From Latin mulĭer, a woman is a person of the female sex . It is a term that is used in contrast to man or male , concepts that name the human beings of masculine sex.
The more specific use of the word woman is linked to the female person who has already reached puberty or to adulthood. Therefore, the girl becomes a woman, according to cultural parameters, from her first menstruation.
The social role of women has changed throughout the history . For centuries, the society He considered that women should limit themselves to fulfilling their functions as wife and mother. Over time, women began to occupy more relevant social roles in different functions, both in the world of work and in politics.
Currently, it is common to find women exercising the presidency of a country (such as Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Cristina Fernandez in Argentina ) or running large companies (such as Carol Bartz in Yahoo! ).
It should be stressed that on March 8, International Women's Day is celebrated. With him it is tried to commemorate the fight that for centuries the women have maintained in the whole world to be able to achieve equality with respect to man. Thus, since 1911 this special day has been celebrated, which serves especially to remember women who died working.
In particular, it is the death of a total of 126 women, between 48 and 14 years old, as a result of the fire that took place at the Triangle Shirtwaist shirt factory (New York) where they worked. And they died because the owners had closed each and every one of the doors of the industry as a result of the movements that had led those to demand a decent treatment.
Equality of gender In any case, it has not yet been fully achieved. It is usual for a man to receive higher pay than a woman for a job with identical responsibilities, for example.
He feminism it is the ideological current that fights for equal opportunities and opposes machismo . Certain social practices and customs, however, still remain: when a woman marries, it becomes "the woman" of the man in question. Instead, the husband is not named as "the man" of the wife.
There are different expressions and terms that are part of our colloquial language and that are used to refer to various types of women. Thus, for example, it is common to hear the term fatal woman. This is used to refer to those women who have great physical attractiveness and a sexual power that brings men crazy, who fall to them suffer unfortunate consequences.
In the same way, it is also frequent to speak of an object woman. In this case, it is used to mention all that female who is only valued for her physical beauty, for her attractiveness, and not for the rest of the qualities she may have.
