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French to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - Psychology
French term or phrase:femme-femme
As part of a fashion show brochure:
Inspirée par les oiseaux une femme femme, oscille entre le style raffiné et libre des demies mondaines des Années 30 et celui des teenagers romantiques et déjantées d’aujourd’hui.
I think the comma is misplaced.
I checked with the client that this was not a typo, and received the following answer:
"en français, une femme-femme c'est l'idée d'une revendication de
sa féminité en opposition à la femme-enfant, la femme-garçon etc..".
Gosh, I wasn't expecting such a heated debate...or so many imaginative suggestions! Many thanks to all who took the time to answer. I was initially dubious about "she-woman" but internet research shows that it is indeed common usage in opposition to "he-man". It was also important to find a relatively short term that allowed the sentence to flow, as was the case in French. Thank you, Carruthers. 4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
Indeed - looking at it objectively (joke...), I find that subjectivity creeps into everything ... even to my choice of customers who have the privilege of giving me their texts to translate...
Exists, mon Amiral; And if it does, does it really conspire with spirit in our exciting life? Storm here noisy but only 100 km/hr. There seems to be a hierarchy. Loads of trees down. Electrics hit (I sent my work in by generator on Sunday). Very little building damage. The aged and young suffer. But we still live in priveleged times I think.
Didn't mean to suggest you were so ancient, Ann!
BTW, "ultra-feminine" is a grade above "very feminine", but I don't think it corresponds to "une femme qui revendique sa fémininité".
Perhaps we need to be discussing what "fémininité" means today ...
That would set the cat among the pigeons - but I expect contributions would be zapped for being off-topic ...
Where Kudoz is concerned, neutrality is indeed a polite way of saying "I think you're wrong", but in other fields it is moral cowardice (remember Chamberlain ..?!)
;o)
And you're right about demi-mondaines ...
Girlish sounds wrong to me. A femme-femme is not a girl or girlish, she is mature, not in the sense of old, but mature and proud of her femininity not boyish, or girlish or manish so to speak. That's how I hear it at least.
I'd probably get my hackles up, if a male posted that. But a "womanly-woman" sounds bad to my ear. Girly-girl is, IMO, one of the contrasting types the client used in the explanation.
It's even in most dictionaries (DHO : "a very feminine woman"), but you are not looking for a dictionary definition here ... if I can come up with a more punchy term, I'll post it. Meanwhile, I suggest you think along those lines...
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
8 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
girly girl
Explanation: could work here
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 9 mins (2010-03-01 14:41:09 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +2
