The Venus symbol, symbol of femininity

Femininity comprises the physical and mental attributes associated with the female sex. Some of these attributes can be traced to the female reproductive role. Others are rooted in the socialization of a girl's early development and adjusted throughout adulthood by picking up or reacting to societal cues. Feminine characteristics are expressed through female gender roles, which can vary between societies and eras but often include notions of motherhood, being like a princess or queen, and the tension between being virginally pure versus being sexually attractive. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (827x827, 5 KB) Description: Venus symbol, symbol of feminity Source: self made Date: 05. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (827x827, 5 KB) Description: Venus symbol, symbol of feminity Source: self made Date: 05. ... ♀ Venus symbol for female sex The Venus Symbol ♀ may refer to: female sex in biology the Roman God Venus the planet Venus See also: Mars symbol This is a disambiguation page—a list of articles associated with the same title. ... The mirror of the Roman Goddess Venus is often used to represent the female sex. ... This Article discusses the learning process called socialization. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... A bagpiper in military uniform. ... Look up mother in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Princess is the feminine form of prince (Latin princeps, meaning principal citizen), using the ess ending as in waitress or actress. Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or her daughters, women whose station in life depended on their relationship to a prince and... A queen regnant is a female monarch who possesses all the monarchal powers that a king would have without regard to gender. ... In Roman times, Vestal Virgins were strictly celibate or they were punished by death. ...

Feminine attributes

Femininity can build a woman's esteem by enhancing her own interpersonal relationships. Traits that are considered feminine include large breasts, narrow waist, fertility, being emotional, affectionate, sympathetic, sensitive, soft-spoken, warm, childlike, pretty, willowy, submissive, and compassionate. The Yin concept in Taoism categorizes all the things in nature which are seen as the embodiment of femininity, such as cool, soft, low, earthy, wintery, dark and empty. This article is in need of attention. ... Taoists Taijitu The concept of yin and yang (Traditional Chinese: 陰陽; Simplified Chinese: 阴阳; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Korean hangul: 음양; hanja: 陰陽; revised: eumyang; McCune-Reischauer: ŭmyang; Vietnamese: Âm-Dương) originates in ancient Chinese philosophy and metaphysics, which describes two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. ... Taoism (sometimes written as Daoism) is the English name for: (a) a philosophical school based on the texts the Dao De Jing (ascribed to Laozi) and the Zhuangzi. ...

Some practitioners of graphology or handwriting analysis claim to be able to discern feminine handwriting by certain characteristics such as the consistency of the script. A feminine speech pattern is often characterized by a more precise articulation, which itself may be submissive behavior (she wants to be understood by the other person without effort on his or her part). Graphology is the study of handwriting and its connection to behavior, and related data points. ... Articulation may refer to several topics: In speech, linguistics, and communication: Topic-focus articulation Articulation score Place of articulation Manner of articulation In music: Musical articulations (staccato, legato, etc) In education: Articulation (education) In sociology: Articulation (sociology) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that...

Femininity in the media

The notion of feminine beauty constantly changes, and ranges the spectrum between the ultrafeminine Gibson Girl of the 1910s to the tomboyish flapper of the 1920s. Many women take their cues from film, television, or women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Redbook and Us Weekly. These periodicals usually feature a glamorous covergirl whose clothing, makeup and lifestyle represents the current state-of-the-art in beauty. Some radical feminists see the (sometimes airbrushed) standards of beauty presented in women's interest magazines as examples of sexual objectification. They may view these depicted standards as impossible for most women to actual meet, and these feminists criticize women's slavish devotion to meeting these standards as evidence of patriarchal oppression. A USPS stamp depicting a Gibson girl The Gibson Girl was the personification of the feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during the first 15 years of the twentieth century. ... // Events and trends The 1910s represent the culmination of European militarism which had its beginings during the second half of the 19th Century. ... A tomboy is a girl who behaves according to the gender role of a boy. ... The term flapper in the 1920s, referred to a new breed of young women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered decent behavior. ... The 1920s were a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... This is a list of womens magazines, magazines published primarily for a readership of women. ... Cosmopolitan, or simply Cosmo, is a magazine published monthly from New York City by the Hearst Corporation. ... ELLE is a famous, worldwide magazine that focuses on womens fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment. ... For other uses, see Red Book. ... Us Weekly (a. ... CoverGirl is a brand of makeup, founded in 1961 by Noxell and acquired by Procter and Gamble in 1989. ... Men and women wearing suits, an example of one of the many modern forms of clothing (from the 1937 Chicago Woolen Mills catalog) Clothing is defined, in its broadest sense, as coverings for the torso and limbs as well as coverings for the hands (gloves), feet (socks, shoes, sandals, boots... Cosmetics or makeup are substances to enhance the beauty of the human body, apart from simple cleaning. ... Radical feminism is a branch of feminism that views womens oppression (or patriarchy) as the basic evil upon which human relationships in society are arranged. ... The airbrush is a small, highly precise spray gun for applying paint. ... Sexual objectification is the act of treating and judging a person with values generally appreciated in animals or objects (eg. ... Patriarchy (from Greek: patria meaning father and arché meaning rule) is the anthropological term used to define the sociological condition where male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power; with the more powerful the position, the more likely it is that a male will hold that...

Femininity in lesbians

While the purported homosexual women depicted in pornography are often silicone-enhanced fantasy ideals, the stereotypical "real" lesbian is imagined as a rather androgynous woman who crops her hair short and wears jeans and leather vests. In reality there are many lipstick lesbians (feminine women who are attracted to other feminine women) but they tend to blend in with heterosexual women. Lipstick lesbians are differentiated from femmes who are feminine woman attracted to masculine women (or "butches"). This article is about homosexual women, not inhabitants of the Greek island of Lesbos A lesbian (lowercase L) is a homosexual woman. ... Pornographic movies Pornography (from Greek πορνογραφία pornographia — literally writing about or drawings of prostitutes) (also informally referred to as porn, or porno) is the representation of the human body or human sexual behaviour with the goal of sexual arousal, similar to, but distinct from, erotica, though the two terms are often... Silicones, or polysiloxanes, are inorganic polymers consisting of a silicon-oxygen backbone (...-Si-O-Si-O-Si-O-...) with side groups attached to the silicon atoms. ... Lesbian describes a homosexual female, or rather women or girls who have a more intense physical and emotional relationship with other females than with men. ... If referring to a flower, see disambiguation under bisexual Androgyny is the state of indeterminate gender, or characteristics of gender. ... A lipstick lesbian is a traditionally feminine homosexual woman. ... Heterosexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by esthetic attraction, romantic love or sexual desire exclusively for members of the opposite sex or gender, contrasted with homosexuality and distinguished from bisexuality and asexuality. ... Butch and femme are terms often used in the lesbian and gay subcultures to describe a persons approximate adherence of traditional masculine and feminine gender roles respectively, within a same-sex relationship, or to describe an individual generally. ... The word masculine can refer to: the property of being biologically male masculinity, a traditionally male gender role the masculine grammatical gender This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Butch is a common nickname, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries for boys. ...

Femininity in men

In circumstances such as prison where men are segregated from women, a fraction of the population will nevertheless divide according to persistent female principles, either voluntarily or through coercion. An effeminate man exhibits what Jung called the anima, the subconscious feminine psychological factors within all males. However, feminine traits that society finds admirable or at least views as neutral in women (such as "womanish tears") have traditionally been viewed more negatively when expressed by men. Effeminacy is character trait of a male showing femininity, unmanliness, womanliness, weakness, softness and/or a delicacy, which contradicts traditional masculine, male gender roles. ... Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of the neopsychoanalytic school of psychology. ... Anima, according to Carl Jung, is the feminine side of a mans personal unconscious. ...

MTF (male to female) transsexuals are persons clinically diagnosed with a psychiatric condition known to the DSM IV as Gender Identity Disorder. Possible explanations for this condition include hormonal abnormalities, in utero, by which a biologically male fetus is inadequately masculinized, thus remaining female, at least in some sense(s), as is the case with their sisters who 'suffer' with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (whereby a biological male is insensitive to the effects of androgens (male hormones) hence remains female in outward appearance, and is most often raised and socialized as a female). MTF transsexuals should not be referred to as 'men' once transition has begun, as, hormonally, and then surgically, outward male characteristics are erased to bring the body into line with the mind and personality of the individual. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, is the handbook used most often in diagnosing mental disorders in the United States and other countries. ... Gender identity disorder, as identified by psychologists and medical doctors, is a condition with which a person who has been assigned one gender (usually at birth on the basis of their sex, but compare intersexual), but identifies as belonging to another gender, or does not conform with the gender role...

Transvestites are most commonly heterosexual men, who dress in women's clothing for a variety of reasons, such as a temporary escape from the pressures of their normal day-to-day lives, or to express the more feminine aspects of their personalities, etc. Men suffering with Transvetic Fetishism, on the other hand, tend to focus themselves, sexually, on a single item of female clothing which they might wear to gain gratification as part of their particular sexual fetish. Drag queens, who are commonly gay but may also be heterosexual, express an exaggerated caricature of femininity as part of their role play. For a discussion of the history and current usage of the term transvestite, see transvestism. ... Sexual fetishism, first described as such by Sigmund Freud though the concept and certainly the activity is quite ancient, is a form of paraphilia where the object of affection is a specific inanimate object or part of a persons body. ... Drag queens Luc DArcy and Jerry Cyr and friend at Montreals 2003 Divers/Cité pride parade. ...

Femininity in other primates

Human children are not the only primates to exhibit girlish traits. A study by Dr. Gerianne Alexander found that that vervet males, like human boys, prefer toy trucks, while vervet females and human girls prefer dolls. Type species Chlorocebus aethiops Grivet Species Chlorocebus sabaceus Chlorocebus aethiops Chlorocebus djamdjamensis Chlorocebus tantalus Chlorocebus pygerythrus Chlorocebus cynosuros The vervet monkeys or green monkeys are primates from the family of Old World monkeys. ...

Other meanings

The word feminine can also refer to:

• The property of being biologically female
• A traditionally female gender role
• The feminine grammatical gender
• The antonym of masculinity
• Things considered characteristic in women
• A more proper and polite word for "Girl Power"

The mirror of the Roman Goddess Venus is often used to represent the female sex. ... A bagpiper in Scottish military clan-uniform. ... In linguistics, noun classes, also called grammatical gender is a type of inflection. ... Two Seated Men In many societies, masculinity is understood to include open displays of same-sex non-sexual affection and physical contact. ... Image of a woman on the Pioneer plaque sent to outer space. ...

See also

• gender role
• Masculinity
• Physical Features: Age & Sex This website discusses the physical differences between men and women in terms of how the body naturally masculinizes and feminizes human faces.