Can women be "emasculated?"

[Nanda]

1 : to deprive of strength, vigor, or spirit : weaken
2 : to deprive of virility or procreative power : castrate
3 : to remove the androecium of (a flower) in the process of artificial cross-pollination
synonyms see unnerve

I was re-reading "The Good Women of China" by Xinran this afternoon, when I came across a point that hadn't occurred to me before; why is there no feminine equivalent of the word "emasculate?" Why is it that men can be emasculated, but there is no similar concept where women are concerned? I know it isn't because women aren't ever "deprived of strength, vigor, or spirit," (what with the thousands of years of opression and all). I have my own ideas, but I want to see what you think.

 

[Nanda]

Nobody?

 

[Viconia]

It's because the concept came from a time when men were socially dominant. Language is slower than culture.

 

[Nanda]

It's because the concept came from a time when men were socially dominant. Language is slower than culture.

True enough. But why do you suppose that is there no similar concept, even today?

 

[Viconia]

True enough. But why do you suppose that is there no similar concept, even today?

Nobody cares enough.

 

[lunamoth]

Disempowered? Neutered?

Interesting though that there is a deragoatory name for women who take control that is related to female aggressiveness: bit**. A female dog may be quite docile until she has puppies to protect.

 

[blackout]

Disempowered? Neutered?

Both good word descriptions!

What about "subjected"
(multiple meanings there).


But it's true,
there really is no word to describe the stripping away of the
empowered essence/spirituality and passion/sensuality/sexuality of womanhood.

Women who celebrate their sexual womanhood without shame
are derogatoritively labeled by all of "polite" & "proper" society.
I would bet that "witch hunts" were/are all about
"making examples" of independent empowered women
to keep the (owned) masses of women in fear of "coming into THEIR OWN".

Women throughout history have been considered the property rights of men.

 

[Nanda]

Disempowered? Neutered?

A good start, but too generic, I'd say. Men can also be disempowered and neutered (in fact, neutered is inherently masculine); there is no word that singularly describes robbing women of their power.

Interesting though that there is a deragoatory name for women who take control that is related to female aggressiveness: bit**. A female dog may be quite docile until she has puppies to protect.

I know, right? There are all sorts of deragatory terms for empowered women, but nothing to describe that loss of power. So it seems to me that the commonly held belief here is that women are meant to be weak, so there's no need for a word that describes the loss of a woman's power, because they're not meant to have any to begin with; but there's apparently plenty of need for words to put aggressive women in their place.

 

[Panda]

I agree that the language hasn't kept up with the culture. But isn't that always the case? Why don't you make up a word for it then submit it to Oxford to put in their dictionary

 

[Nanda]

I agree that the language hasn't kept up with the culture. But isn't that always the case? Why don't you make up a word for it then submit it to Oxford to put in their dictionary

Well, looks like it's time to brush up on my latin. (Crap, I got a D in latin...)

 

[Random]

How about "Defeminized" as an equivalent term in the interim? Provisionally, we can say it's the Yin of "emasculated", no?

 

[Nanda]

How about "Defeminized" as an equivalent term in the interim? Provisionally, we can say it's the Yin of "emasculated", no?

Absolutely. Of course, then we have to change our societal perception of what it is to be feminine...

 

[Random]

Absolutely. Of course, then we have to change our societal perception of what it is to be feminine...

Our societal perception of the feminine has been forcefully changed with first, second and third-wave Feminism. What further changes do you envision?

 

[lunamoth]

Absolutely. Of course, then we have to change our societal perception of what it is to be feminine...

That's the problem with defeminization. It simply won't mean loss of power. In fact, I've heard it used to refer to a gain in power.

 

[Random]

That's the problem with defeminization. It simply won't mean loss of power. In fact, I've heard it used to refer to a gain in power.

Only to a Patriarch or a masculist, whose prejudice against the feminine forms the basis of his egoic fancy.

 

[blackout]

Perhaps if we all just de-mask-U-lated ourselves.
took off our societal masks...
and reached in deep for personal power and majik.

 

[Nanda]

Our societal perception of the feminine has been forcefully changed with first, second and third-wave Feminism. What further changes do you envision?

Thing have changed, Random, but the word itself still means the same thing. If you say a woman is feminine, it does not mean that she is empowered. Sometimes it means quite the opposite.

That's the problem with defeminization. It simply won't mean loss of power. In fact, I've heard it used to refer to a gain in power.

Indeed.

 

[Random]

Perhaps if we all just de-mask-U-lated ourselves.
took off our societal masks...
and reached in deep for personal power and majik.

I'd like to give you a pretty flower.

 

[blackout]

Originally Posted by lunamoth
That's the problem with defeminization. It simply won't mean loss of power. In fact, I've heard it used to refer to a gain in power.

Only to a Patriarch or a masculist, whose prejudice against the feminine forms the basis of his egoic fancy.

no. actually to those of us women whose experience of femininity has been anything BUT empowering.

edit... there was no need for me to "take my femininity back"...
but EVERY need for me to (re?) claim... take back.... my POWER.
MY... strength, vigor, or spirit :
virility & pro-creative power .

 

[Random]

No. actually to those of us women whose experience of femininity has been anything BUT empowering.

Well...okay, those too.