Are there any issues with sexism in the Japanese language?

Question

The only example I can think of/that I know of at the moment that has ever been of controversy with regard to sexism in Japanese was the change from 看護婦 to 看護師. I'm sure there are probably many more cases like this. I also see a lot of words with kanji that seem more or less degrading to women, but I'm not sure that this is what I'm going for with the question. Rather I'm looking for something more ingrained, more structural that has been a source of controversy in the past. Vocabulary or kanji could fall into this category as well, but I'm not looking for an exhaustive listing of words or expressions that could be considered sexist. Rather I want to know what is and has been considered sexist in Japanese by Japanese people.

As an example in English there is notably no gender neutral third person pronoun, so words like "man" and "he" are the norm while other more equal words either don't exist or aren't used as widely in situations where gendered speech has been traditionally used.

Does Japanese have these kinds of issues, and if so what are they?

Answer 1

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking, but in the workplace there was a law passed: 雇用の分野における男女の均等な機会及び待遇の確保等に関する法律 which changed a lot of the words for women in the workplace (your example is one of them). The wikipedia article also gives some other examples:

「婦人警察官」→「女性警察官」（募集の際は単に警察官）
「営業マン」→「営業職」
「保母」→「保育士」
「スチュワーデス」→「客室乗務員」

There are also controversial terms for husband and wife: 亭主、主人、奥さん、家内

They are still used a lot in everyday speech, but I believe there are restrictions on using them in the media.

Other examples:

未亡人、帰国子女、入籍する

There are also controversy with some Kanji characters:

嫁、嬲る、etc.