GC: n

S: IWDA (last access: 18 December 2025); COE (last access: 18 December 2025).

N: 1. 1851, “qualities of females;” 1895, “advocacy of women’s rights;” from French féminisme (1837). Also, in biology, “development of female secondary sexual characteristics in a male” (1875). “Femin-“comes from the latin root word “femina,” meaning woman. “-ism” is a suffix derived from the greek ισμός or ismós that turns the preceding noun into a verb, implying a belief, practice, or worldview.

2. The first recorded use of the word in English was 1851, but at that time it just meant “the state of being feminine.” Then, in 1837, French philosopher and utopian socialist Charles Fourier coined the word féminisme to mean advocacy of women’s rights.

3. Feminism is the advocacy of equality of the sexes and the establishment of the political, social, and economic rights of the female sex; the movement associated with this. Cf. womanism n., women’s liberation n.

Medicine (1875-):  The appearance of female secondary sexual characteristics in a male individual; feminization. Now rare or disused.

4. In essence, the terms ‘womanism’ and ‘feminism’ are closely related in the sense of fighting for equal rights of women however, ‘womanism’ focuses on specifically black women and women of color. The mainstream feminist movement does not begin to cover this one-two punch of racism and sexism, a paralleling womanist movement formed to acknowledge black women’s specific struggle for equality.

5. Social Movements; Sociology of Women: feminism.

6. Collocations:

• Adjective + feminism: contemporary, modern; egalitarian, liberal, socialist; militant, radical, revolutionary; Western.

7. Cultural interrelation: A landmark example is A Room of One’s Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf, an influential feminist essay that argues for women’s intellectual freedom and economic independence, and remains a foundational text in feminist literary thought.

S: 1. Etymonline (last access: 15 December 2025); Medium (last access: 15 December 2025) 2. Medium (last access: 15 December 2025) 3. OED (last access: 18 December 2025) 4. UOWB (last access: 15 December 2025)  5. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 18 December 2025). 6. OCD (last access: 18 December 2025) 7. EncBrit (last access: 16 December 2025)

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CR: domestic violence, ecofeminism, equal opportunities, gender-based violence, human development, human rights, patriarchy, social education, social justice.