http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2
Speaking of getting schlonged….
It is well-known that many Chinese characters with a female radical (nǚ 女) have pejorative or negative meanings:
Joe, "Sexist Chinese Characters Discriminate Against Women " (chinaSMACK, 1/28/10)
Koichi, "Kanji Hates The Ladies " (Tofugu, 6/05/12)
Dali Tan, "Sexism in the Chinese Language", NWSA Journal, 2.4 (Autumn, 1990), 635-639
David Moser, "Covert Sexism in Mandarin Chinese," Sino-Platonic Papers, 74 (January, 1997), 1-23.
Here are some examples:
jiān 奸 ("evil; treacherous; traitor; illicit sexual relations")
jiān 姦 ("adultery; debauchery; rape")
nú 奴 ("manservant; slave")
jí 嫉 ("envy; jealousy")
dù 妬 ("envy; jealousy") — cf. jídù 嫉妒 ("envy; jealously"); dù 妬 and dù 妒 are interchangeable
yín 婬 ("lewdness")
xián 嫌 ("suspicion; ill will; resentment; quarrel; dislike")
nǎo 嫐 ("frolic; play / flirt with") — the character has a man sandwiched between two women
niǎo 嬲 ("frolic; play / flirt with; tease; pester"; Cant. nau1 "get angry; take offence; detest", niu5 "tease; pester") — the character has a woman sandwiched between two men
lán 婪 ("greedy; covet[ous]; avaricious")
pīn 姘 ("have an affair; illicit sexual relations")
yāo 妖 ("monster; devil; goblin; witch; phantom; bewitching; coquettish; strange; weird; supernatural")
jì 妓 ("prostitute")
chāng 娼 ("prostitute")
biǎo 婊 ("prostitute")
piáo 嫖 ("visit a prostitute; whore")
Of course, not all characters having the woman radical are negative. Indeed, one of the characters for "good" is composed of the elements "woman" + "child": hǎo 好 (a word, if not the character, that everybody learns within the first week of beginning Mandarin).
xìng 姓 ("surname"); note that some of the oldest Chinese surnames, such as jiāng 姜 and jī 姬, have the woman radical, indicating a matriarchal society
wēi 威 ("force; might; power[ful]; dominate; pomp")
zī 姿 ("appearance; gesture; looks; posture" [often of a majestic sort])
tuǒ 妥 ("proper; appropriate; settled; ready; satisfactory")
In general, the relatively fewer Chinese characters with a "woman" radical that have positive meanings tend to be from the earlier layers of the script. (N.B.: Not all older characters with the "woman" radical have positive meanings.)
For the remainder of this post, I will focus on two notorious characters with woman radicals that have been prominently featured in the news recently, which is what prompted me to write this post.
I.
wàng 妄 ("absurd, foolish, reckless; false; untrue; preposterous; presumptuous; rash; extravagant; ignorant; stupid; wild; frantic; frenetic", etc., etc.) — all pejorative and defamatory meanings
This is an old character, occurring already in the bronze inscriptions (first millennium BC).
The character wàng 妄 readily forms various terms and collocations, all of which are negative in their connotations:
妄称 妄动 妄断 妄念 妄求 妄取 妄人 妄生穿凿 妄说 妄图 妄为 妄下雌黄 妄想 妄言妄听 妄语 妄自菲薄 妄自尊大
Source: zdic
(the bottom of the zdic page gives links to all of these terms and expressions with links that provide full explanations and English translations)
The above list is mainly for specialists in Chinese. Here I will only illustrate one item, namely, wàngyán 妄言 ("speak arrogantly; wild talk"). Some examples of its usage may be found here, here, and here.
This is also a popular expression in Japanese, where it is pronounced mougen もうげん.
2.
Already noted above, jiān 姦 ("adultery; debauchery; rape") is one of the most sensitive characters with a "woman" radical that has been prominent in the news lately. In fact, 姦 amounts to the "woman" radical to the third power, since it consists of three "woman" radicals.
"Beijing just banned an art exhibition on violence against women, but you can view the work here" (Quartz, 11/27/15)
"China: Authorities ban art exhibition on violence against women" (Artsfreedom, 12/1/15)
"A Feminism Exhibition Banned in Beijing" (WideWalls)
Gender discrimination in the Chinese character "姦" (article in Chinese).
The exhibition, "姦", the Cultural Code of Gender Violence, was banned by the PRC government (article in Chinese).
In the early days of the PRC, the government changed some characters for the names of minority ethnic groups so that they no longer had "bug" (chóng 虫) or "dog" quǎn犭/ 犬) radicals in them because they were thought to be pejorative. A makeover of the Chinese script that would remove the "woman" radical from derogatory characters would be even more radical, as it were.
[Thanks to Michael Carr]
