handmaiden

English

Etymology

From Middle English hande mayden, handmaiden, hand mayden, hand-mayden, handmayden, hondemaiden, hond maydyn, hoondmaydyn. By surface analysis, hand +‎ maiden.

Sense 2 is an allusion to Canadian writer Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985), in which "handmaids" are women who serve the male commanders in a patriarchal dystopia.

Pronunciation

Audio (US): (file)

Noun

handmaiden (plural handmaidens)

Alternative form of handmaid.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 2:18:
  And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
- 2019 November 21, Benjamin Mueller, “At Odds With Labour, Britain's Jews Are Feeling Politically Homeless”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 November 2023:
  Online and over Shabbat dinners, arguments about the election have grown bitter. Those grudgingly planning to vote for Labour have been called traitors to the community and self-hating Jews. Anti-Corbyn die-hards, on the other hand, have been branded the handmaidens of a hard Brexit.
- 2026 May 3, Ezra Klein, “Why the A.I. Job Apocalypse (Probably) Won’t Happen”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:
  About a quarter of Gen Z-ers report that they haven’t had sex in the last year. A.I. could be a handmaiden of this social dissolution, offering a digital simulacrum of friendships and relationships without opening people to the beauty and agony of real relationships, in which we learn to relate to other people who are truly other people, and whose desires are not simply extensions of our own.
(derogatory) A cisgender woman who supports transgender rights.
- 2020 July 22, Julie Bindel, “Trans activists risk falling for misogyny”, in The Spectator:
  The fact that it is not possible to be seen as a supporter of trans people's human rights, as all feminists are or at least should be, unless we fully capitulate and take the metaphorical – and sometimes literal – boot in the face shows how extreme trans activists, enabled by their handmaiden allies, are nothing but a misogynistic men’s rights movement.
- 2021 November 10, Rebecca Chandler (@RachelWilde13), Twitter‎^[3]:
  Solidarity with trans people but not women[,] I note[,] Angela. Especially the boring ones who fought for rights that you now enjoy. Enjoy being a handmaiden.
- 2022 February 4, Marie Le Conte, “Feminism has been reduced to the transgender debate”, in The New Statesman:
  I have been called a handmaiden, a “pick me” girl, and been accused of vying for male attention.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:handmaiden.

Derived terms