The Chinese and Japanese character for “sex” (as in, which reproductive organs you have) can also be translated as “a quality” or “nature”: 性 is the same character used for “nature” in the expression “Buddha-nature”, i.e. “the characteristic quality of a Buddha”. The concept could possibly also be expressed as “distinction”, as in the limerick of the young lady from Exeter; or as “difference” as in the French expression “Vive la différence” (“Long live the difference” between men and women).
The concept of “grammatical gender” in linguistics is often taken to be a specialization of the more general concept of “noun class”. Some languages, particularly African languages closer to the likely point of origin of human language, grammatically distinguish a large number of different noun classes, for particular kinds of things. Some European languages make a distinction between animate and inanimate nouns, but most preserve only the distinction between masculine and feminine nouns.
This may be taken as indicating that as human languages continually diversify and mix in human societies, that the distinctions which are preserved are those which human societies find the most significant: distinctions of sex. Which isn’t surprising, since humans do need language to talk about and perform mate selection, where (for almost all humans) sex is highly significant.
English does not express grammatical gender on nouns in general, as French or German do. Indeed, even remaining feminizing suffixes such as -ess are falling out of use: uses such as “poetess” and “authoress” are now seen as dated (and sexist), and even “actress” is obsolescent. However, like other Indo-European languages (but unlike the Finno-Ugric languages, or many East Asian languages) English retains gendered pronouns.
It is not at all clear that removing gender from pronouns is a step in the direction of a less sexist society. Japanese does not use gendered pronouns except for intimate relations; but few would assert that Japan had perfect sexual equality. Sweden is often identified as a society with an unusually high level of sexual equality; but Swedish has gendered pronouns. However, deliberately using gender-neutral pronouns in English draws attention to the gender distinction, and implicitly asks, “Why are we making this distinction here, when we’re not doing mate selection right now?”
The Chinese and Japanese character for “sex” (as in, which reproductive organs you have) can also be translated as “a quality” or “nature”: 性 is the same character used for “nature” in the expression “Buddha-nature”, i.e. “the characteristic quality of a Buddha”. The concept could possibly also be expressed as “distinction”, as in the limerick of the young lady from Exeter; or as “difference” as in the French expression “Vive la différence” (“Long live the difference” between men and women).
The concept of “grammatical gender” in linguistics is often taken to be a specialization of the more general concept of “noun class”. Some languages, particularly African languages closer to the likely point of origin of human language, grammatically distinguish a large number of different noun classes, for particular kinds of things. Some European languages make a distinction between animate and inanimate nouns, but most preserve only the distinction between masculine and feminine nouns.
This may be taken as indicating that as human languages continually diversify and mix in human societies, that the distinctions which are preserved are those which human societies find the most significant: distinctions of sex. Which isn’t surprising, since humans do need language to talk about and perform mate selection, where (for almost all humans) sex is highly significant.
English does not express grammatical gender on nouns in general, as French or German do. Indeed, even remaining feminizing suffixes such as -ess are falling out of use: uses such as “poetess” and “authoress” are now seen as dated (and sexist), and even “actress” is obsolescent. However, like other Indo-European languages (but unlike the Finno-Ugric languages, or many East Asian languages) English retains gendered pronouns.
It is not at all clear that removing gender from pronouns is a step in the direction of a less sexist society. Japanese does not use gendered pronouns except for intimate relations; but few would assert that Japan had perfect sexual equality. Sweden is often identified as a society with an unusually high level of sexual equality; but Swedish has gendered pronouns. However, deliberately using gender-neutral pronouns in English draws attention to the gender distinction, and implicitly asks, “Why are we making this distinction here, when we’re not doing mate selection right now?”
Only partially true: the Japanese language has differently gendered versions of “I”. Pronouns for “you” are indeed generally reserved for intimate relations, and third person pronouns don’t seem to exist at all, as far as I can tell.