Besides, men just have one title “Mr” while women bear “Mrs” for married women and “Miss” for “the young or unmarried women”. Marital status is considered more important for female than for male.
Proverbs
Sexism can be clearly found in English proverbs. They carry sexual bias against female: women are the source of bad things, trouble, absurdity, talkativeness, weakness and of course prejudice in favor of men: power, wisdom, strength. Women are fastened to negative associations and subordinates while positive connections and authority are for men. “Many women, many words; many geese, many turds”
“A woman’s tongue cracks bones”
“Women are like wasps in their anger”
“A woman’s tongue cracks bones”
“A woman is probably at the heart of the quarrel”
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The bad word “đĩ” (prostitute) is only used for woman, when referring to man, it has to be specified “đĩ đực” as people usually assume this terrible job to be for women. Some utterances like “đàn bà ấy mà!” (women are always like that), “toan tính đàn bà” (woman’s cunning), “mưu kế đàn bà” (woman’s craftiness), “công việc của đàn bà” (woman’s job) , “sở thích đàn bà” (woman’s hobby), “mồm đàn bà” (woman’s mouth), “bụng đàn bà” (woman’s stomach) are long-standing prejudices against females. In Eastern country like Vietnam, the notion of valuing male above female is reflected by exclusive words imposed on women’s role. We have “tiết phụ” or “quả phụ/ qoá phụ” (widow), “trinh nữ” (female virgin) but we do not have “tiết phu” or “quả phu/ qoá phu” (widower), “trinh nam” (male virgin). This shows that a woman is expected to sacrifice her life for her husband forever or be virgin until the marriage, if not people will look down on her because of losing “treasure” (called “cái nghìn vàng” in Vietnam). In contrast, a man is not required to be loyal to his wife for the rest of his life as he can do anything he wants without being jeered at. Even worst, women are fixed with sexual terms: “gợi cảm, bốc lửa, tậu ngực mới , chân dài, vòng một lấp ló, hàng khủng, lộ nội y, lưng trần nuột nà…” (all of them refer to …show more content…
However, persons often habitually associate them with men. As a result, compound words are formed by adding feminine word “nữ” before these names to refer to females who do those jobs: luật sư nữ luật sư, bác sĩ nữ bác sĩ, kỹ sư nữ kỹ sư, giáo sư nữ giáo sư. The lower-status jobs are for women and if for men they need attaching masculine words like “ông or nam”: nội trợ ông nội trợ; hộ lí nam hộ lí.
On the other hand, the role of mother is placed very high in people mind. And maybe this is the only way that women earn reputation as overarching role: “mẫu quốc” (mother country), “công ty mẹ” (mother company), “tiếng mẹ đẻ” (mother tongue), “cây mẹ” (mother tree). These gender-restrictive expressions ignore male images (or “father”in particular) and therefore are somehow a kind of discrimination.
Use of Titles/ Honorific
In Vietnam, there are some salutations like “Thưa quý thầy cô”, “Thưa quý ông, quý bà” or “Thưa quý anh chị”. The first place is again for males. In addition, when a woman has the husband named “Dậu”, she is called “chị Dậu”, too or her husband is a teacher, she is called “bà giáo” or “bà nghè” when her husband has bachelor degree (usually in literature, now this phenomenon is still in some Vietnam countryside). Women lose their own identity, are just known indirectly through their