Hey guys.

Yup, RevTK is still offline...

I was just wandering for you girls out there how did it feel to learn such a misogynous writing system. Like the kanji in standard (husband's sight) or numbers (originally coming from counting women slaves chained together), or touch (grab a concubine to ***** her) etc.

Probably most of you don't care, because it's not that apparent in the everyday use...

Another question I had is if the Japanese society can be considered misoginous (which insiders could confirm here), do you think it's in any way linked to the kanji, ingraining people to think this way?

Thank you for your insights.

[ファブリス]

Quote:Yup, RevTK is still offline...

It was down for a couple minutes actually, but a couple hours later than I had planned. Sory about that. But there is still a problem whereby it redirects you to a maintenance page when it is down, so you need to reload yoru bookmark not that page

There is no language that is not misogynistic (other than maybe that Women-only Chinese writing system).

The Christian creator god, is called 'he' in every language I know of, despite the fact that the only procreative force in evidence is unambiguously female, in every case, in nature.

How bizarre is that? The Life bringer is female, but when writ large becomes male?

Actually any of the study pages are redirecting to the maintenance page.

EratiK Wrote:Like the kanji in standard (husband's sight)

Where'd you find this etymology? Did you make it up? Kanjigen says that the left side of 規 was originally 矢 and makes no mention of it having anything to do with husbands.

Quote:Another question I had is if the Japanese society can be considered misoginous (which insiders could confirm here), do you think it's in any way linked to the kanji, ingraining people to think this way?

No, in the same way the character 県 doesn't influence them to walk around carrying decapitated heads.

You could at least have used a kanji like 嬲.

Your hypothesis is absurd though, since almost no Japanese people even know the etymologies for any kanji and don't think about what the elements mean in relation to each other and thus those misogynistic etymologies, if they exist, would have no impact on their thought processes. You could argue that the culture that created those kanji in the first place 1000s of years ago might be misogynistic, but they were made in China except for a few kokuji.

The forms of kanji have also drifted over time due to miswriting and simplification, obscuring their etymology. The feminism you are practicing amounts to little more than numerology.

Sexism isn't a black or white issue. The relationship between sexes in the west and Japan is different, but I wouldn't say that Japan is more or less sexist. Most women are in fact happy to be housewives and don't want careers, considering how rough it is to be a salaryperson here and how it pretty much kills the prospects of having a family if the husband is also a seishain. Women who do choose a career over housewifery do face some discrimination and less pay, but that is the same in pretty much every country. My gf's dream was to be a housewife and bake cookies every day (no, really), until I told her she needs to work (single income families are financially unstable considering the economy of late).

The other big thing I've seen labeled as sexist in Japan is the openness/easy availability of pornography. If that bothers you then stop being a prude. If there was demand for male porn magazines they'd be on the shelf in the konbini right next to the other porn.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Your hypothesis is absurd though, since almost no Japanese people even know the etymologies for any kanji and don't think about what the elements mean in relation to each other and thus those misogynistic etymologies, if they exist, would have no impact on their thought processes.

　
You have apparently missed most of the intellectual history of the twentieth century.

Both Derrida and Foucault would have a field day with it.

So if the word "potato" has an etymology that means leg, but I don't know that etymology, I can use it as an excuse for being attracted to people with nice legs?

Sounds VERY intellectual to me.

ファブリス Wrote:

Quote:Yup, RevTK is still offline...

It was down for a couple minutes actually, but a couple hours later than I had planned. Sory about that. But there is still a problem whereby it redirects you to a maintenance page when it is down, so you need to reload yoru bookmark not that page

Sorry, not matter what I do (bookmark included; I think it's because I bookmarked the main page), it stills directs me to the down page.
Could it be something on my side? So my only question is: is it going to be more than 24 hours?
Anyway, thanks for all your hard work Fab.
Regards, EK


EDIT: well done, you all passed the test by the way. I'm afraid I should have made my question more specific.

standard -- yes, I made that up. I thought I had read it somewhere though (which is no excuse, I know).
numbers -- maybe it's counting (I can't remember) : 米 + 女　+ taskmaster. I found the etymology @ kanjinetworks.

Thank you all for your enlightments.

Heisig keywords are not etymologies.

Jarvik7 Wrote:You could at least have used a kanji like 嬲.

OK, this one displaces my former favorite in this department: 奻.

Sexism predates every writing system we know, even from old empires as the Roman and Chinese one.

Therefore, language is in part a consequence of sexism, not a cause of sexism.

gfb345 Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:You could at least have used a kanji like 嬲.

OK, this one displaces my former favorite in this department: 奻.

嫐　is better IMHO

yudantaiteki Wrote:Heisig keywords are not etymologies.

You have to reword this in a positive way. For example, Heisig keywords roughly correspond to radical names. Actually that's not quite true. Names Heisig gives to radicals roughly correspond to radical names. The keywords roughly correspond to usage of the kanji in modern Japanese.

My old Japanese instructor said 女 as a radical has a negative meaning in most kanji. I have no idea what she meant.
女 - woman - neutral
奴 - servant (H: guy) - neg
妃 - queen - neutral
妄 - delusion - neutral
如 - likeness - neutral
好 - like - positive
安 - cheap - neg?
奸 - wickedness - neg
妁 - go-between - neutral
汝 - you (blockhead) - neg
妙 - equisite - neutral
妊 - pregnancy - netural
妨 - disturb - neg
妥 - gentle - positive
努 - toil - neutral
妛 - despise - neg

Meaning of this element seems to tend towards negative meaning, but not extremely so.

bodhisamaya Wrote:

gfb345 Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:You could at least have used a kanji like 嬲.

OK, this one displaces my former favorite in this department: 奻.

嫐　is better IMHO

Can't argue with that...

「女、女、女」
「いいえ、姦」

jcdietz03 Wrote:汝 - you (blockhead) - neg

Where does this come from? Maybe I'm not use to a newer word, but in classical that is simply "you" with no real connotation to it. They even say it in Persona 3 and 4 when you get a new persona, since all that persona business uses classical japanese for some unknown reason.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:

jcdietz03 Wrote:汝 - you (blockhead) - neg

Where does this come from? Maybe I'm not use to a newer word, but in classical that is simply "you" with no real connotation to it. They even say it in Persona 3 and 4 when you get a new persona, since all that persona business uses classical japanese for some unknown reason.

All of the Persona's are actually based on various ancient mythologies, which is why they would use classical writing. check it out

Quote:汝 うぬ (pn,adj-no,vulg) blockhead!; you

From EDICT. The entry for you is probably more common. It is marked "archaic" in EDICT though, this entry isn't. I know less Japanese than you. Please excuse my random mumblings.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Most women are in fact happy to be housewives and don't want careers, considering how rough it is to be a salaryperson here and how it pretty much kills the prospects of having a family if the husband is also a seishain.

This is exactly what was said about American and European women until enough of them called bull*** on it. The fact that so many women choose to work in spite of discrimination, sexual harassment, and low pay, while simultaneously carrying the family's entire housekeeping and childcare burden, argues against the alleged universal popularity of the housewife dream. But given those conditions, it's also not surprising that a lot of women would opt out if they had the choice. And of course, many women AND men want to work without having A Career.

bodhisamaya Wrote:

gfb345 Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:You could at least have used a kanji like 嬲.

OK, this one displaces my former favorite in this department: 奻.

嫐　is better IMHO

You both have subpar examples. 嫐 is indeed better than 奻, but they are both far surpassed by 姦

quincy Wrote:All of the Persona's are actually based on various ancient mythologies, which is why they would use classical writing. check it out

Yeah I figured out the mythological correlation when I started getting to the higher levels and seeing all the personas were being lifted directly out of various different mythologies. It just made it more fun for me haha

jcdietz03 Wrote:From EDICT. The entry for you is probably more common. It is marked "archaic" in EDICT though, this entry isn't. I know less Japanese than you. Please excuse my random mumblings.

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as a jackass in my post, though I think I might have succeeded at that marvelously. But it figures it was EDICT. Definitely be careful with that; there is often a lot of misleading information there.

Just stumbled over this. Thought it might add to the discussion.

"Single mothers lead Japan's poor population"

Yeah, the most common reading of 汝 is なんじ, which is not insulting.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were several dozen Kanjis that contains 女 and had a negative meaning. There must be as many negative Kanjis with 男 too. After all, there are thousands of Kanjis. It bugs you so much probably because RTK makes you focus on each elements. The natives don't even think, or even know, about it.

In any case, calling another culture misogynous and sexist isn't very prudent especially when you don't have good knowledge on it. Don't be like us, men, the discriminative race.