Woman

A woman (pl: women) is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "Women's rights".

The Old English wifman meant "female human" (man or mann had a default meaning of "male human," but could also be used generically to refer to a person of unspecified gender, corresponding to Modern English "one" or "someone"). The medial labial consonants coalesced to create the modern form "woman"; the initial element, which meant "female," underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife").

A very common Indo-European root for woman, *gwen-, is the source of English queen (Old English cw?n primarily meant woman, highborn or not; this is still the case in Danish, with the modern spelling kvinde, as well as in Swedish kvinna), as well as gynaecology (from Greek gyn?), banshee fairy woman (from Irish bean woman, sí fairy) and zenana (from Persian zan). The Latin f?mina, whence female, is likely from the root in fell?re (to suck), referring to breastfeeding.

The symbol for the planet Venus is the sign also used in biology for the female sex. It is a stylized representation of the goddess Venus's hand mirror or an abstract symbol for the goddess: a circle with a small equilateral 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 an equilateral cross (representing matter).

Culture and Gender Roles

In many prehistoric cultures, women assumed a particular cultural role. In hunter-gatherer societies, women were generally the gatherers of plant foods, small animal foods, fish, and learned to use dairy products, while men hunted meat from large animals.

In more recent history, the gender roles of women have changed greatly. Traditionally, middle-class women were typically involved in domestic tasks emphasizing child care. For poorer women, especially working class women, although this often remained an ideal,[specify] economic necessity compelled them to seek employment outside the home. The occupations that were available to them were, however, lower in pay than those available to men.

As changes in the labor market for women came about, availability of employment changed from only "dirty", long houred factory jobs to "cleaner", more respectable office jobs where more education was demanded, women's participation in the U.S. labor force rose from 6% in 1900 to 23% in 1923. These shifts in the labor force led to changes in the attitudes of women at work, allowing for the revolution which resulted in women becoming career and education oriented.

Movements advocate equality of opportunity for both sexes and equal rights irrespective of gender. 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 homemaker.