Words for Womens Work

Does our choice of words and use of language somehow sabotage respect due to women for the work they do? Can the analysis of words for womens work at home, or for the family, explain or reveal attitudes? This book is about Japanese words, and English, used to describe traditional tasks that women perform. Is it significant that the important and time consuming task of bearing and rearing children, and caring for disabled and elderly, is subsumed under a simple term care, which basically is a verb of attitude or emotion? The verb nurse, which indicates a role, conjures up a figure, not the hard work a person who nurses somebody may have to do. There are important links between language and identity. This book a slightly adapted version of a thesis for a Cand. Philol. degree in Japanese, submitted to the University of Oslo in 2007. It should be of interest to teachers and students of language. But it is also of interest to all concerned with womens position in society, who wish to plan for a social order where women are respected for the work they do.