Why the French language is intrinsically sexist.

In French, the concept of dependency underlies the semantic distribution of some basic lexical items: the female is strictly defined in her relation of dependency to the male, as a daughter or as a spouse.

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‘Gallic shrug’: meaning and origin

a gesture (made by a French person to deny responsibility, knowledge or agreement) consisting typically in shrugging one’s shoulders while upturning one’s hands

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‘Potemkin village’: meaning and origin

an impressive facade or show designed to hide an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition—1843—from the sham villages said to have been built by Grigori Potemkin to deceive Catherine II

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‘glory box’: meaning and origin

a box in which a young woman stores clothes and household articles in preparation for her marriage—Australia, 1902—perhaps related to the British ‘glory hole’, denoting a place for storing odds and ends

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‘bottom drawer’: meaning and origin

a young woman’s collection of clothes and household articles, kept in preparation for her marriage—UK, 1835?—refers to the (notional?) receptacle where those clothes and household articles are supposed to be kept

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‘spoils system’: meaning and origin

the practice of filling appointive public offices with friends and supporters of the ruling political party—USA, 1834—from “to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy”, used in 1832 by Senator William Marcy

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