Chapter 12 brother (and others)

"Little brother" means sister.Apparently on the same principle, "little brother" refers to the younger sister, "xiaoshu" and "xiaobo" refer to the aunt, "xiaojiu" refers to the aunt, and so on. I noticed a long time ago that in Maqiao and nearby places, there are relatively few kinship titles for women, and most of them just add a "small" in front of the male titles to make a slight distinction.Women and the word "small" are always connected together.Women are almost villains.It is not known whether this rule is related to Confucius' ancient teachings such as "only women and villains are difficult to raise".

Language does not appear to be absolutely objective and neutral.The language space is always distorted under the gravitational pull of a certain idea.The phenomenon of women's anonymity makes it easy to understand the status and situation of the women here. It is not difficult to understand why they always tie their chests flat, clamp their legs tightly, and always lower their eyes timidly. The eaves or grass, deeply panicked or ashamed of being a woman. To be named is the right of life, the result of respect and love.People always name their domestic pets "Little Mi" or "Lulu" or "Bill".It is only with criminals that their names are often ignored and they are called only by their numerical numbers, like counting goods.Only people we dislike so much that we disregard their titles, calling them "that thing," "you bastard," etc., depriving them of their place in the language.The nameless are those whose names have no use in public life, are superfluous, and are so infrequently used that they could be eliminated altogether.This is just like during the Cultural Revolution, names such as "professor", "engineer", "doctor", and "artist" were also confiscated.The authorities do not intend to abolish these trades and positions, nor do they intend to eliminate such people.In fact, the authorities are eager for the rapid development of various undertakings in the name of revolution.The authorities just have a strong psychological impulse to weaken or even completely wipe out these people's right to name—because any kind of name may become the launch of a thinking and a whole set of concept systems.

In ancient China, Neo Confucianism unified all philosophies.Any theory is called the fulcrum as the starting point, and it is the focus and condensation of all arguments. The anonymization of women in Maqiao is actually a male name.This is certainly not a particularly rare phenomenon.Even English, which has been baptized by the wave of human enlightenment for hundreds of years, only regards men (man) as people (man), and prominent words such as "chairman" and "minister" are also masculine, and they are still criticized by feminists.But English only shows that some neutral or common words have fallen one by one under the shadow of male hegemony, and it has not yet been masculine to the extent of Maqiao language—female words have been completely eliminated.Whether this tampering of language has affected the sexual psychology and even sexual physiology of Maqiao women, and whether it has changed the reality to a certain extent, it is difficult for me to go further.On the surface, most of them are used to rough and loud voices, and even learned to fight and swear.Once you gain the upper hand in front of men, you will be a little complacent.They seldom have clean faces and hands, and rarely bright colors. They are always hidden in masculine attire, using baggy trousers or stiff and rough padded jackets to cover up their feminine lines.They are also ashamed to talk about menstruation and always say "that thing". "That thing" - also has no title.I work in paddy fields, and I rarely see women taking menstruation leave.They can ask for leave for going to the market, sending pigs, helping labor, etc., but they will not leave the leave for their bodies.I guess they have to eliminate their periods in order to confirm their male characters like "little brother".