ad feminam

[ad fem-uh-nam, -nuhm, ahd]

adjective

1. appealing to one's personal considerations or feelings about women, especially one's prejudices against them.

Word History and Origins

Origin of ad feminam¹

< Latin: literally, to the woman

Example Sentences

The next year, Dr. Barres published a scathing essay in Nature, in which he wrote that the ad feminam statements by Summers and other scholars were “nothing more than blaming the victim.”

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I don’t like to go ad feminam on performers’ bodies—that’s what got us into this anorexia mess in the first place—but Jolie looked unhealthy and sad to me, and the leg-jut seemed like an uncharacteristic plea for attention, sexual and otherwise.

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He stoops to ad feminam attacks instead.

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She was mortified at finding she had made a mistake, annoyed at my answering her so boldly, and frightened at her father’s anger; for the old gentleman was very apt to vent it in the argumentum ad feminam, and box her ears soundly.

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Perhaps few of them suspected the argumentum ad hominem--or rather ad feminam--in Woodhull's speech.

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