Gender and Language

[Zoey McKinney]

One thing from Professor Miyake's lecture that really interested me was the idea of separating genders through language. She mentioned that men mainly learned and used Classical Chinese for official documents, government edicts, and their personal diaries, while it was forbidden for women to use it. Women had to use vernacular Japanese in their writing, including diaries and poems. However, many women did learn some Classical Chinese, which created the Chinese-Japanese hybrid she discussed. I think the choice to oppress women by excluding them from a certain language is fascinating because it is more subtle than physical forms of oppression. It's interesting that women were not meant to be illiterate - in fact they needed to have writing skills in order to have high social status. However, neglecting to educate them in Classical Chinese was an effective way to keep women out of men's domains, such as government and economics. Education is empowering, as we all know, and lack of education is used to oppress in many circumstances. My 4th grade students last year worked on raising money to sponsor the education of a girl in a third world country through Heifer International. Some of the students were confused at first as to why that goal was important or why it specified girls but not boys. We discussed lack of education opportunities for women historically and in the present day, and how education is often the first step towards a better life.

This part of the lecture reminded me of Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a novel that revolves around nushu writing. Nushu was a system of writing used exclusively by women in Hunan. I love the idea of women responding to oppression by excluding their oppressors from their own language. I am curious if there is any similar phenomenon in Japan or Korea.