Suffragette - Amelioration

Watched a movie called 'Suffragette', starring Carry Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, and Meryl Streep making a cameo appearance. It was about women who stood up to fight for their social rights equal to men, set in England in 1912, when the Suffragette movement was at its height.

The characters are fictional, but the historical backgrounds and incedents, the movement of the suffragettes are faithful to what is recorded in the history. I enjoyed the movie very much, and it was hard to believe that all this happened only a hundred years ago, but was not told in detail until recently.

My first encounter with the word 'suffragette' was in the musical movie 'Mary Poppins'. The mother of the family is a suffragette, and she goes to rallies and demonstrations, all secret to her husband. She sings a number in the movie 'Sister Suffragette'. It is a delightfully cheerful song, and my impression towards the word 'suffragette' remained very neutral.

However, the movie 'Suffragette' changed my impression completely. Women were fighters, soldiers, and they had pride to be a suffragette.

The term 'suffragette' was first made and used in Daily Mail in 1906, when the suffragette movement started to become more intense and active. The etymology of the word mentioned in the OED is as below.

suffragette
etymology
SUFFRAGE (n) + ETTE (suffix)
A female supporter of the cause of women's political enfranchisement, especially one of a violent or a 'militant' type.

What interests me is the suffix -ETTE. It is a diminutive suffix. It also does refer to something feminine, but I suspect that the newspaper made the word 'suffragette' with the diminutive tone in it.
'OK, the ladies are trying hard and fighting for their rights, aren't they? Let us see how well they can do it without the help of us men...'
kind of tone.

In early 20th century widely read literary and scientific periodical 'Anthenaeum', the word is clearly used in a diminutive, negative tone.

1907 Athenaeum 28 Sept 358/2
[Aristophanes] who represented Cleon, as noisy, Euripides as sentimental, Socrates as pedantic, and women as 'suffragettes'

The word may have started with a negative tone, but watching the movie 'Suffragette', it was used not negatively but powerfully, full of pride and vigor.

This seems an opposite process to pejoration that the word had undergone - it started as negative, but gained positive, if not, neutral tone. This process is called 'amelioration'.

Like women who fought to earn their rights, the word that represented them also earned its present status.

Hubby and Hussy - Pejoration with a touch of Sexism 03

Still going on about pejoration...

Pejoration is a downgrading of the meaning of a word. The word was once neutral in meaning, but along the history, it went down the hill. And on this blog I am picking up words that refer to women which have undergone pejoration (contrasting it with the counterpart male words). So far, master and mistress and bachelor and spinster.

This time, hubby and hussy.

These two words are both short form of husband and housewife. Here are the definitions from OED.

hubby : (informal) a husband.  Origin late 17th century, familiar abbreviation

hussy : impudent or immoral girl or woman.  'that brazen little hussy!'
from Middle English, contraction for 'housewife' (the original sense); the current sense dates from the mid 17th century.

And look at this list of synonyms for hussy...

adulteress, fornicatress, loose woman, strumpet, trollop, slut, jade...

All the insulting words to call a woman are here, and no trace of the original meaning. Both hubby and hussy started off as contractions for longer words, but why?! Why did only 'hussy' become a victim of pejoration?! What happened in the mid 17th century? Does execution of Charles I (1649) and the rise of the Commonwealth have anything to do with this? A voice from a historian on this matter is very welcome.

Bachelor and Spinster - Pejoration with a touch of sexism 02

I remember learning in my English classes in primary school the different nouns for male and female of the same jobs or status; actor - actress, duke - duchess, master - mistress, bachelor - spinster, etc.

Later, I learnt that after your undergraduate studies, you get your bachelor's degree, and your graduate studies, your master's; and both degrees happen to be called by nouns which also refer to male status.

In my very naiive innocent mind, I wondered why when woman finishes her undergraduate or graduate studies, she is not awarded spinster's or mistress' degree. Forgive me, I was only 9 or 10.

Looking up the word 'bachelor' in the dictionary of etymology, there are definitions as follows:
1. (a 1300) a young knight, a young man
2. (a 1300) an unmarried man
3. (a 1376) a degree, a person who has been awarded a degree by a college or a university.
4. (1418 - 1809) a young member of the guild

I looked up the female equivalent, spinster.
1. (a 1376) a woman who spins wool
2. (1380) an unmarried woman
3. (1636) a spider
4. (1719) an unmarried woman who has passed the age of marrying and is unlikely to get married. Old maid.

Clearly, 'spinster' had undergone pejoration. The Oxford American Dictionary admits in its definition that it is derogatory.

First the word referred to a job, a person who spins. Long before the Industrial Revolution, spinning wool was a common job for an unmarried woman, so the job also denoted a single young woman. It was used in legal documents too. However, around late 18th century, the definition started o include older unmarried women or women who chose not o marry, and today only the most lately added meaning survives.

The word 'spinster' does not carry the neutral sense anymore...

Bachelor party sounds all wonderful and exciting, but how about 'spinster party'? What would you imagine from here? Moans, cries, grudges...

Language sexism...

Master and Mistress - Pejoration with a touch of sexism 01

Meaning of words change in time, some positively, some negatively. This change in the meaning, I consider, is the reflection of how people think about the world, and language is what we use to describe and understand the world we live in.

I am a fairly neutral person and do not take any extreme position in ideas and philosophy, but I do get a little sensitive with words that talk about women in a demeaning way.

Pejoration is a downgrading of the meaning of a word. The word was once neutral in meaning, but along the history, it went down the hill. I feel that words referring to women tend to undergo pejoration.


'Master' and 'Mistress'

'Master' means, since the time of Old English, a teacher, and later becomes to mean a person having control or authority. Around 14th century, a scholar degree, and in 16th century, the head of the household.

'Mistress' is the female equivalent to 'master'. In 14th century it meant a female home teacher, a governess, but that definition is now obsolete. It also means a woman having control or authority, who is the head of the household, same as 'master'. It was also used as an honorific to address a gentlewoman, and up to 18th century, to address an unmarried lady.

Around 15th century, it started to mean 'a woman who has a continuing extramarital sexual relationship with a man'.

Now how did that come into the definition? I imagine from the original meaning the word something like this -  Around medieval times. A mistress works as a home teacher in a wealthy family. It does not matter which seduces first, but somehow the master of the house and the mistress become very intimate, and secretly start a relationship. Because she is the governess, she works in the family until the child grows up, fairly many years, meaning the extramarital relationship last for years.

Today, this meaning of 'adulteress' seems to be the one that first comes into a lot of people's minds when they hear the word. The definition of 'master' is unstained.

Extramarital relationship is possible with two people. Why did only 'mistress' undergo this pejoration, and not the male equivalent? ...Sexism!

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The Kenkyusha Dictionary of English Etymology