I don’t think that the feminists will get their panties in a bunch if they don’t have their counterpart for the term, in the sense that you mean. It is a kind of thing that one doesn’t want one’s own word for.
I believe the “condescending” meaning of “Patronize” and the “become a customer of a business” meaning are independent evolutions of the original meaning, which was to literally make someone a patron, in the old Roman sense. Patronizing a business meant acting as a patron to the businessman–you were his social superior who supported his business. Same with arts patronage, or patron saints, or other patron-client relationships.
Your actual patron had the right to act as if he was your social superior. Other random people who put on airs as if they were superior to you–as if they were your patron–did not.
Interesting that we can now use patron and client both to refer to a business customer. I wonder if this comes from the merging of different types of businesses, trades where your customers were your social superiors and thus your patrons, and ones where your customers were your social inferiors and thus your clients (such as law or medicine).
“Patronizing.”
The sense of the word has evolved in such a way as to leave behind any sense of signifying a gender. Or, if you like, it involves acting like a certain kind of man, whether or not one is male.
A woman can be boyish, a man can be girly, and so forth.
“Marianizing,” maybe? If you’re into torturing neologisms?
Really???
I would have thought that a “New-chum” (not heard that before) would take such ribbing in good part. It’s you colonials that tend to be sensitive about such outmoded ideas as “class”.
I’m ‘Patrona’ to some of the guys that work for me. It means female boss or employer, but it’s more nuanced than that. There’s implications of a higher level of responsibility and reciprocation to each other than a employer/employee dynamic.
On the other hand, I’ve heard plenty of other Spanish words that aren’t as nuanced.
If I wanted to give more of a “maternal” air to a similar concept, I’d say “babying,” “nannying,” or “Mother Henning” (hen-ning?).
Oooh, the “Mother Hen” is a good suggestion – similar ideas of telling someone what they should do, and includes that same “I know what’s good for you better than you do” connotation.
Triple.
They actually say “I am making a motherhood statement”.