A woman is a female human, in contrast to an adult male, who is a man.

The term woman (irregular plural: women) is usually used for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term is also sometimes used for a female human regardless of age, as in phrases like "women's rights".

Etymology

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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. ^* (See also Womyn.) 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).

Terminology

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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 sexist. A number of other derogatory terms for women are also in common usage. 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" (derived from the Latin) 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.

More on [ Woman ]

BBC News | Africa | World Edition

Angolans vote in landmark polls
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:04:25 -0000
Angolans vote in their first election in 16 years, following the end of the civil war, with chaotic scenes reported in the capital.
Rice making historic Libya visit
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:32:00 -0000
Condoleezza Rice will meet Libya's leader as their nations take a further step to improve relations.
Malaysia deploys navy to Somalia
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:50:16 -0000
Malaysia sends three navy ships to the coast of Somalia to protect vessels from piracy.
Guinea drugs bust nets officials
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:14:29 -0000
The governor, mayor and top police officials of Boke in Guinea are arrested in a drugs raid.
Mugabe gives deal deadline to MDC
Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:58:19 -0000
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe gives the opposition MDC until Thursday to agree a deal, state media reports.
Nigeria arranges 'HIV marriages'
Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:00:43 -0000
A Nigerian state government encourages HIV-positive men and women to marry each other.

NYT > Africa

Angolans Heading to Polls for First Vote in 16 Years
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:45:55 -0000
More than eight million people — nearly half of the population — have registered to vote in war-ravaged Angola, and the vote is expected to go fairly smoothly.
Donors’ Aid to Poor Nations Declines, U.N. Reports
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:59:08 -0000
Aid to poor nations has slumped even as higher food and energy prices and slowing global economic growth have made such assistance more urgent, according to a report released Thursday.
Mugabe Threatens to Appoint Cabinet
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:02:58 -0000
Zimbabwe’s president said he will name a new cabinet if opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai refuses to sign a power-sharing deal by Thursday.

L.A. Times - Africa

Oil-rich and impoverished, Angola votes
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700
The African nation goes to the polls to elect lawmakers for the first time in 16 years. The ruling party is expected to win, but there is a hunger for change. Voters in Angola, one of Africa's biggest oil producers, will take part in parliamentary elections today for the first time in 16 years, with analysts forecasting peaceful balloting and a victory for the MPLA party, which has been in power for 33 years.
World Briefing
Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Afghanistan: U.S. disputes U.N. report on civilian toll / Congo: 17 feared dead in crash of aid flight / Israel: Agents found Mengele in 1960 / Nigeria: U.S. filmmaker held on spy charges AFGHANISTAN U.S. disputes U.N. report on death toll
Morocco music festivals bring culture clash
Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Authorities across the overwhelmingly Muslim country sponsor some 400 such events yearly to promote liberal values. This is an overwhelmingly Muslim country, but you wouldn't know it from the music festivals.

UN News Centre - Africa

Top UN envoy speaks out against piracy off Somali coast
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The top United Nations envoy to Somalia today said that he is extremely alarmed by the rise in piracy off the Horn of Africa nation's coast and deplored the destabilizing effects of the attacks in the region.
Remains of 17 dead found at DR Congo plane crash site, UN says
Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The United Nations has confirmed that the remains of the 17 passengers on board an aid flight that went down in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Monday have been located in the vicinity of the crash site.
African ministers agree to roll out vaccine to fight meningitis - UN agency
Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Health ministers from sub-Saharan Africa's "meningitis belt" pledged today to introduce a new vaccine that they hope will immunize more than 250 million people against the deadly disease, at a United Nations-backed conference held in Cameroon.

The Economist: Middle East and Africa

Ramadan: Time for tall tales on television
Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:30:35 -0000
The Muslim month of fasting allows for ever-juicier television fare at nightIN RAMADAN’s past, pious Muslims in the big cities of the Middle East waited, in the hush before sunset, for the sound of a cannon shot, followed by the cry of “Allahu Akbar!” from a nearby mosque, to break their day-long fast. Now, during the month-long fasting period, families tune instead to their televisions. As the broadcast call to prayer declares the start of another night of furious eating and alcohol-free drinking, so it heralds a visual feast. Satellite television has taken off in the region like nowhere else. In wealthy Gulf states, some 95% of households own digital receivers; even in poorer countries, such as Jordan and Morocco, the satellite penetration rate now tops 75%. Not surprisingly, the number of free-to-air channels available on Arab satellites has grown sixfold in the past five years, to more than 300. Those willing to pay subscription fees or to have a clever technician break encoded blockers can tune in to dozens more. ...
Kenya: When not imploding is not enough
Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:30:35 -0000
Six months after its bloody election crisis, the country is still struggling to recoverIN THE past few weeks, Kenyans have been celebrating. They were delighted when their athletes came back from the Olympics in China with 14 medals, five of them gold, whereas South Africa, often the continent’s sporting giant, got just one silver. A buoyant president, Mwai Kibaki, handed bonus cheques to the medallists on their return. And then Kenyans had the pleasure, early one morning on television, of watching Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan civil servant, accept the Democratic nomination to be president of the United States. But despite such good cheer it is evident that east Africa’s leading country has yet to recover fully from the post-election violence that ravaged it earlier in the year, when some 1,700 people were killed and 300,000 displaced. Its fragile coalition government is struggling to take the necessary decisions to tackle the country’s manifold problems. With Mr Kibaki as president and the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, as prime minister, the mere fact that their cumbrous joint administration has hung together is an achievement. But beyond that, six months into its existence, it has little else to celebrate. ...
Somalia: Hunger and terror
Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:30:35 -0000
There has been no pause in the country’s relentless downward spiralIT HAS been a long, dreadful summer for Somalia. The UN says that 3.2m Somalis (out of about 8m) now need aid just to stay alive: a 77% rise on last year. A sixth of Somali infants are at risk of starving to death. Due to what aid organisations call “intolerable insecurity”, almost all international charity workers have left. Offshore, Somali pirates are as bold as ever. They are holding around ten vessels, including three large tankers with 130 crewmen captured this week.Foreign governments still wrangle over Africa’s worst humanitarian and political crisis. UN people working for a deal between Islamist insurgents and the weak Somali government want 8,000 peacekeeping troops to replace the few thousand beleaguered African Union and Ethiopian soldiers. But more senior people in the UN’s peacekeeping office, already failing to get enough troops into Darfur, rule that out. A multinational force would be the next best thing, but who would pay? Mooted Saudi cash has not materialised. ...

Africa & Middle East - International Herald Tribune

U.S. plan would shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan
By MICHAEL R. GORDON AND THOM SHANKER Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:08:27 -0000
Pentagon leaders have recommended a modest shift of U.S. forces by early next year, officials said.
Rice heads to 'a changing Libya' to meet with Qaddafi
By HELENE COOPER Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:08:27 -0000
Muammar el-Qaddafi, in the eyes of the Bush administration, is rehabilitated, and the country has been removed from the U.S. State Department's terrorism list.
With Angola vote, the world hopes for stability
By CELIA W. DUGGER Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:08:27 -0000
More than eight million people have registered to vote in Angola, which was to hold its first elections in 16 years Friday.
Angolans face delays in first vote since 1992
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:10:32 -0000
War-ravaged Angola's first election in 16 years is a disaster of poor planning and insufficient infrastructure in the capital, a European Union observer said after visiting several polling stations Friday.
Official: Egyptian ship hijacked near Somalia
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:08:27 -0000
Pirates off Somalia's coast hijacked an Egyptian cargo ship with 25 crew members, the 10th vessel to be seized in the region in less than two months, a global maritime watchdog said Friday.
Syria sends peace proposals to Israel
By ROBERT F. WORTH Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:08:27 -0000
But President Bashar al-Assad said that the latest round of indirect negotiations between Syria and Israel had been postponed because of internal Israeli politics.

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