Both China and Britain have gone through a long history of feudal society, in which women did not enjoy any kind of social status. The definition of sexism in Webster Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, “prejudice or discrimination based on sex ; esp: discrimination against women”. They were deprived of social, political, economic and cultural rights and discriminated against by a male-dominant society. The discrimination against women has left its traces in both Chinese and English languages and cultures, even when the language and culture have changed significantly in the migration to another continent (as in the case of American English).

 

Chinese has many depreciatory terms of address, a lot of which are directed at women. A man can call his wife nei ren (古人泛指妻妾皆称“内人”); nei zi (古时人之妻、己之妻皆称“内子”); zhuo jing, jian nei (古人对人谦称自己的妻子叫“拙荆”，“贱内”。); zao kang (古人对贫穷时共过患难的妻子叫“糟糠”) etc., whereas there is no corresponding depreciatory terms for husbands. These depreciatory terms of address indicate the women’s status at home. Nei ren (a person at home) means a person can only stay at home without freedom of movement or engaging in political and social activities. Jian nei illustrates the lower status of a woman as jian means “humble and lowly” in Chinese. In zhuo jing, jing is from jing chai (thorn hairpin), meaning a woman who is very poor as she uses a thorn as her hairpin. In English woman is ‘Adam’s sib’. Chinese characters such as zhen 贞 (chastity) and jie 节(virginity) are specially prepared for women. Chinese has zhen fu (chastity woman) and jie fu (widow who remains her chastity and does not remarry) but it has no zhen nan (chastity man) and jie nan (widower who does not remarry). This illustrates that in terms of sexual relationships, restraints are only imposed on women. A man can remarry after the death of his wife, and his new wife is then called tian fang 填房 or xu xian 续弦 (a woman who marries a widower). But there are no corresponding wife-centered characters in Chinese in this regard; as a result, it is difficult to describe the man who marries a widow. An ancient Chinese teaching says that “There are three unfilial acts, and no posterity is the greatest (不孝有三无后为大)”. ‘No posterity’ does not mean that one has no children. It means that one has no boys who will carry on the family name and inherit the family property. The male-dominant tendency of modern Chinese characterized by dissyllabic or polysyllabic words, words of two or more characters that are combined together to create a new meaning. These words are quite conspicuous and sexist examples are everywhere. Many words are aimed at or centered on men. For example, words like fa guan 法官 (judge), sheng zhang 省长 (governor), ke xue jia 科学家(scientist), xiao zhang 校长 (principal), bu zhang 部长 (minister), jiang jun 将军 (general), and zong tong 总统 (president) are specially created for men. In most cases, these words are used to refer to male rather than female. If they are used to refer to women, the character or morpheme nü (female) must be placed before the words, thus nü fa guan 女法官 refers to a woman judge, and nü ke xue jia 女科学家 refers to a woman scientist.

This is similar to the English practice in which one can find phrases such as woman lawyer, female president, and so on. In English, there are also one-word equivalents, such as the use of “waitress” and “actress” to specify a female waiter and actor. Strictly speaking, neither term is necessary; a waiter is one who waits (serves at a table in a restaurant) and an actor is one who acts, and the need to specify the waiter’s or actor’s sex is very revealing. We also can see other words: author-authoress, manager-manageress, hero-heroine, poet-poetess, steward-stewardess. Governor (在英语中指州长，过去指殖民地的总督。)-governess (表面上与governor平起平坐。但是事实并非如此。因为governess只是指一位地位卑微，给富家子女当家庭教师以维持生计的女性。). Callboy (旅馆男服务员或戏院中招呼演员准备上台的人)-callgirl (电话召唤的妓女).

According to this, we can know that man is the centre. Otherwise, one word can express compliment or praise for man, the same word may express downplaying or scorn for woman. Such as, ‘He is a professional.’, maybe he is lawyer, doctor or else; ‘She is a professional.’, some people of English-speaking countries may think she is a prostitute. Another word, ‘easygoing’, we use it to describe a man, he is simple and easy to approach; we use it to describe a woman, maybe she is of easy virtue. ‘pirate’, explanation of a male pirate：A male pirate is one who infringes on rights of others or commits robbery on high seas; However, a female pirate：A female pirate is an adulteress who chases other women’s man. ‘tramp’ can refer to man and woman, the meaning is very different, for man ‘a homeless man’, for woman ‘prostitute’.  

Derogatory from female nouns, such as, queen (雌猫), lady, mistress(情妇), madam (鸨母). On the contrary, male nouns are good, King (上帝), Lord (基督), Master (主), Father (神).

In China and the US, important positions are most often held by men instead of women. Human society has been dominated by men for the thousands of years of linguistic evolution that led to these words.

In modern Chinese (Mandarin), the order of combination of characters involving sex also reflects sexism. Many polysyllabic words involving a person’s sex are formed by placing characters that denote male before characters that denote female. For example, nan nü lao shao 男女老少 (man and women, old and young), nan nan nü nü 男男女女 (group of men and women), fu qi 夫妻 (husband and wife), sheng er yü nü 生儿育女 (bear and bring up sons and daughters), er nü 儿女 (sons and daughters). The order is by no means to be changed because it would sound odd to the Chinese reader, and in some cases would even change the meaning. For example, er nü 儿女 means sons and daughters while nü er means only daughters. In English one can find similar collocations, such as the phrase “man and wife”. This word order cannot be arbitrarily reversed in English either. Other examples, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, brothers and sisters.

This mentality of regarding men as taking precedence over women exists not only in Chinese culture but also in Western culture. Also in Chinese we have jia ting zhu fu 家庭主妇 (housewife) but have no jia ting zhu nan 家庭主男 (househusband). It is clear that the concept of men taking care of the bread while women take care of the housework is inherent in both Chinese and English. It is balance now, however, we use male housewife to describe it.

 

Sexism in Expressions

In Chinese, masculine pronouns can be used as a general reference. For example, ta (he, him, it) referred to both male and female and objects in the third person singular prior to the May 4th Movement of 1919; in contemporary written Chinese it is used as third person single and male as a general reference when one is not clear about the sex of the person referred to or when it is unnecessary to clarify their sex (The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Chinese-English Edition)). Similar cases include ta ren (others), qi ta ren (the rest). In English, the masculine pronounce is also commonly used to refer to female. For example, “One must do his best for his country” and “A writer will succeed if he revises”. In these sentences, “he” and “his” are masculine pronouns but are used as a general reference that includes women too. In speech, women express themselves as ren jia (another person) instead of using “I” due to society’s expectation that women be indirect and invisible. There is no similar linguistic phenomenon in English, though many women defer to men and some still refer to themselves as someone's wife, thereby expressing their identity in relation to the husband rather than expressing an independent identity.

Chinese slang and idioms also reflect the social ideology of looking down upon women. For example, Chinese has expressions such as nan bu gen nü dou, ji bu gen gou dou (男不跟女斗,鸡不跟狗斗) (A man will not argue with a woman and a chicken will not fight with a dog), nü zi wu cai bian shi de (女子无才便是德) (In a woman ignorance is a virtue, or an unaccomplished woman is a virtuous woman), nü ren shi huo shui (女人是祸水) (A woman is a person who causes a disaster), san ge nü ren yi tai xi (三个女人一台戏) (Three women can stage a performance --- when three women get together, they often quarrel), and hong yan bo ming (红颜薄命)( Though she is very beautiful, she is also very unlucky.).

The English language has expressions such as “When an ass climbs a ladder, we may find wisdom in women. (若要女子有才智，除非毛驴攀上树)”, “He that hath a white horse and a fair wife never wants trouble. (马俊妻娇，麻烦不会少。)”, “A fair face is half a portion. (姿色艳，嫁妆半。)”, “Three women and a goose make a market”, “Where there are women and geese, there wants no noise”, “A woman’s tongue wags like a lamb’s tail”, “A woman’s tongue is the last thing about her that dies (女人到死还是喋喋不休)”, there are three ways to distribute news: telephone, media, tell a woman. “If women ruled the world instead of men, there would be no news. Instead, we would tease each other until everyone developed eating disorder”. “A thousand mustaches can live together, but not four breasts (千条汉子能共处，两个婆娘难相容。)”. In ancient English proverb, “A man of straw is worth a woman of gold. (稻草男抵得上金玉女，意思是说最上等女人也比不上草包汉。)”; Western proverb, “A woman is an angel at 10, a saint at 15, a devil at 40, and a witch at fourscore. (女子十岁为天使，十五岁为圣女，四十岁为魔鬼，八十岁为巫婆。)”. In Chinese, ‘nü da bu zhong liu (女大不中留)’, in English, ‘Daughters and dead fish are no keeping wares. (死鱼非存货，女大不可留。)’ .

We also can find this situation from celebrities. Huang Liuhong of Song dynasty wrote, ‘Fu ren shui xing yang hua, yan de bu wei suo dong’, from Fu Hui Quan Shu-Nong Ming Bu (宋朝黄六鸿《福惠全书·弄名部》中有“妇人水性杨花，焉得不为所动”). There are similar proverb in English, “A woman’s mind and winter wind change a lot.”, “Women,wind and fortune are ever changing.”, “A fickle thing and changeful is woman always.”. Jane Austin, the write of Pride and Prejudice （《傲慢与偏见》） said, “A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. (女子有识殊非幸事，宜深藏之。)”。 Roman poet, Juvenal said, “No one delights more in vengeance than a woman.” Pandora, the origin of human’s pain, was the first woman in Greek mythology, Nietzsche (尼采) said, “Woman was God’s second mistake.” . Shakespeare (莎士比亚) said, “Frailty, thy name is woman. (弱者，你的名字是女人。)”. George Bernard Shaw (乔治·伯纳德·肖) of Irish Dramatist, in Mrs Warren’s Profession (《华伦夫人的职业》), wrote “The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.”. British poet and dramatist, John Gay (约翰·盖伊) wrote a poem-Woman’s Mind, “Oft’ shifts her passions , like the inconstant wind; Suddenly she rages , like the trouble main; Now sinks the storm, and all in calm again.”.

 

From these expressions we can see the origins for a stereotypical view of woman both in China and western countries. As women are weak, they give in to temptation. Because they can not control their tongues, they are dangerous and need to be controlled. There are no broadly used equivalents for men.

Chinese terms of address also clearly retain the traces of the ideas of regarding man as superior to women. In the past, whether in the city or in the country, a married woman is addressed as x shi 氏, where x represents her mother’s family name. On formal occasions, the surname of the husband is also added. For example, a woman is called Li Ding Shi. Li indicates that her husband’s surname; Ding is the surname of her mother’s family; Shi is a character or a morpheme placed after her maiden name. Usually, the husband’s name is placed in front. A similar practice can be found in English. A married woman will take her husband’s surname. This illustrates that when a woman marries a man, she loses her independence and become a property of her husband. Women are linguistically invisible both in China and America. In western wedding ceremony, the priest pronounce, “I now pronounce you man and wife.” After marriage, the groom still is a man, the bride become a wife. Former American president Bill Clinton’s wife Hilary Rodhamon, although she is a feminist she still change her name to Hilary Rodhamon Clinton, then Hilary Clinton.

 

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