife And Children

You remember slave right? Now it’s a slave (奴) to the child (子). This still means “slave” or “servant,” but a third meaning has been added in to this kanjis as well: “Wife and Children.” So, a woman is a slave to her child. When you think about the relationship between Asian moms and their children, this kanji actually starts to make sense…

帑: Money Repository

Your lady slave (奴) now has a cloth (巾). This is your money repository. At best, this could mean a safe place to store your money (Japanese wives traditionally take care of all the money stuff at home). At worst this could mean your lady is super expensive, and she’s like a black hole where your yen never sees the light of day again once it gets past the event horizon of her money bag. I’ll let you decide this one.

姑: Mother-In-Law

In Asian dramas, the mother-in-law is almost always an evil hag (don’t worry, sometimes they come around after the protagonist good-for-nothing son-in-law does something right). In this kanji, it’s not quite that bad, though. This is a woman (女) plus “old” (古). Just an “old woman”… though you’d think they could have come up with something a little nicer. I don’t think mother-in-laws like being called “old women.” I’m pretty sure the creator of this kanji had a mother-in-law he didn’t really like…

怒: Angry

A slave lady (奴) plus a heart (心). Obviously the men weren’t totally clueless. They could tell the ladies get pretty angry when you treat them like slaves.

姻: Marry, Matrimony

Speaking of slavery, when you combine the kanji for woman (女) and “be associated with” (因) you get a word that means marriage. My theory is that someone wanted to use 囚 (captured) instead 因, but then the wife saw so he got in trouble and then had to switch it to 因. Anyways, marriage is “being associated with a woman.”

姦: Noisy, Wicked, Rape

Not one woman. Not two women. No. There are three women. What happens when you have three women together? They get really noisy. C’mon ladies.
Secondly, this kanji means “wicked” too. I guess when a few women get together, it’s time to get suspicious of their actions?
Lastly, this kanji also means rape too… which is absolutely terrible and probably makes this the worst kanji of all time. Seriously, though. There were some sick kanji-creators out there.

倭: Yamato People (Submissive People)

I wrote about the naming of the Yamato People (Japanese people) a while back. Basically, China used this kanji to name the Japanese a long time ago. It pretty much means “submissive ladylike dwarf people,” though you’ll have to read the whole history to find out why.

恕: Excuse

What’s in a woman’s (女) mouth’s (口) heart (心)? It’s to make excuses. The true words that come from a woman’s heart are just excuses. “So that’s why dinner isn’t ready, Natsumi??? What a terrible ‘woman’s mouth heart!’” Really kanji? C’mon.

案: Expectation, Suggestion, Worry

You have a woman in her house (安) standing on top of a tree (木) looking down on everyone telling them their suggestions and worries. Sounds familiar? This is basically the kanji for “helicopter mother,” if you ask me. They just didn’t have helicopters back then, so she’s standing on a tree instead.

娶: Arrange A Marriage

You’re taking (取) a woman (女). Could be worse, I suppose. Still, you don’t see anyone “taking a man” instead. It’s always the ladies that get the short end of the stick when it comes to kanji.

婬: Lewdness

The woman (女) is clawing (爪) the king (王). Perhaps this is talking about all those misbehaving queens that you hear about in stories. No good comes from nasty queens in folklore stories, Japanese or Chinese. I suppose this is why this kanji means “lewdness.”

嫌: Hate

When you have a woman (女) concurrently (兼) with anything (apparently), you get hate. It’s a mystery as to what you can have at the same time as a woman that will make this hate, but I’m sure someone had something in mind way back in the day.

嫉: Envy, Jealous

Wow, another kanji that means “envy” or “jealous.” Instead of being a stone lady (妬), this time it’s just a “rapid lady” (女=woman, 疾=rapidly). I’m guessing this is suggesting that women get envious or jealous very quickly… sounds like every jdrama / kdrama / cdrama I’ve ever seen.

楼: Watchtower

This kanji has a woman (女) carrying rice (米) on her back. There’s a tree (木) there too, which I’m guessing is the watchtower. I’m thinking you can guess who is in the watchtower by now, right?

媼: Grandma

This woman (女) has captured (囚) someone with a plate (皿). Perhaps this is a relatively nice kanji, actually. Maybe grandma’s cooking is so good that she’s captured you. Good ol’ grandma’s cooking! All she’s good for is cooking now, though. Too old to carry rice around the fields under the watchful watchtower eye of the man.

嫐: Flirt

Two ladies (女), one dude between them (男). Why not add three or four more ladies while you’re at it, wishful-thinking-monk?

嬲: Ridicule, Tease

So, when there are two guys (男) around one lady (女) it’s no longer flirting. Now it’s ridiculing and teasing… at least they got the “apparently most guys were jerks during the kanji-creation period” thing down right in this kanji.

餒: Hunger, Spoil

When a woman (女) has clawed (爪) at the food (食), everyone hungers and/or the food spoils. Sure, blame the food problems on the ladies.

孀: Widow

The women (女) who rain (雨) on each other (相) are the widows. I suppose they’re just crying so much that their really nice husbands have died in battle… or, perhaps they’re crying buckets of joy because apparently every man alive during this time was a complete jerk. I’ll let you decide.

男: Man

Now it’s high time to look at “man” (because, men are #1 in the kanji world, duh!). This kanji consists of a rice paddy (田) and power (力). Who’s the power on the rice field? That’s the dudes, of course. Look at our big muscles. *flex flex*

勇: Courage

Courage consists of the kanji for man (男) and the マ radical, which is an obsolete radical that means “person.” Basically, the kanji for “courage” is “person that is a man.” Because, uh, we’re not afraid of anything… that’s right. We’re MAN PEOPLE.

金玉: Testicles

Golden (金) balls (玉). That’s what testicles are made out of. GOLD. I guess a dude’s reproductive organs are so valuable that they’re being compared to a very expensive metal. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a “Cash For Balls” program going on during the Meiji Era. As everyone’s favorite super villain loved to say: “I like… teeeesticles gooooolllld.”
There’s not as many interesting kanji that have to do with dudes (especially when you compare it with 女), but even with just these two you can see the difference in how they’re treated. Generally, men-related kanji are awesome (or neutral), and women get the shaft. It’s obvious who was coming up with these kanji, though you’d think they’d actually try a little bit more… then again, maybe not.

What Dogs We Were!

Photo by Andrew-Hyde

I imagine that almost every language has plenty of examples of sexism (prolly against the ladies… sorry ladies!) in them, just because things weren’t particularly fair thousands of years ago when languages and writing were developing. Japanese / Chinese just so happens to have an extremely easy way to look up the etymology of the kanji, making it easy to pick all these out and lay them out for you, probably making it seem worse than it actually is (at least when comparing with other languages out there).

But, like most languages, these words have been around a long time. Now they’re just words, and their original misogynistic meaning is very diluted and unimportant, meaning you’re not a horrible person if you use the word 安い (cheap) in your day-to-day life.

Besides how terrible some of the meanings of these kanji are, I’m also hoping you can take away something else. See how easy it is to figure out the meanings of kanji by breaking them up into radicals? I just looked up one radical (女), and was able to find out so much about how ancient China / Japan thought about women. You could do similar research on other radicals/kanji, for example 田 (rice paddy), 中 (middle) or 力 (power). There’s a lot that can be learned about via kanji radicals – they’re not only a tool for remembering and learning kanji (which is what we’re doing with our work on WaniKani). They give you a peek into the culture and history of China / Japanese as well.

So, I hope you learned something other than “getting three women together means ‘noisy’ in Japanese.” Are any of these your particular favorite? Does something make you “a slave woman’s heart”? No “woman mouth hearts” not to speak up and get “triple woman” if there’s something you want to say in the comments. Oh, but please be nice and don’t “two guys around one girl” anyone. That’s just “a woman clawing at a king” if you ask me. I “woman with a child” nice comments.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/05/misogynistic-kanji/