Girlitude was Tennant’s term for the woman’s retreat into marriage: “the dependence, the longed-for protection and the self-reproach of a species which can now only be alluded to self-consciously and with scorn”.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/31/emma-tennant-obituary
This is part of the “What are words for?” project.
This word scored a six on a three part scale of allusiveness, political oomph and cultural capital (min score 1, max score 3 for each part of the scale). Lots of words did. This is one I clawed from the slushpile on a whim.
marchudson.net 