feminization
(ˌfɛmɪnaɪˈzeɪʃən)
[f. next + -ation.]
1. a. The action of making feminine. b. The giving of a feminine inflexion to a word.
| 1844 Blackw. Mag. LV. 510 There is a sweetness, a softness, and feminization of tone, in the lower passages. 1886 H. James Bostonians III. ii. xxxiv. 52 ‘To save it [the sex] from what?’ she asked. ‘From the most damnable feminisation!’ 1891 M. M. Dowie Girl in Karp. 115 Their [Poles'] careless and light-hearted feminisation of a verb. 1960 20th Cent. May 401 The process of softening in the worker. I should..call it his feminization. |
2. Biol. The assumption of female sexual characteristics (by a male animal or plant); the occurrence of female sexual characteristics in a person who is genetically male.
| 1922 F. H. A. Marshall Physiology of Reproduction (ed. 2) xv. 697 (caption) Feminisation of guinea-pig... The animals are arranged in the following order:—Normal male, two feminised brothers, castrated brother. 1957 New Biol. XXIII. 16 The time of transition to female flower formation provides a convenient index of the ‘feminization’ of the plant. 1959 Lancet 17 Oct. 592/1 Apparent females with testicular feminisation are sex-reversed males. 1970 Sci. Jrnl. June 50/1 However in rare cases, known as testicular feminization, the male organs do not develop although the foetus has testes and a male genetic constitution. |
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Add: [1.] c. spec. The process by which a condition or activity becomes especially or increasingly associated with women, as in the phr. feminization of poverty. orig. and chiefly U.S.
| 1978 D. Pearce in Urban & Social Change Rev. XI. i–ii. 28 (heading) Feminization of poverty: women, work and welfare. Ibid. 35/1 The major implication for policy of both the feminization of poverty and the increasing labor-force participation of welfare mothers is that gender cannot be ignored. 1982 Sci. Amer. Sept. 145/1 The feminization of clerical work has continued: in 1980, 97 percent of typists in the U.S. were women, as were 89 percent of stenographers. 1984 New Yorker 30 Jan. 43/1 The cruellest thing going on in our country—the feminization of poverty. 1986 Sunday Tel. 2 Mar. 10/6 There is a new social term being used in the United States. It is ‘the feminization of poverty’. Being poor is increasingly associated with being a woman. |