Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
People who exhibit a combination of both masculine and feminine characteristics are considered androgynous, and feminist philosophers have argued that gender ambiguity may blur gender classification. [34] [35] Modern conceptualizations of femininity also rely not just upon social constructions, but upon the individualized choices made by women ...
' woman-person ') whereas ' man ' was wer or wǣpnedmann (from wǣpn ' weapon; penis '). However, following the Norman Conquest, man began to mean ' male human ', and by the late 13th century it had largely replaced wer. [11] The consonants /f/ and /m/ in wīfmann coalesced into the modern woman, while wīf narrowed to specifically mean a ...
Although a person's sex as male or female stands as a biological fact that is identical in any culture, what that specific sex means in reference to a person's gender role as a man or a woman in society varies cross-culturally according to what things are considered to be masculine or feminine. [63]
A great deal of writing has been done on the subject. The subject of the Ideal Woman has been treated humorously, [9] [10] theologically, [11] and musically. [12] Examples of "ideal women" are portrayed in literature, for example: Sophie, a character in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile: or, On Education (book V) who is raised to be the perfect ...
The 16th-century memoirist Brântome lists as many as thirty things are needed to make a woman beautiful, a common but rigid ideal might include Brântome's "three white things". These "things" or traits refer to skin, teeth, and hands. There are also the "three black things", including the color of the person's eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes. [55]
An example is in God Bless America: "Stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above." it (and itself, its) is used when the referent is something inanimate or intangible, a non-animal life-form such as a plant, an animal of unknown sex, or, less often, a child when the sex is unspecified or deemed unimportant. [13]
Her son's room. With his hat and trousers, even Fay's husband lives like his wife. "People will just stop dead in their tracks," explained her husband, Dane. "Their eyes are fixed on her as we ...
[7] [11] In the 21st century, the noun female is primarily used to describe non-human animals, to refer to biologically female humans in an impersonal technical context (e.g., "Females were more likely than males to develop an autoimmune disease"), or to impartially include a range of people without reference to age (e.g., girls) or social ...