05-11-2008, 05:32 AM
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Re: Sexism in America
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Originally Posted by Aralith
In Japan, the kanji symbol for woman can be used to mean all sorts of things. In fact, it is used in over 200 kanji. There are three particular kanji that use the symbol for woman that struck as particularly... let's say unique for now. They are the Japanese symbols for tranquility or restfulness, chaos or trouble, and wickedness. Let's look at each of these individually shall we? The first one, tranquility, is the symbol for woman, with a roof over her head. So, we can say that in Japan, tranquility is "One Woman Under the Roof."
That's not so strange, as woman are supposed to be elegant and beautiful in Japan. The next two definitely broke this idea though. The symbol for chaos is a roof, with two symbols for woman under it, so we can say that chaos in Japan is "Two Women Under the Roof." This would seem to be a rather sexist viewpoint, but it is a rather well known point of Japanese culture that they are still rather sexist. It is still hard for women to get jobs over there, though that does seem to be on the change in recent times. Regardless, this symbol is still the common symbol for chaos, so they still have some things to work out. Finally, the symbol for wickedness is just three woman symbols (no roof this time).
The place I first learned of the tranquility, chaos, and wickedness symbols was first year Japanese in high school. Funnily enough, my teacher was female, and she found these symbols hilarious. Now, I think its perfectly fine to laugh at such a thing, even for a male. I am male and I had no problem at laughing at such a thing. Unfortunately, while I laughed, something else popped into my head. A terrible thought about how these two symbols held some truth to them. Though I did not believe this to be true, the thought remained, and it got me to thinking: "why would these thoughts I don't even believe in be one of the first things to arise after hearing such a thing?"
So, of course, the first reason I pondered as to why these thoughts were in my head was something to do with my culture. Being an American, I am not entirely proud of all aspects of my culture, and in fact at the time I wouldn't have been surprised if it was my culture that was planting such thoughts. I soon confirmed my suspicions. I started by asking my closest friends (the ones not already taking the class with me anyways) about this, and most of them thought it funny, but admitted that at least thoughts that the symbols held an element of truth to them bubbled up in their minds. Some of them even believed that it did have an aspect of truth. Well, only my male friends actually felt that it held some truth.
My next course of action was to ask my male friends that I knew already had some sexist tendencies, and they almost unanimously agreed that there was some truth to it, while some just came out and said, "That is so true!" I wasn't entirely shocked by their responses, as I already knew they were somewhat sexist. Finally, I asked all of my female friends what they thought about it. Most of them found it funny, but said that whatever the Japanese might believe, in America it wasn't that much of a problem. Of course, coming from a small town, these views might be a little skewed, but at least some of them have to represent the general view of the American populace.
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I wouldn't call this sexist.
Yes, I believe these symbols have some truth to them. But, it would be the same thing if the symbols were "male". If chaos and wickedness was afflicted to men, I'd still consider it to have some truth to them.
Let's take other meanings. If the symbol of women was a part of the symbol for, for example, generosity and wisdom, would you not consider them (partly, possibly) true?
Whatever, my point is that you can give (almost) any attribute to men or women, and consider them true, without it being sexist.
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So, from this, it can be extrapolated that there are still some in the United States that feel this way (though I suspect that there are quite a bit more but are under the control of political correctness). And yet, our society, as a whole, seems to embrace the ideas of moderate feminism (most of the extreme femi-nazists are still looked poorly upon) and feel that sexism is a bad thing. It is just rather strange that we go to all these ends to hide the fact that we are a sexist nation with political correctness and whatnot, but probably a large percentage of the nation is still sexist, including some of the women.
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That really depends on how you define sexist. Is it sexist to think, for example, that women generally care more about their appearance than men do?
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Of course, when we bring the scenario to America, the question changes. Is it our superficial want for change that is ultimately holding it back, or will pretending we believe something we don't eventually make us believe it, bringing on change?
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Well, do people still believe that women should stay in the house?
Of course, women generally are lower paid than men, which is bad. I could call this sexist, but thinking that the attributes "chaos" and "wickedness" "is so true!" for women isn't, really. It's partly jokingly, because I really don't think that the general public does believe that women are wicked.
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Of course, when I say we, I am not insinuating that me or any other one person feels this way, but rather I am applying these terms to the society as a whole. So, I guess the real question I pose is, can either of my above questions be answered, and if so, which viewpoint is more likely to bring about change? Furthermore, do the cultural differences between Japan and America make this change more necessary in one country than another?
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I think that accepting that people do "discriminate" a little, while not discriminating when it comes to things like school, work, taking care of the children, etc, is the best way to remove the sexism that really is detrimental.
And, if what you said about women not getting jobs easily in Japan is true, than Japan definitely needs changes more than the US.
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