Character for Woman
A recent post on the popular Chinese forum Tianya has caused a sensation online. Author and lawyer Ye Mantian rallied against the structure of many vulgar Chinese characters as containing elements in reference to women.
Ye Mantian asked that such gender biased and often offensive characters are replaced with gender-neutral forms. For example, the character for rape is written as “姦”, or simply the three characters for women (女) stacked together.
In her post, Ye stated that “during my elementary school years, looking through the dictionary left me with many impressions – many dirty, wretched, negative meaning words contain the radical “女”[female], and this type of [character] structure is not fair to women.”
Ye listed 16 characters that are particularly offensive and gender biased; these characters are: “娱”[amusement], “耍”[playful], “婪”[greedy], “嫉”[envy], “妒”[envy], “嫌”[dislike], “佞”[to flatter], “妄”[presumptuous], “妖”[evil], “奴”[slave], “妓”[prostitute], “娼”[prostitute], “奸”[rape], “姘”[have an affair], “婊”[prostitute] and “嫖”[prostitute].
Ye went on to say that “to construct a egalitarian society where both men and women can mutually respect one another, we must respect our mothers, because she gave us nurturing kindness; we must respect our wives, because they and their husbands brings the household together, weathering through the highs and lows in life; we must love our daughters, because they are the future of our nation and people.”
Do you think Chinese characters should be changed?
greetings D3pd for friends of all, salute…
Not only are they similar with what they represent, but also harmonious with universe.