Some people distinguish between a ‘masculine’ and a ‘feminine’ language. Women’s language tends to be polite and respectful to the other, showing the traditional submissiveness of women in Japan. The feminine ‘I’ in The Laugh of the Medusa, translated into Japanese by Matsumoto, is not that of the passive and subordinated woman, but the ‘I’ of a new and assertive feminine subject. The translator could not then use the traditional Japanese women’s language, but a new ‘conventional’ one, not too ‘feminine’ either, because the latter would mean adhering to the usual sexism in Japanese society.