Womansword

What Japanese Words Say About Women

Kittredge Cherry

• Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781611720297
• eBook ISBN: 9781611729191
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Social Sciences

Thirty years after its first publication, Womansword remains a timely, provocative work on how words reflect female stereotypes in modern Japan.

Short, lively essays offer linguistic, sociological, and historical insight into issues central to the lives of women everywhere: identity, girlhood, marriage, motherhood, work, sexuality, and aging. Cherry uses Japanese society, from folklore to pop culture, to illuminate female identity, simultaneously teaching us about both.

A new introduction shows how things have—and haven't—changed.

1

Female Identity

“In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun”

Amaterasu Omikami Great Heaven-Shining Mother

天照大御神

On the first day of the new year, some Japanese awake early to watch the sun peep over the horizon, reminding them of their own origins. The sun goddess, the Great Heaven-Shining Mother (Amaterasu Omikami), is the foremother of all the Japanese people and the supreme deity in Shinto mythology. Shinto is one of the few religions in the world to perceive the sun as female. According to the myth first recorded about thirteen hundred years ago, Amaterasu gave her grandson the mirror, sword, and cashew-shaped jewels still venerated as the “Three Sacred Treasures,” then sent him down to populate the “Land of Plentiful Reed-covered Plains and Fresh Rice Ears,” starting with Japan. The present emperor traces his pedigree directly back to the sun goddess, boasting the world’s longest unbroken succession.

Amaterasu and her sacred mirror are enshrined at the most holy Shinto shrine, the Grand Shrine of Ise. The shrine is so ancient that its origin is clouded in scholarly debate; its own brochures claim it was founded there in 4 B.C. by the princess Yamato-himeno-Mikoto. Unlike most shrines, it is built in the oldest Japanese architectural style and presided over by a high priestess. This position, traditionally held by an imperial princess, was abolished in 1868 and revived in 1946. Although their highest deity is female, all but a few Shinto priests are men. They are assisted by many female attendants called miko.

While Shinto ignites unpleasant memories of militarism in some Japanese, her majesty the sun has long provided inspiration for Japanese women, including poet Hiratsuka Raicho. She founded a feminist literary circle called the Bluestocking (Seito) Society, a forerunner of contemporary feminist activism. To inaugurate the first issue of the group’s journal Bluestocking in 1911, she harkened back to the myths starring Amaterasu. Raicho’s poem, probably Japan’s most famous feminist declaration, opens with the words “In the beginning, woman was the sun. An authentic person.”

anegohada Big-Sister Types

姉御肌

Big-sisterhood is powerful in Japan. Women usually are not viewed as both strong and good; they are one or the other unless they fall into a special category such as “big-sister skin” (anegohada). In this case, skin means nature or type. Ane is elder sister, and the go in between adds a layer of either respect or affection. A strong, honest, and capable woman of any age may be admired by men as well as women in Japan as an anegohada. The big-sister type leads and looks after her underlings on the job, at school, or anywhere else in a style Westerners might term “paternalistic.” She will be kind to those younger or weaker than herself She chooses protégés, not necessarily female, and may help them out and encourage them. To Japanese, this is big-sister behavior.

A sisterly benefactor can also be called “parent-role skin” (oyabunhada), a word usually applied to men. Gangster societies, which nurse similarly powerful bonds between older ring leaders and younger henchmen, provide another context for the terms anegohada and oyabunhada. To gangsters, a big sister can be either the leader’s wife or a female with the same leadership instinct displayed by anegohada in other walks of life.

At work or at home, older sisters are authority figures in Japan, where age always confers privilege and responsibility. The Japanese language doesn’t even have a word that means just “sister” without specifying whether she is an older sister (ane) or a younger sister (imoto). The closest it comes is the plural shimai (sisters), a compound of the two characters. Shimai is also used for sister cities, allied companies, and the like. In the family, siblings address their older sisters politely as oneesan, while big sisters talk down to their younger siblings by using their given names. The words for older brother, younger brother, and brothers (kyodai) work the same way, except kyodai is also used generically to refer to both female and male siblings.

Anne no hi Anne’s Day

アンネの日

Once she recovered from the shock, Anne Frank would probably get a good laugh out of the way her name has been immortalized in Japan. “Today is Anne’s Day (Anne no hi),” one woman might whisper to another. Her message is far removed from World War II and the Nazi regime that forced the Jewish teenager and her family into hiding. The diary Anne kept moved millions to ponder the insanity of war. It also gave Japan a now old-fashioned term for menstruation. Although few people say Anne no hi anymore, older women still recognize it and remember it when they speak, not of war and death, but of the flowing potential for life.

Anne broached this topic tenderly once: “Each time I have a period—and that has been only three times—I have the feeling that in spite of all the pain, the unpleasantness and nastiness, I have a sweet secret and that is why, although it is nothing but a nuisance to me in a way, I always long for the time that I shall feel that secret within me again.”

The connection is so obscure that it would never have occurred to the average Japanese if it weren’t for a certain sanitary napkin and tampon manufacturer that chose to call itself Anne Co., Ltd. This firm introduced the first paper sanitary products proportioned for Japanese women in 1961, using “Anne’s Day” as an advertising theme. Japanese women were already familiar with such feminine protection, because these products were first imported to Japan shortly after Kimberly-Clark Corporation introduced its Kotex brand to America in 1921. In his memoirs, the Anne PR chief who helped christen the products notes the aim was to clean up the reputation of menstruation and related items: “The image we presented had to be beautiful, pure, not of suffering but of delight, not gloomy but bright.”

With their uplifting ad campaign, the men of Anne may have been raising menstruation back to the lofty status it enjoyed long ago. Some scholars surmise that in ancient times Japanese women were considered unapproachable during menstruation because it was seen as a sign of being sacred to the gods. This belief may have been behind one of the world’s first recorded poems about menstruation, which appears in Japan’s oldest book, the Kojiki, completed in 712. A warrior has just returned from heroic exploits, ready to wed his beloved princess, when he spots menstrual blood on her clothes. Perhaps because it means she is too holy to touch, he laments, “Although I desire to sleep with you, on the hem of the cloak you are wearing the moon has risen” (tsuki tachinikeri). This ancient euphemism is also used by the princess, who quickly shifts the blame to the man for being away so long: “It is no wonder that while waiting in vain for you, on the cloak I am wearing the moon should rise.”

In later centuries, there is no question that menstruation came to be viewed as pollution. Menstruation is said to be kegarawashii, or filthy, disgusting, obscene. The receptacles for sanitary napkins in public rest rooms sometimes are still labeled with this potently filthy character, in this case in a compound word pronounced either obutsu or yogoremono. The traditional exception to this dismal attitude was a girl’s first menstrual period, a rite of passage celebrated with merrymaking methods that varied from one region to another. For example, in one corner of Shizuoka Prefecture, neighbors presented a bag of rice and said, “A new flower has bloomed, congratulations!” Word of the momentous event spread quickly through the neighborhood when the woman-child made her first trip to the hut where women were isolated during that time of the month.

First-period festivities are disappearing, while euphemisms continue to thrive. Women disguise menstruation linguistically with polite circumlocutions such as the old-fashioned “monthly obstacle” (tsuki no sawari), which can also denote a cloud over the moon. The most common euphemisms are the medical term seiri (physiology), the English borrowing mensu, gekkei (period), and just plain are (that). An outmoded but colorful slang term is “rising sun” (hi no maru), a pun on the Japanese “rising sun” flag: a red circle on a field of white. It took a satirical wit to link menstruation with the patriotic symbol; prior to World War II, nationalism was almost synonymous with state Shinto, a religion that included the concept of menstruation as contamination.

bijin Beauties

美人

Beauty is female. “I met a beauty today” generally means the speaker encountered a beautiful woman. Likewise, the Japanese talk about meeting a bijin, literally “beauty-person” but actually used exclusively for beauties of the female persuasion. In contrast, gender is usually specified in the various words for male beauties, such as “beauty-man” (binan).

The term can be affixed to almost any job title to forge compounds denoting such Japanese phenomena as the “beauty-announcer” (bijin anaunsaa) delivering the TV news, the “beauty-hostess” (bijin hosutesu) serving drinks in hostess clubs, and even the “beauty-editor” (bijin henshusha) working on books like this one. In the old days, about a thousand years ago, a bijin had a special job reserved just for her. Early written records indicate that villagers used to do their sake-making through a primitive fermentation process that began with chewing rice and spitting the wad into a large wooden tub. The purity of the saké was ensured by allowing the rice to be chewed only by bijin—in this case meaning young, virgins. The resulting wine was appropriately called bijinshu, or “beauty saké.”

Nowadays good looks are still an important job qualification for females. The expression “graceful figure” (yoshi tanrei) keeps popping up in help-wanted ads for women. This blend of style and beauty is a stated requirement for such positions as tour guide, showroom product demonstrator, and receptionist, and an unwritten rule for many other jobs open to women. The characters themselves conceivably could apply to an attractive male figure, but common usage denies this interpretation. Employers value men more for their inner qualities, and seldom advertise for fine male physiques. Likewise, the words for good-looking guys cannot be made into compounds with their job titles.

They may find employment with relative ease, but beautiful women are considered more likely than their plain sisters to suffer misfortunes and even untimely death. As a common proverb puts it, “Beauties are short-lived” (Bijin hakumei). The adage also hints at the impermanence of youthful prettiness and the fact that Japanese tend to perceive transience itself as beautiful. The national passion for cherry blossoms is partly based on the fact that they fade so quickly.

Standards of beauty are fleeting, too, as can be seen by glancing back through a few centuries of Japanese art, especially the genre of ukiyo-e known as “beauty pictures” (bijinga). One era’s beauty is another’s beast. Black teeth, once an essential part of personal grooming for women, provoke disgust today. Fashion shifts back and forth from round, plump-cheeked faces to the longish ovals hailed as “melon-seed faces” (urizane-gao). In the Edo period, men wrote of their desire for a young woman with a small mouth, eyebrows like a crescent moon rising in the mist over a distant mountain, hair like the wing of a wet crow, and a “Mount Fuji forehead” (Fuji-bitai). This old-fashioned phrase was suggested by the pointed shape of the hairline that English speakers call a widow’s peak.

Traditionally, a Japanese woman’s appeal was said to reside in an anatomical part that most other nations ignore: the nape (unaji) of the neck. More than breasts, buttocks, or legs, the nape exuded sensuality. The reason behind the beguilingly elusive aesthetic was simple. The rest of her physique was cloaked by kimono. Even her nape was often hidden beneath her ebony mane, so when a woman put up her hair, it caused the same delicious pitter-pat that Westerners may feel when they spot a woman in ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface to the 30th Anniversary Edition
• Preface to the Original Edition
• 1. Female Identity: “In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun”
• 2. Girlhood to Wedding: “Christmas Cake Sweepstakes”
• 3. Married Life: “Hey, Mrs. Interior!”
• 4. Motherhood: “Honor That Bag”
• 5. Girlhood to Wedding: “Office Flowers Bloom”
• 6. Sexuality: “Pillow Talk”
• 7. Aging: “Nice Middies Do”
• Japanese Word Index
• Subject Index