Sapir-Whorf and Feminism in Japanese

Lately, I have been researching Japanese gender issues from the past decade, and this article really backed up something I had been feeling. It points out that more girls in Japan are starting to use traditionally masculine first-person pronouns.

Japanese has very detailed differences depending on gender and social relationships. The clearest example is that there are many words for “I,” such as “watashi,” “boku,” and “ore,” roughly moving toward the masculine. Many other expressions, including subtle sentence endings, are often gendered too.

This made me think of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or linguistic relativity. In its weaker form, it suggests that the structures and categories of a language can influence how speakers perceive and organize the world. Japanese people often say they feel like a different person in English. That might be one everyday example.

I half agree with that, and half do not. I agree because when I speak in English, I do feel more direct and less constrained. Of course, part of that may just be a foreign-language thing, where limited vocabulary makes people more casual and frank.

I disagree because I do not think the Japanese language system we use now is fixed forever. In my own case, I often use the masculine “ore” with close friends, and so do some of my friends. The reason is that when we were teenagers and several serious sexual assault cases were getting attention, my friends and I talked about how Japanese has very few direct refusals that feel natural for women to use. Even strong rejection often turns into a kind of “request.”

We were dumb high school girls, and our very simple conclusion was, “じゃあ男の言葉を使おうぜ Hey, then let’s just use men’s language.” So among ourselves, we often use casual imperatives and more gender-neutral expressions. I do not think this is only us. Extremely masculine language and extremely feminine language both feel stranger in daily life now.

The attached photo is Ano-chan, one of the symbolic “boku” girls of our generation. She works very freely inside the idol industry, and she has also become extremely successful. I think her presence has influenced many young people. Personally, I also think aggressive female rappers have influenced how girls speak now. Many adults criticize it, but to me, they are just bringing the casualness and directness of English, or masculine expressions in Japanese, into their own language.

When we think about culture, we tend to imagine something authentic and unchanging. But it is not like that. If a language does not have what we need, we can just change it. Maybe this is less about feminism as a theory, and more about a feminist reflex inside everyday Japanese.

I am kind of a prose pervert, though, so I still love old-fashioned phrases and delicate expressions. I will keep using the luxurious side of Japanese for art and aesthetics. After all, I do feel lucky to be a Japanese speaker.

Anyway, this was a really inspiring article, with historical context from the Edo and Meiji periods.

Thank you for writing 🐈

Unseen Japan