fembot

Blend of female +‎ bot. Coined by screenwriters Arthur Rowe and Oliver Crawford in the television series The Bionic Woman (1976–1978), specifically in "Kill Oscar" (season 2, episode 5) first broadcast on October 27, 1976.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɛmbɒt/
• Rhymes: -ɒt

fembot (plural fembots)

1. (science fiction) A robot in female form.
   • 1976 October 27, John Houseman as Dr. Franklin, Kill Oscar (The Bionic Woman), season 2, episode 5, written by Arthur Rowe & Oliver Crawford:

     Yes, the girl is valuable. But, my fembots can do anything she can.

   • 1997, Mindy Sterling as Frau Farbissina, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, written by Mike Myers:

     Jawohl, Herr Doktor. I have created the ultimate weapon to defeat Austin Powers. Send in the fembots!

   • 2003, Jyanni Steffensen, "Doing It Digitally: Rosalind Brodsky and the Art of Virtual Female Subjectivity", Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture, The MIT Press, p. 218, →ISBN

     The body of Eve 8, the fembot, represents both steely industrial strength and the mysteries of microelectronic circuitry.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:fembot.
   1. (specifically) A female sexbot.
2. (derogatory) A docile, unthinking and conformist woman.
   • 1996, Melissa Raphael, Thealogy and Embodiment: The Post-Patriarchal Reconstruction of Female Sacrality, Sheffield Academic Press, p. 61, →ISBN

     [...] patriarchal socialization works to sap, stunt and tame this energy, leaving successfully adapted women as little more than 'fembots' or 'feminized artifacts' who have become the products and commodities of patriarchal 'necrophilic' sexual fantasy.

   • 2003, Donna Haraway, The Haraway Reader, Routledge, p. 3, →ISBN

     Too many people, forgetting the discipline of love and rage, have read the "Manifesto" as the ramblings of a blissed-out, technobunny, fembot.

• (robot): gynoid, robotess
• (unthinking woman): Stepford