Nicolas Chauvin was a soldier in Napoleon's army. He was a passionate admirer of his Emperor and became the model of the mindless patriot, preaching the superiority of his own country and putting down all others. Therefore, you can't just say "chauvinist" when you mean someone who believes in the superiority of men, you have to precede it with the modifier "male". In fact, his name soon was adopted as a byword for extreme patriotism and characters in plays were named after him. Which may explain what the feminists were thinking when they began dubbing certain persons "male chauvinists", meaning one who is seriously devoted to the male nation. Of course, since people have never bothered to look anything up in a dictionary, the male was quickly dropped and chauvinism is currently and incorrectly held to mean anti-women.