Womanize: verb (disapproving)
A man who womanizes often has temporary sexual relationships with women or tries to get women to have sex with him.
Womanize, womanized, womanizing:
: to make effeminate (transitive verb)
: to pursue casual sexual relationships with multiple women (intransitive verb)
Womanized:
: made effeminate, feminized
Thus spake, not Zarathustra, but three online dictionaries: Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and Collins, respectively. Merriam-Webster helpfully offered 16 similar words. It’s pretty subtle but see if you can spot the occasional disapproving tone:
mated, coupled,
slept, copulated, lay,
fornicated, made out, lusted,
played (around), fooled around,
cheated, stepped out, philandered,
catted (around), screwed around, tomcatted (around)
OK, that all seems clear enough with respect to current usage. Not one dictionary mentioned this usage seen last week in an exhibit at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, citing a headline from an archaeological dig:
Apparently the meaning of “adding women to a group” is so archaic that it isn’t even worth mentioning for historical interest. The Collins Dictionary gets closest with “feminized”, but the connotation is all wrong. Nothing about the execution of air-traffic-control functions had been “made effeminate”, whatever that would mean in this context. There were just more women doing the same essential and, surely, completely gender-neutral functions.
However, the AI Overview now available on all searches tells me that “feminized” is the word of choice to describe increasing rates of female participation in traditionally male occupations, connotations be hanged. (OK, I added that last bit.) If I then search “feminized” instead of “womanized” I get these meanings (Cambridge, Cambridge, MW, Collins):
feminize: to give someone or something characteristics that are traditionally thought to be typical of or suitable for a woman
feminization: a process in which more and more women become involved in an activity where there are traditionally more men
feminized:
made feminine or more feminine
notably female or feminine in quality or character
feminize: To feminize something means to make it into something that involves mainly women or is thought suitable for or typical of women.
OK, then: “more females” or (more commonly) “more feminine” somehow. I guess you could argue that the former would lead (often? sometimes? necessarily?) to the latter, although “females” are easy to count (or used to be) and “feminine” is tough to define and even harder to measure.
What exactly are these “characteristics that are traditionally thought to be typical of or suitable for a woman”? What exactly makes something “feminine” or “more feminine”? Crickets. Or should we say, “chickens”?
This hand-waving about the very issue at hand speaks to cultural confusions and sensitivities about sex and gender that are well beyond my power to resolve, but I’m happy to edit the headline for trans-temporal clarity.
Air Traffic Control Occupation
Sees Increase in Number of Women
There. Fixed it for you.
Excellent fix!!
Thank you for the English grammar (?) history lesson
I see so many headlines these days that need your fixing
Jim R – I know! Why don’t they ask me?
Exactly! When in doubt, rewrite the sentence. Same applies to headlines and posters.
Judith – 🙂 I’ve also used that approach many, many times when I was unsure as to which option was grammatically correct. I guess I could have just learned picky grammar rules, but that never seemed as easy.
The Winnipeg Free Press is making free with the notion of “womanizing.” The said newspaper needs a better copy editor. Or are newspapers desperate enough to be turning to AI for those tasks?
Laurna – I don’t know whether “womanize” was used in that way back in 1943. In context and in the display I knew what they meant, but it hit me as funny, given how it’s used now.
Shakespeare said ‘let’s kill all the lawyers’. I’ve thought and said this for a good number of years that I would very happily add Headline Editors to that sentiment.
Ken – I hear you. The only thing I would say in their defence is that all their work is done under tight deadlines. I expect it wears them down.
Isabel – Your reply to Jim R. “I know! Why don’t they ask me?”
The article that began this whole blog entry appeared in The Winnipeg Free Press on March 29th, 1943.
They probably didn’t ask, because you weren’t around yet to ask. ☹️
John – Well, I don’t expect them to have asked me back in 1943, but they could consider it going forward.