The fluid meaning of femininity in modern contexts: Demure, celebratory, assertive

Abstract

The paper presents the analysis of the use of the noun femininity in a sample of 700 contexts drawn from four English language corpora: COCA, COHA, BNC, NOW, spanning the period of the last three decades. Femininity is disambiguated as a polysemic word with its senses reflecting the evolutionary trends in the perception of female gender in contemporary culture. Sense 1 represents the traditional attitude to femininity. Sense 2 reflects the trend to disconnect the meaning of the word from the patriarchal perspective and still preserve all the traditional positive features of the word as they appear in its Sense 1. Sense 3 is defined on the basis of contexts that assert the radical change of the perspective and of the salient features of the word. The findings demonstrate how language responds and adapts to societal changes brought about by feminist activism. The paper provides a critical analysis of dictionary entries for femininity in Merriam-Webster, LEXICO, and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, revealing the insufficient nature of treating femininity as a monosemic word as well as contradictions and inconsistencies in the entries themselves. Ample illustrative material from the language corpora is provided to explain the nature of each of the senses of femininity in modern English.