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I was looking at this thread: Has the suffix "-trix" acquired a pejorative meaning in recent years?

And I became curious about the popularity of the words aviatrix, aviatrice, aviatress and then later airwoman/airwomen.

I think the Google Ngram Viewer shows some interesting movements: Google Ngram Viewer

I'm imagining that the bump for airwomen (but not airwoman) was caused by something like the FAA or the Air Force putting out a series of documents that targeted a group and not an individual. Can anyone offer any insight into other things that might have affected the change in preferred verbage for "woman who flies a plane" over time?

Small amounts of research I did found this document from 1991 that used the plural "aviatrices" as well as "AIRWOMEN". However, it also referred to "women pilots" over 40 times. Obviously, this is a small sample size, but it seems to indicate to me that even in 1991 a time when aviatrix was the most common single word, "women pilots" was still far and away the most common phrase ("Aviatrix" never appears in this article). That said, considering the words are synonyms, I feel like the Ngram Viewer should present a more related graph (Either similar bumps due to a rises in popularity of the concept, or troughs for most of the words when one synonym rises at the other's expense)

user1837204
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    I suspect that "aviatrix" gained popularity because it was used to describe Amelia Earhart and a handful of other early female aviators. – Hot Licks Oct 06 '20 at 01:39
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    Before reading this question it didn't occur to me to use a word other than "pilot", though obviously I had heard "aviatrix". Some air forces use the term "airwomen" (or "airmen") for all personnel of the bottom few ranks. – nnnnnn Oct 06 '20 at 03:53
  • I did finally find the word 'aviatrices' in the lengthy PDF under your link and found that, although the newsletter was published in 1991 the article with 'aviatrices' in it was a piece about a woman who was "one of the aviatrices" who took part in events in the 1920s. This is roughly equivalent to referring to a contemporary of hers as 'one of the flappers who boogied the night away' in 1927. Neither 'aviatrices' nor 'flappers' was a current term in 1991 although they were in the 20s. The reference was historical in 1991, the term was no more current then than it is now. – BoldBen Oct 06 '20 at 04:40
  • Factors: civil vs. commercial vs. military; political correctness; promotion of female aviators; general efforts to keep women in their place and out of male jobs in industry and military for financial and ego reasons. – Xanne Oct 06 '20 at 10:44

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