Feminine vs Masculine Japanese Writing
The image shows men’s handwriting on the right, and on the left is my doctor’s handwriting.
In the Heian period (794 - 1185), men and women didn’t use the same written language. That would have made too much sense.
Because the Japanese elites modeled themselves after China, official documents were written in Chinese characters, or kanji. Kanji was called “man’s hand.” Women could not step foot into the realm of politics and government, so women of the court wrote in hiragana, a cursive script invented in Japan that makes me think of the path of a cherry blossom petal floating in a tranquil pond.
Now this did not mean men only wrote in kanji and women only wrote in hiragana. It depended on what was written rather than the writer’s chromosomes.
For example, government decrees and records were written in kanji, but Japanese waka poetry was written in hiragana, even if the writer was a man. Men wrote love letters to women in hiragana.
Yet some noblewomen did dip their toes into the forbidden font. Murasaki Shikibu, author of the Tale of Genji, learned Chinese but refused to flaunt it. She criticized another female writer, Sei Shōnagon, of peppering her prose with unladylike Chinese characters.
“Girl, cool it with the kanji. It’s a poem, not a birth certificate.”
- Murasaki Shikibu (in my head)
Even so, when Empress Shōshi wanted to learn Chinese, it was the Lady Murasaki who taught her. In secret, of course.