Comment Re:in before the idiots (Score 1) 165
Unlike, for example, Japanese, which has entire verb classes dedicated to the deference of women and underlings to the male/ boss.
Uh, as a student of the Japanese language, I understand that there are varying degrees of politeness, but it has less to do with gender and more to do with "rank". So you speak differently to your superiors and they speak differently "down" to you.
In terms of genders, I think Japan has come quite a ways in terms of making women more "equal". There are still obvious gaps: wages for women are generally lower than men but it doesn't seem women mind this. I think it is still very common for women in Japan to stop working when they have children. The man however will continue to work to support the family. That's a fair trade if a woman doesn't expect to be working once she enters "family" life.
There are still some customs we would consider sexist here in the west. For example female office workers are often referred to as "OL" which is short for Office Lady. OL are expected to make/serve the tea in the office if they are present. But there are many other differences that really set Japanese work environments apart from western style work environments. The most notable is the priority of the "group" instead of individual.
In terms of language however, the honorifics aren't necessarily specific to gender, more ranking.
If you really want to see retardedness in terms of not only "rank" but also gender, you should try South Korea. Not only do you get the awkward language with "rank" expressions built into it, you get it at the fun level of age. That is if someone happens to be older than you by a year, you must address them differently. So before you can even talk to a random person, the first question you have to ask is "how old are you?" Add on top of it that they're heavily influenced by christianity and have a history of unwanted occupations by other countries, well, you've got a ton of bitterness and strangeness built into that kind of culture. Not saying that they're bad people, but it can really be hard to understand or deal with their culture at times.
Consider this: in South Korea, appearance is so important that it is fairly common for Korean families to provide plastic surgery as a "gift" for their daughters once they graduate high school.
But even for both cultures, I don't think either is oppressed at the "gender" level. Women in both countries seem very content and expressive with their lives. In fact, Japanese men are trending "down" in terms of dating women. There's a phenomenon called "grass eaters" going on. That is men that don't actively see women because they think it is too much hassle.
Finally in Filipino culture, there is some of this "genderness" and "ranking" built into the language. While it isn't at the general "he/she" level it is more at the family level. Any older sibling must be referred to as "kuya" for older brothers and "ate" (pronounced ah-te) for older sisters. This expands not just to your immediate family but also to any relatives and anyone considered a close relative (may not be blood related). There are many of these respectful expressions notions. For example any woman of roughly the same age group as your parents should be referred to as "aunt".
If you were to compare languages, I would say English is still the king of shedding gender and politeness. He/she still exists but that's way simpler than knowing all of these cultural/ranking specific terms. Even "Mr/Ms" is starting to go away as well as "m'am" and "sir".