female chauvinist

noun

1. a female who patronizes, disparages, or otherwise denigrates males in the belief that they are inferior to females and thus deserving of less than equal treatment or benefit.

Other Words From

• female chauvinism noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of female chauvinist¹

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

With the scales between men and women tipping towards equality, author Ariel Levy explains in "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" that in a hyper-sexual post-'90s America, many women performed their sexuality boldly, brashly for male pleasure.

From Salon

The boxes of them recently cleared out of my mother’s attic and my undergraduate thesis — on Cosmopolitan, Ms., and Playboy magazines in the 1960s and ‘70s — prove it. My feminist awakening was, like many others’, peppered with gateway drugs like that: Ariel Levy’s “Female Chauvinist Pigs,” the HBO series “Cathouse,” and, of course, Jezebel — the groundbreaking women’s website, which current owner G/O Media unceremoniously shuttered Thursday after more than 15 years, and where I worked from 2013 to 2017.

From Los Angeles Times

“Because of a spiteful female chauvinist rule,” he wrote, “male coaches are not allowed on the floor, and so it is like a science-fiction movie of a time when women have taken over. The judges are all women, as are the assistants, the messengers. The only men on the premises are the piano players — men being built for that sort of quiet work — who huddle together on a bench by the baby grand.”

From Washington Post

In 1972, Friedan famously called Abzug and Steinem “female chauvinist boors.”

From Slate

Feminism, as Ariel Levy put it in “Female Chauvinist Pigs,” got “raunchy.”

From The New Yorker

Related Words

• male chauvinist
• misogynist

More About Female Chauvinist

What does female chauvinist mean?

A female chauvinist is a woman who disrespects or behaves condescendingly toward men because she believes that men are inferior to women.

Female chauvinist is used disapprovingly, especially in cases where the speaker believes a woman consistently and openly mistreats men and acts as if she and all women are superior to women. The term is often used to criticize feminists who are perceived as hating all men (even though feminism is the advocating of equality for women, not superiority).

Example: If you say you hate all men, you’re not a feminist—you’re a female chauvinist.

Where does female chauvinist come from?

The first records of the term female chauvinist come from the 1960s, but its origins extend back much further. Chauvinist comes from French, and first entered English around the late 1800s. It comes from the name of Nicholas Chauvin, a (most likely fictional) French soldier who was said to be an excessively patriotic follower of Napoleon Bonaparte. After Chauvin was included as a character in the 1831 vaudeville play La Cocarde Tricolore, his name came to be synonymous with extreme patriotism.

Chauvinist was later extended to refer to a person with a belief in the superiority of their own kind, such as their ethnic group or, by the 1930s, their gender. During the 1960s, there was a spike in the popularity of the term male chauvinist, referring to a man who mistreats women because he believes they are inferior. Female chauvinist followed, meaning the opposite. It sometimes appears in the phrase female chauvinist pig, which is modeled on male chauvinist pig.

Neither female chauvinist nor female chauvinist pig are as commonly used as their male counterparts. When they are used, it is often in a broader criticism of feminism, which is often incorrectly interpreted as being a belief in the superiority of women over men. Today, the term misogynist is often used in place of male chauvinist, but the equivalent term for a female chauvinist—misandrist—is much less commonly used.

Did you know … ?

What are some other forms of female chauvinist?

• female chauvinism (noun)

What are some synonyms for female chauvinist?

• misandrist
• female supremacist

What are some words that share a root or word element with female chauvinist? 

• female
• chauvinist
• feminine

What are some words that often get used in discussing female chauvinist?

• male chauvinist
• sexism
• superior
• inferior
• inequality
• feminism
• bigot

How is female chauvinist used in real life?

A woman who’s called a female chauvinist may act in a way that implies that women are superior to men. By definition, this would make her in direct opposition to the goal of feminism, which is equal treatment. However, some women may choose to label themselves as female chauvinists.

A predominant response to the feminist movement in South Korea has been men saying "Geez, I can't even open my mouth; I'm so scared of getting attacked by all these female chauvinists." Simply deleting a problematic and sexist post does not signal a recognition of wrongdoing.

— Aron (@walnutsformilk) August 23, 2018

Strongly considering buying my husband a vacuum for Valentine’s Day 💞 but don’t want to come off as your typical female chauvinist 😕

— Yael Rice (@Yael_Rice) February 13, 2020

I feel just as terrible for women living with male chauvinists as I feel for Men living with female chauvinists. How Jailed life wud feel!

— Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj (@DeepikaBhardwaj) March 18, 2016

 

 

Try using female chauvinist!

Which of the following terms is NOT a synonym for a female chauvinist?

A. man hater
B. misandrist
C. feminist
D. female supremacist