Woman

With restrictions loosening during the 20th century in many societies, women have gained wider access to careers and the ability to pursue higher education.

The word girl originally meant "young person of either sex" in English;[19] it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child.

Conversely, in certain cultures which link family honor with female virginity, the word girl (or its equivalent in other languages) is still used to refer to a never-married woman; in this sense it is used in a fashion roughly analogous to the more-or-less obsolete English maid or maiden.

Many cultures have rites of passage to symbolize a girl's coming of age, such as confirmation in some branches of Christianity,[24] bat mitzvah in Judaism, or a custom of a special celebration for a certain birthday (generally between 12 and 21), like the quinceañera of Latin America.

[26] Because humans inherit mitochondrial DNA only from the mother's ovum, genealogical researchers can trace maternal lineage far back in time.

[43][44] The internal female genitalia consist of the ovaries, gonads that produce female gametes called ova, the fallopian tubes, tubular structures that transport the egg cells, the uterus, an organ with tissue to protect and nurture the developing fetus and its cervix to expel it, the accessory glands (Bartholin's and Skene's), two pairs of glands that help lubricate during intercourse, and the vagina, an organ used in copulating and birthing.

Social transition may involve changes such as adopting a new name, hairstyle, clothing, and pronoun associated with the individual's affirmed female gender identity.

[76] A major component of medical transition for trans women is feminizing hormone therapy, which causes the development of female secondary sex characteristics (such as breasts, redistribution of body fat, and lower waist–hip ratio).

Medical transition may also involve gender-affirming surgery, and a trans woman may undergo one or more feminizing procedures which result in anatomy that is typically gendered female.

Factors that specifically affect the health of women in comparison with men are most evident in those related to reproduction, but sex differences have been identified from the molecular to the behavioral scale.

The main causes of maternal mortality include pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, unsafe abortion, pregnancy complications from malaria and HIV/AIDS, and severe bleeding and infections following childbirth.

[88][89] For example, women are less likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors like smoking and reckless driving, and consequently have fewer preventable premature deaths from such causes.

The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics has stated that:[90] The World Health Organization reports that based on data from 2010 to 2014, 56 million induced abortions occurred worldwide each year (25% of all pregnancies).

The WHO ascribes these deaths to: The earliest women whose names are known include: In recent history, gender roles have changed greatly.

According to Schiebinger, "Being a scientist and a wife and a mother is a burden in society that expects women more often than men to put family ahead of career."

Through a combination of economic changes and the efforts of the feminist movement, in recent decades women in many societies have gained access to careers beyond the traditional 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, politics, and motherhood, and others.

CBS News said in 2005 that in the United States women who are ages 30 to 44 and hold a university degree make 62% of what similarly qualified men do, a lower rate than in all but three of the 19 countries for which numbers are available.

For example, according to surveys by UNICEF, the percentage of women aged 15–49 who think that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances is as high as 90% in Afghanistan and Jordan, 87% in Mali, 86% in Guinea and Timor-Leste, 81% in Laos, and 80% in the Central African Republic.

[115] A 2010 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that stoning as a punishment for adultery was supported by 82% of respondents in Egypt and Pakistan, 70% in Jordan, 56% Nigeria, and 42% in Indonesia.

[119] There have also been many forms of violence against women which have been prevalent historically, notably the burning of witches, the sacrifice of widows (such as sati) and foot binding.

The prosecution of women accused of witchcraft has a long tradition; for example, during the early modern period (between the 15th and 18th centuries), witch trials were common in Europe and in the European colonies in North America.

Today, there remain regions of the world (such as parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, rural North India, and Papua New Guinea) where belief in witchcraft is held by many people, and women accused of being witches are subjected to serious violence.

[123][124] It is also the case that certain forms of violence against women have been recognized as criminal offences only during recent decades, and are not universally prohibited, in that many countries continue to allow them.

While births outside marriage are common and fully accepted in some parts of the world, in other places they are highly stigmatized, with unmarried mothers facing ostracism, including violence from family members, and in extreme cases even honor killings.

[133][134] In addition, sex outside marriage remains illegal in many countries (such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,[135] Afghanistan,[136][137] Iran,[137] Kuwait,[138] Maldives,[139] Morocco,[140] Oman,[141] Mauritania,[142] United Arab Emirates,[143][144] Sudan,[145] and Yemen[146]).

In 21 of 27 OECD countries with comparable data, the number of women graduating from university-level programmes is equal to or exceeds that of men.

Sociologist Harriet Zuckerman has observed that the more prestigious an institute is, the more difficult and time-consuming it will be for women to obtain a faculty position there.

Even in psychology, a degree in which women earn the majority of PhDs, they hold a significant amount of fewer tenured positions, roughly 19% in 1994.

Women are less common as instrumental players in popular music genres such as rock and heavy metal, although there have been a number of notable female instrumentalists and all-female bands.