Women

Image of a woman on the Pioneer plaque sent to outer space.

A woman is an adult female human, as contrasted with a man (an adult male), and a girl, (a female child). The term woman (irregular plural: women) is used to indicate biological sex distinctions, cultural gender role distinctions, or both.

Etymology

The English term "man" (from Proto-Germanic mannaz "man, person") and words derived therefrom can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their gender or age. This is indeed the oldest usage of "man". In Old English the words wer and wyf (also wæpman and wifman) were what was used to refer to "a man" and "a woman" respectively, and "man" was gender neutral. In Middle English man displaced wer as term for "male human", whilst wyfman (which eventually evolved into woman) was retained for "female human". "Man" does continue to carry its original sense of "Human" however, resulting in an asymmetry sometimes criticized as sexist. [1] (See also Womyn.)

Symbol of the planet Venus

The symbol for the planet Venus is the sign also known in biology for the female sex: a stylized representation of the goddess Venus's hand mirror: a circle with a small cross underneath (Unicode: ♀). The Venus symbol also represented femininity, and in ancient alchemy stood for copper. Alchemists constructed the symbol from a circle (representing spirit) above a cross (representing matter).

The painting of Venus, while having an impressive name, is only of the ideal woman of the Victorian era, incorporating such aspects as being hairless except for her head, having pale skin, and having a fragile look about her.

Biology and sex

Biological factors are not the sole determinants of whether persons are considered, or consider themselves, women. Some women can have abnormal hormonal or chromosomal differences (such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, complete or partial androgen insensitivity syndrome or other intersex conditions), and there are women who may be without, at least for an earlier part of their lives, typical female physiology (trans, transgendered or transsexual women). (See gender identity.)

In terms of biology, the female sex organs are involved in the reproductive system, whereas the secondary sex characteristics are involved in nurturing children or attracting a mate. Most women have the karyotype 46,XX, but around one in a thousand will be 47,XXX and one in 2500 will be 45,X.

The human female reproductive system

Although fewer females than males are born (the ratio is around 1:1.05), women are more common in the adult population (about a 1.04:1 ratio). Women have a lower death rate than men, even in the uterus, living on average five years longer due to a combination of factors: genetics (redundant and varied genes present on sex chromosomes in women); sociology (such as not being expected in most countries to perform military service); health-impacting choices (such as suicide or the use of cigarettes and alcohol); the presence of the female hormone estrogen, which has a cardioprotective effect in premenopausal women; and the effect of high levels of androgens in men. Out of the total population there are 101.3 men for every 100 women (source: 2001 World Almanac).

After the onset of menarche, most women are able to become pregnant and bear children. The study of female reproduction and reproductive organs is called gynaecology. Women generally reach menopause in their late 40s or early 50s, at which point their ovaries cease producing estrogen and they can no longer become pregnant.

In general, women suffer from the same illnesses as men; however there are some sex-related illnesses that are found more commonly or exclusively in women.

Legal rights of women historically

Detail from Bouguereau's The Birth of Venus

Main article: Legal rights of women

Some early legal systems that are the antecedents of modern systems formalized female dependency.

Biblical law

In the Mosaic law, divorce was not to be performed easily--only under certain circumstances. In most cases, divorce was carried out when the husband or the wife commited adultery, in which case the adulterer was stoned (unless shown mercy). A husband could sign a certificate of divorce if he found indecency in his wife, but if the husband accused his wife of misconduct and if proven otherwise, he was whipped and fined and could not divorce the woman until his death. If the evidences were lacking, then the guilt or innocence of a wife accused of adultery might be tried by the ordeal of the bitter water. The ordeal was suppose to cast a curse on the adulterer (Deut 22:13~30). Besides these instances, there was much legislation dealing with, inter alia, offences against chastity, and marriage of a man with a captive heathen woman or with a purchased slave, and a similar set of rules applied to man as well. The vow of marriage could be disallowed by her father, and daughters could inherit only in the absence of sons (and then they were required to marry within their tribe). It was possible for a divorced or a widowed woman to get remarried, but, if a widow was childless (and if her deceased husband had no children before he married her), she was to marry her deceased husband's brother if the brother was not married himself already. Moreover, if the virgin brother refused to carry out the duty, he did not have to fulfill the duty, and the woman was given municipal compensation.

Matthew 19: 3-12 ^[NIV] provides detail on early Christian views on divorce (there are many other passages that speak of marriage and divorce both in Old and New Testaments, however) by relating:

³Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"

⁴"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' ⁵and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? ⁶So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

⁷"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"

⁸Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

¹⁰The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."

¹¹Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. ¹²For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriagebecause of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

Culture and gender roles

A Bangladeshi woman weaving. Textile work has historically been considered a female occupation in some cultures.

Main article: gender role

In many prehistoric cultures, women assumed a particular cultural role. In hunter-gatherer societies, women were generally the gatherers of plant foods, while men hunted meat. Because of their intimate knowledge of plant life, most anthropologists argue that it was women who led the Neolithic Revolution and became history's first pioneers of agriculture.

In more recent history, the gender roles of women have changed greatly. Traditional gender roles for middle-class women typically involved domestic tasks emphasizing child care, and did not involve entering employment for wages. For poorer women, especially among the working classes, this often remained an ideal, for economic necessity has long compelled them to seek employment outside the home, although the occupations traditionally open to working-class women were lower in prestige and pay than those open to men. Eventually, restricting women from wage labor came to be a mark of wealth and prestige in a family, while the presence of working women came to mark a household as being lower-class.

The women's movement is in part a struggle for the recognition of equality of opportunity with men, and for equal rights irrespective of sex, even if special relations and conditions are willingly incurred under the form of partnership involved in marriage. The difficulties of obtaining this recognition are due to historical factors combined with the habits and customs history has produced. Through a combination of economic changes and the efforts of the feminist movement in recent decades women in most societies now have access to careers beyond the traditional one of "homemaker". Despite these advances, modern women in Western society still face challenges in the workplace as well as with the topics of education, violence, health care, and motherhood to name a few.

These changes and struggles are among the foci of the academic field of women's studies.

Terms

The English language's original word for "woman" was Old English wīf, akin to German Weib; it later became the modern word "wife." The modern word "woman" etymologically derives from wīfmann, with the addition of mann, "person", from Germanic mannaz. This formation is peculiar to English. The equivalents for "man" in Old English were wer (a cognate of Latin vir, "man") and wǣpnedmann, literally "weaponed person". As previously mentioned, the term man continues to carry its original sense of "Human", though this usage results in an asymmetry which is sometimes criticized as sexist.

The word girl originally meant "young person of either sex"; it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child. Nowadays girl is also often used colloquially to refer to a young or unmarried woman. Since the early 1970s, feminists have challenged such usage, and today, using the word in the workplace (as in office girl) is typically considered inappropriate in the United States and United Kingdom because it implies a view of women as infantile. The use remains commonplace in several other English-speaking countries.

Conversely, in certain non-Western cultures which link family honor with female virginity, the word girl is still used to refer to a never-married woman; in this sense it is used in a fashion roughly analogous to the obsolete English maid or maiden. Referring to an unmarried female as woman can, in such a culture, imply that she is sexually experienced, which would be an insult to her family.

In more informal settings, the use of girl to refer to an adult female is also common practice in certain usage (such as girls' night out), even among elderly women. In this sense, girl may be considered to be the analogue to the British word bloke for a man. Some regard non-parallel usages, such as men and girls, as offensive.

There are various words used to refer to the quality of being a woman. The term "womanhood" merely means the state of being a woman; "femininity" is used to refer to a set of supposedly typical female qualities associated with a certain attitude to gender roles; "womanliness" is like "femininity", but is usually associated with a different view of gender roles; "femaleness" is a general term, but is often used as shorthand for "human femaleness"; "distaff" is an archaic adjective derived from women's conventional role as a spinner, now used only as a deliberate archaism; "muliebrity" is a neologism meant to provide a female counterpart of "virility", but used very loosely, sometimes to mean merely "womanhood", sometimes "femininity", and sometimes even as a collective term for women.

Slang

Zanzibar woman, c. 1890

There are also many slang terms to refer to women; these have existed throughout history, and change over time. Some of those common in contemporary usage are:

• Babe: A more appelative-like way to address a woman. More commonly said to a partner, in a similar way to "honey".
• Bird: obsolete British English, most women see it as demeaning. Also commonly used in modern Ireland where it is not considered very demeaning.
• Bitch: originally, and still widely used as, a pejorative term, this is used more casually in some communities in the U.K. (and in the U.S., in ebonics [McWhorter 2003], and even affectionately, especially between women [McWhorter 2005]).
• Chick: literally a young chicken or young bird of any kind, this term is mildly offensive to some women who interpret it to be infantilizing or objectifying; it is chiefly an Americanism. It is sometimes claimed that the usage derives from the Spanish chica (girl), but neither the Oxford English Dictionary nor Merriam-Webster supports this derivation. The word chick was used in a gender-neutral sense to mean "human child" at least as early as the 14th century. The popularity of the usage in North America may, nonetheless, be due in part to its similarity to the Spanish word.
• Hen: Scottish term used to address women. It is also used in the term "hen party".
• Sister: a term which women rarely use when addressing each other; it is associated with, although by no means exclusive to, African American idiom. The same term is used within feminism, and among transwomen communities.
• Sheila: used in Australia, becoming outdated in favour of more American terminologies.

Several older terms used by men, such as broad or skirt are now rarely encountered.

Authors often create new euphemisms or other terms to refer to women, an example being the use of the word burger on the American television sitcom The Cosby Show to refer to an attractive female.

Vulgar terms

In some cultural groups, terms considered extremely offensive to most women (e.g., bitch, cunt, or ho) are used to refer to women in general. Many terms that refer to women's physical appearance (e.g., hottie, a sexually attractive woman) see wide use, but many consider them to imply sexual objectification.

See also

• Famous women in history
• Female roles in the World Wars
• Feminism
• Gender and sexuality studies
• Gynaecology
• Heroines in literature
• Matriarchy
• Misogyny
• New Woman
• Obstetrics
• Women in science fiction
• Women's cinema
• What Women Want, film about a man who can hear women's thoughts

References

• Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003 3rd edition) ISBN 0618254145
• McWhorter, John. 'The Uses of Ugliness', The New Republic Online, January 31, 2002. Retrieved May 11, 2005 ["bitch" as an affectionate term]
• McWhorter, John. Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority (New York: Gotham, 2003) ISBN 1592400019 [casual use of "bitch" in ebonics]

External links

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Look up woman in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

• FemBio - Notable Women International
• NewsOnWomen
• Women and Christianity: representations and practices
• Women health
• Women in Islam
• Women's History in America