women

Assorted References

• accusation of witchcraft
  • In magic: Late medieval and early modern Europe

    …misogynist association of witchcraft with women that becomes the dominant characteristic in the early modern period. This conspiracy theory of demonic magic contributed to the early modern "witch craze” that occurred at a time of growing tension between magic, religion, and nascent science.

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  • 
    In witchcraft: The witch hunts

    The visible role played by women in some heresies during this period may have contributed to the stereotype of the witch as female.

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  • 
    In witchcraft: The witch hunts

    …explanation for the preponderance of women among the accused has appeared. Although the proportions varied according to region and time, on the whole about three-fourths of convicted witches were female. Women were certainly more likely than men to be economically and politically powerless, but that generalization is too broad to…

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• cigarette smoking
  • In George Washington Hill

    …businessman whose marketing efforts introduced women to cigarettes.

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  • 
    In smoking: Mass production and mass appeal

    …social classes and increasingly among women, once associations of smoking with deviant sexuality began to fade in the 1920s. This development had less to do with the efforts of advertisers—who, for example, in 1925 introduced the Marlboro brand as a woman’s cigarette: “Mild as May”—and more to do with the…

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  • 
    In smoking: Cancer

    …of cancer and kills more women each year than breast cancer. It is estimated that 85 percent of all cases of lung cancer could be prevented if all smoking of cigarettes stopped. However, exposure to carcinogens is not limited to the respiratory system. Smoking is a major cause of bladder…

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• domestic violence
  • In domestic violence

    …to designate physical assaults upon women by their male partners, but, though rarer, the victim may be a male abused by his female partner, and the term may also be used regarding abuse of both women and men by same-sex partners.

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• dress and adornment
  • 
    In dress: Ancient Egypt

    …for warmth by men and women.

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  • 
    In dress: Female display

    Paul wrote to Timothy “that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion.” St. Peter expressed similar views, and St. Augustine of Hippo censured makeup as well,…

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• work of United Nations
  • 
    In United Nations: Human rights

    …civil liberties, the status of women (for which there is now a separate commission), freedom of information, the protection of minorities, the prevention of discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, language, or religion, and any other human rights concerns. The commission prepared the nonbinding Universal Declaration of Human Rights,…

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SIDEBARS

• Gender Issues in Malawi
  • In Gender Issues in Malawi

    Women, many of whom not only raised children but also tended food crops to support their families—in some cases without the assistance of their husbands—often bore the greater burden. The situation began to change slowly after independence, as even the conservative Pres. Hastings Kamuzu Banda…

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• role in Nigeria
  • 
    In The role of Nigerian women

    …the role and status of women in Nigeria have continuously evolved. However, the image of a helpless, oppressed, and marginalized group has undermined their proper study, and little recognition has been granted to the various integral functions that Nigerian women have performed throughout history.

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anthropology

• 
  In anthropology: The study of gender

  …gender came to stand for women. A primary question in these early studies was how and why women were subordinated in patriarchal social systems. Soon, however, the awareness that men, too, have gender sparked a much deeper analysis of the ways in which definitions of gender were mutually constructed. Rather…

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• alliance theory of kinship
  • 
    In kinship: Reciprocity, incest, and the transition from nature to culture

    Lévi-Strauss suggested that, because women’s fertility is necessary to the reproduction of the group, women are the “supreme gift.” With no fair return for a woman except another woman, they must have been reciprocally exchanged rather than simply given away. The simplest form of exchange in this schema involved…

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arts

• comics
  • 
    In comic strip: Women and minorities: from minor characters to creators

    In the West there was no successor to either the woman-developed comic character—i.e., Marie Duval’s Ally Sloper in the 1870s—or a major female comic character such as Wilhelm Busch’s Fromme Helene (1872). As there were relatively few…

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• theatre productions
  • 
    In theatre: The Middle Ages in Europe

    Women performers were widespread during the period as jugglers, acrobats, dancers, singers, and musicians. There were women troubadours and jongleurs, and many of the French chansons are written from the point of view of female narrators, notably the chansons de mal mariée, or complaints by…

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  • 
    In stagecraft: Renaissance costume

    …innovation was the introduction of actresses. Talented, confident, and flamboyant ladies replaced the Elizabethan boy actors. Records indicate that “splendidly clothed” persons lent costumes, and wardrobe keepers aided players in selecting from available stock. No attempt was made at character dressing or historical accuracy.

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cultural status

• early American society
  • 
    In United States: The social revolution

    …dramatized the economic importance of women. Women had always contributed indispensably to the operation of farms and often businesses, while they seldom acquired independent status; but, when war removed men from the locality, women often had to take full charge, which they proved they could do. Republican ideas spread among…

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• nomadic societies
  • 
    In primitive culture: Nomadic societies

    …eggs, and so on are women’s tasks. This division of labour seems obviously related to men’s relative ability to range far from camp, women being too burdened with the tasks of motherhood to track animals wherever they may lead. But the separation of tasks is usually more rigid and confining…

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education

• colonial America
  • 
    In education: Spanish and Portuguese America

    …(1767) became the first all-girl lay institution.

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  • 
    In education: The new academies

    …training for occupations open to women were included, though some female educators stressed intellectual attainment rather than practical learning.

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• France
  • 
    In education: Female education

    During the century, the education of girls was not entirely neglected, and France was notable for its efforts. Mme de Maintenon, for instance, had been a pupil of the Ursuline nuns in Paris and then a governess at the court of Louis XIV…

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  • 
    In education: Secondary education

    …foundation of secondary schools for girls was in its way one of the most notable achievements of the Third Republic. It was inaugurated by the law of December 22, 1880, named for its author, the Loi Camille Sée. Until World War II the curricula were different from those of the…

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• Germany
  • 
    In education: Girls’ schools

    In Prussia, as elsewhere, the higher education of girls lagged far behind that of boys and received little attention from the state or municipality, except insofar as the services of women teachers were needed in the elementary schools. Thus it came about that…

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  • 
    In education: Imperial Germany

    Girls and boys were taught in separate schools except when it was uneconomical to do so. Boys usually received training in manual work, and girls in domestic science. Graduates of the Volksschule found it almost impossible to enter the secondary school, which was attended almost…

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• global developments
  • 
    In education: Social consequences of education in developing countries

    …education rights for girls and women, complex changes were not adopted swiftly. Of the 120 million children excluded from education systems at the turn of the 21st century, for example, approximately 60 percent were girls and nearly three-fourths were living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time,…

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• India
  • 
    In education: The Mughal period

    During the Mughal period, girls received their education at home or in the house of some teacher living in close proximity. There were special arrangements for the education of the ladies of the royal household, and some of the princesses were distinguished scholars. Vocational education was imparted through a…

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  • 
    In education: Pre-independence period

    …prejudices against the education of girls. The impetus came from the national movement launched by Gandhi, which led thousands of women to come out of the purdah for the cause of national emancipation. It was also realized that the education of the girl was the education of the mother and,…

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  • 
    In India: Education

    …in promoting the education of girls and other socially disadvantaged groups, largely through fiscal grants for the support of particular programs (e.g., reimbursement of tuition, where it is charged, for girls in classes IX–XII), and in launching a variety of progressive educational initiatives. In addition to publicly financed schools, there…

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• medieval Europe
  • 
    In education: Lay education and the lower schools

    Educational provision for girls in medieval society was much more restricted. Wealthy families made some provision in the home, but the emphasis was primarily on piety and secondarily on skills of household management, along with artistic “accomplishments.” Neither girls nor boys of the lowest social ranks—peasants or unskilled…

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• Middle East
  • 
    In education: The second half of the 20th century

    …urban access to education and women’s education. Although female school enrollment ratios rose throughout the Middle East, they remained considerably lower than male ratios in every country except Lebanon and Israel, which achieved almost universal elementary literacy. Moreover, at the higher levels of education, the percentage of women students became…

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• Myanmar
  • 
    In education: Myanmar

    The new system recognized women’s right to formal education in public schools, and women began to play an increasingly important role as teachers. The Government College at Rangoon and the Judson College established in the 19th century were incorporated as the University of Rangoon under the University Act of…

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• Russia before 1917
  • 
    In education: Russia

    The education of women was promoted, and the first higher courses for women were founded in main cities.

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• United Kingdom
  • 
    In education: Secondary and higher education

    …founding of a number of girls’ high schools and boarding schools offering an education that was comparable to that available in boys’ public schools and grammar schools. Several training colleges for teachers were established by voluntary agencies, and universities and university colleges toward the end of the century undertook the…

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• view of Jefferson

employment

• activity rates
  • 
    In labour economics: Activity rates

    …age and sex group—for example, females aged 30–34—who work for gain. Among males, activity rates in the earlier years of working age are as a rule low, because so many remain in education and training. Between the ages of 25 and 50, male activity rates approach 100 percent, but from…

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• Cambodian labour force
  • 
    In Cambodia: Labour and taxation

    The proportion of women in the labour force—more than half of the total—is one of the largest in the world, an imbalance created in part by the massive destruction of men during the period of Khmer Rouge rule. By law, women are guaranteed equal rights, but traditional views…

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• comparable worth
  • In comparable worth

    …the principle that men and women should be compensated equally for work requiring comparable skills, responsibilities, and effort.

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• diplomacy
  • 
    In diplomacy: The role of women

    Famous female political leaders such as Cleopatra VII, Isabella I, and Elizabeth I were enormously influential in the history of diplomatic relations, but historically women largely played a secondary—but substantial—role as the wives of diplomats. Without large fortunes or many servants, diplomatic wives were…

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  • 
    In diplomacy: The ancient world

    Women often were used as envoys because of their perceived mysterious sanctity and their use of “sexual wiles”; it is believed that women regularly were entrusted with the vitally important task of negotiating peace in primitive cultures.

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• division of labour
  • 
    In industrial relations: Employment security

    …employ many retired workers, immigrants, women, and those who have not found work or have lost their jobs in the large firms. While the law forbids discrimination against women and minorities, Japanese women traditionally have been excluded from the lifetime employment system and from higher-level jobs in corporations.

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• Guatemalan labour force
  • 
    In Guatemala: Labour and taxation

    More women entered the labour force in the 1990s, particularly women from poor households. The high rate of urbanization was one of the factors that led to the increase. Although the number of women in the labour force increased by one-fifth by the end of the…

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• International Alliance for Women
  • In The International Alliance for Women

    …in 1980 to empower professional women through networking at sponsored events and to promote the economic advancement of women throughout the world. TIAW’s membership includes thousands of individuals and associations. International headquarters are in Markham, Ont., Can.

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• teaching
• trade unions
  • 
    In organized labour: Trade unionism after World War II: An erosion of strength

    …following these shifts toward white-collar, female, and service-sector employment, unions endeavoured to match strides with the rapidly changing composition of the work force—just as, earlier in the century, they had broken through the divide separating skilled from unskilled manual labour. However, though their composition was modified profoundly, with greatly increased…

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  • In UNISON

    …two-thirds of its members are women (the union maintains a quota to ensure that women occupy executive positions in rough proportion to their overall membership), and it has organized sections representing the interests of its women, black, disabled, and gay and lesbian members. Workers are also organized along function lines,…

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government

• Burundi
  • 
    In Burundi: Political process

    Women have had the right to vote since 1961, but few have held political positions of power; a notable exception was Sylvie Kinigi, Burundi’s first female prime minister, who held the office for almost seven months beginning in July 1993. Female representation in Burundi government…

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• Liberia
  • 
    In Liberia: Political process

    The participation of women in Liberia’s political process was highlighted in late 2005 when Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected president, becoming the first woman to be elected head of state in Africa. In the first decade of the 21st century, women held about one-seventh of seats in both…

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• Mongolia
  • 
    In Mongolia: Political process

    Women are poorly represented in government and parliament, and relatively few women become prominent in political parties. Since 1990 there has been a significant increase in the activity of women’s organizations pursuing equality issues, particularly fairer representation in parliament and the government. A vote by…

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• Morocco
  • 
    In Morocco: Political process

    …abound, especially with regard to women. Electoral quotas have increased the participation of women in legislative bodies: 90 seats are reserved for women in the House of Representatives, while one-third of the seats are reserved in regional and local bodies.

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• United Kingdom
  • 
    In United Kingdom: Political process

    …especially in Scandinavia, breakthroughs for women in British national elections have been rare. Throughout much of the 20th century, only a few women won elections; before the 1980s the high point for female representation in the House of Commons was 29 in 1964. Indeed, many women who were able to…

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health and medical issues

• AIDS prevention research
  • 
    In AIDS: Condoms, vaccines, gels, and other prevention methods

    …agents are particularly valuable for women in relationships in which mutual monogamy or condom use has failed or is not possible. Some of the first gels tested in large trials included Ushercell, which was made up of cellulose sulfate, and PRO 2000, which contained a polymer of naphthalene sulfonate. Each…

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• androgen excess
  • In androgen: Androgen excess in women

    Women produce about one-twelfth as much androgen as men. Androgens are essential precursors of estrogens, and no estrogens can be produced without them. Whether androgens have physiological actions in women is less clear. Some evidence suggests that androgens contribute to bone growth and libido.…

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• autoimmune disorders
  • 
    In immune system disorder: Genetic factors

    …autoimmune diseases afflict far more women than men. Women are affected more often than men with most of the better-known disorders, including myasthenia gravis, systemic lupus erythematosis, Graves disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and Hashimoto disease. The reason for this is not fully understood, but researchers think it probably is related to…

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• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
  • 
    In smoking: Lung disease

    …with a greater number of women dying from COPD than men. COPD is a general term that refers to respiratory diseases in which airflow is obstructed. Women’s airways appear to be more sensitive to the effect of cigarette smoke. Women with COPD often experience greater breathlessness and a disproportionately greater…

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• congenital adrenal hyperplasia
  • In congenital adrenal hyperplasia: Types and clinical manifestation

    In women it results primarily in excess growth of facial hair, decreased frequency or cessation of menstrual periods, and infertility. In contrast, the effects are minimal in men because androgen production by the testes far exceeds adrenal androgen production, even when the latter is excessive.

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• eating disorders
  • 
    In therapeutics: Requirements in adolescence

    …gaining weight; consequently, he or she reduces nutritional intake below the amount needed to maintain a normal minimal weight. Severe electrolyte disturbances and death can result. Bulimia is a behavioral disorder marked by binge eating followed by acts of purging (e.g., self-induced vomiting, ingestion of laxatives or diuretics, or vigorous…

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• female genital cutting
  • In female genital cutting: Cultural meanings

    …and forced participation of the girl can render the surgery a terrifying experience. In such cultures it is increasingly common for girls or some of their relatives to resist or delay the surgery, even to the point of requesting political asylum.

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• granulomatous thyroiditis
  • In granulomatous thyroiditis

    …disease most frequently occurs in women. The thyroid gland becomes enlarged, and most patients complain of tenderness in the front of the throat and difficulty in swallowing. Other symptoms include those of hyperthyroidism (e.g., accelerated heart rate, sweating, tremor), which are transient, and thyroid gland pain, fatigue, muscle aches, and…

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• Hashimoto disease
  • In Hashimoto disease

    The majority of patients are women, who are five to eight times more likely to develop this condition than men; it occurs more frequently in older women. There is a genetic predisposition to the disease, and a high iodine intake may contribute to its onset.

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• health care
  • 
    In medicine: Family health care

    …the health care of pregnant women, mothers, and their young children. The health care needs of these three groups are generally recognized to be so closely related as to require a highly integrated service that includes prenatal care, the birth of the baby, the postnatal period, and the needs of…

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• infanticide and abortion
  • 
    In India: Family and kinship

    …increasingly in the abortion of female fetuses following prenatal gender testing. This pattern of preference is largely connected to the institution of dowry, since the family’s obligation to provide a suitable dowry to the bride’s new family represents a major financial liability. Traditionally, women were expected to treat their husbands…

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• nursing care
  • 
    In nursing: The care of women

    The care of women, especially of childbearing and childrearing women (often called maternal-child nursing), has long been a particular nursing concern. As early as the 1920s, nurses worked with national and local governments, private charities, and other concerned professionals to ensure that mothers and…

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• nutrition
  • 
    In human nutrition: Pregnancy and lactation

    A woman’s nutritional status before and during pregnancy affects not only her own health but also the health and development of her baby. If a woman is underweight before becoming pregnant or fails to gain sufficient weight during pregnancy, her chance of having a premature or…

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• osteoporosis
  • In osteoporosis

    …is most common in postmenopausal women over age 50. It is estimated that approximately one-fourth of the world’s population of women over age 60 have some degree of osteoporosis. For these women, fracture is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality.

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• oxytocin
  • In oxytocin: Role in pro-social behaviour

    …to be sex-specific; in general, females appear to be especially sensitive to oxytocin, possibly because of differences in estrogen and progesterone levels.

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• Raynaud syndrome
  • 
    In Raynaud syndrome

    …condition occurring primarily in young women that is characterized by spasms in the arteries to the fingers that cause the fingertips to become first pale and then cyanotic—bluish—upon exposure to cold or in response to emotional stress. Upon cessation of the stimulus, redness develops and there is a tingling or…

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• Sheehan’s syndrome
  • In Sheehan’s syndrome

    …common cause of hypopituitarism in women, Sheehan’s syndrome has become less common with improvements in obstetric practice.

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• urinary tract infection
  • 
    In urinary tract infection: Risk factors

    However, women are affected about 30 times more often than men; roughly one in five women experiences a UTI in her lifetime. Girls and women are at high risk of infection because of the short female urethra. In addition, sexual intercourse, especially when a diaphragm is…

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law

• Adkins v. Children’s Hospital
  • In Adkins v. Children’s Hospital

    …to set minimum wages for women workers in the District of Columbia. Congress in 1918 had authorized the Wage Board to ascertain and fix adequate wages for women employees in the nation’s capital.

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• basis for citizenship
  • 
    In citizenship

    …acquisition of citizenship by a woman through marriage to a citizen was the prevailing principle in modern times until after World War I. Under this system, the wife and children shared the nationality status of the husband and father as head of the family. From the 1920s, under the impact…

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• coverture
  • In coverture

    …Norman custom, that dictated a woman’s subordinate legal status during marriage. Prior to marriage a woman could freely execute a will, enter into contracts, sue or be sued in her own name, and sell or give away her real estate or personal property as she wished. Once she married, however,…

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• criminal behaviour
  • 
    In crime: Gender patterns

    …for homicide, and in Britain women constituted only 5 percent of the total prison population. Nevertheless, in most Western societies the incidence of recorded crime by women and the number of women in the criminal-justice system have increased. For instance, from the mid- to late 1990s in the United States,…

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• Equal Pay Act
  • 
    In Equal Pay Act of 1963

    …unequal pay were these: working women had a higher turnover rate because of family obligations; some state laws prohibited women from working at night; and other laws limited the actual number of hours women could work and the amount of weight women could lift. The laws reflected the historical bias…

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• Equal Rights Amendment
  • 
    In Equal Rights Amendment

    …federal laws that discriminate against women; its central underlying principle is that sex should not determine the legal rights of men or women.

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• family law
  • In family law

    …by the transfer of a female from her father’s family to the power and guardianship of her husband. Even with regard to the relationship between parent and child, legal concepts such as guardianship, custody, and legitimacy were associated with family power structures and family economic interests. Family law also traditionally…

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• feme sole
  • In feme sole

    …in Anglo-American common law, a woman in the unmarried state or in the legally established equivalent of that state. The concept derived from feudal Norman custom and was prevalent through periods when marriage abridged women’s rights. Feme sole (Norman French meaning “single woman”) referred to a woman who had never…

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• German Civil Code
  • 
    In civil law: Marriage and family

    …Code concerning the rights of women in marriage were less restrictive than those of the French Civil Code. After World War II nearly all rules contravening the principle of equality of men and women were repealed. The ordinary statutory marital-property regime, with the husband administering and using the wife’s estate,…

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• legal aspects of names
  • 
    In name: Legal aspects of naming

    …is the full equality of women. (There is, however, one loophole in the system—namely, the Russian patronymic, which is automatically derived from the father’s name, whereas equality understood in this way would demand a choice between the father’s or the mother’s name.) In Spain the married woman normally retains her…

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• Napoleonic Code
  • 
    In civil law: Marriage and family

    Although the Revolution proclaimed women to be equal in rights with men, it did little to implement this view in law. The drafters of the code saw no reason to modify the traditional situation, and Napoleon himself favoured subordination of the wife to the husband. The code expressly stated…

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• rape
  • In rape: Scope, effects, and motivations

    …a patriarchal system in which women are viewed as the property of men. Whatever its origins, rape is a serious crime and is treated as a felony in most countries with common-law systems. In many rape trials, the guilt or innocence of the accused hinges on whether or not the…

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• Salic Law of Succession
  • In Salic Law of Succession

    …previous sovereign only through a woman were excluded from succession to the throne. Gradually formulated in France, the rule takes its name from the code of the Salian Franks, the Lex Salica (Salic Law).

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religion

• birth rites and feasts
  • In feast: Crucial stages of life

    Mothers of newborn children are considered both as participants of the sacred by having brought forth a new being into the world and as persons who are ritually unclean (e.g., among the Israelites and Zoroastrians), probably because of the presence of blood at birth, the…

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• celibacy
  • In celibacy: Types of celibacy

    Institutional celibacy for women is also typically conceived of as an aid to spiritual advancement. Virginity and celibacy are regarded as assets in the attainment of spiritual goals. Most institutional female celibates are nuns in residential cloisters—though there have been occasional solitary figures, such as the anchoress (female…

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• dietary rules
  • 
    In dietary law: Hunter-gatherers

    …food taboos to which a woman is subject for four or five days after giving birth. She may not eat raw meat or blood and is restricted to those foods that, according to tradition, have beneficial effects on the child (for example, eating ducks’ wings will make her child a…

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  • 
    In dietary law: Elaboration of the Jewish laws

    …these observances falls on the women; their ritual and secular statuses are always inferior to those of men. It is the task of the housewife to be sure that meat and dairy foods are not mixed, that ritually slaughtered meat is not blemished, and that cooking equipment and dishes and…

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• Dionysus
  • 
    In Dionysus

    (Bacchanalia) quickly won converts among women. Men, however, met them with hostility. In Thrace Dionysus was opposed by Lycurgus, who ended up blind and mad.

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• Hinduism
  • 
    In Hinduism: Women’s religious practices

    Women’s rituals comprise an important part of practical Hinduism. Some male-authored Hindu scriptures limit women’s religious roles, consider women more subject than men to bodily impurities, and subordinate them to their fathers and husbands. Priests in temples and other public spaces are…

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• monastic traditions
  • 
    In monasticism: Secondary and tertiary orders

    …that of certain famous saintly women in Hindu India, today and in the past, who were known for their extreme piety or, more importantly, for their physical-mental (yogic) and mesmeric (hypnotic) powers. These women gained high charismatic (spiritually influential) status that placed them, as individuals, above male monastics. Yet, with…

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• prehistoric religion
  • 
    In prehistoric religion: Sacrifices

    …discerned in ceremonial remains are females and children, sometimes along with young pigs. This practice is similar to fertility and agricultural rites that are known to have been practiced in the early Mediterranean civilizations. It is also similar to beliefs and practices observed among present-day “primitive” agrarian peoples (in which…

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• purification rites and customs
  • In purification rite: Physiological processes

    …objects, sense-related objects, and professions: women in general (because they menstruate), pregnant women, prostitutes, and widows (the latter because of their additional association with death); pigs, dogs, and other scavengers because they eat or associate with excrement and garbage; carrion-eating animals because of their association with death; leftover food, because…

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• religious dualism
  • 
    In dualism: Anthropological functions

    …demiurge and the origin of women (e.g., the myths of Prometheus and Epimetheus in ancient Greece and of Paliyan in southeast Australia) or between the demiurge and the origin of sexuality (e.g., the myths of the trickster Coyote and of the gnostic demiurge). In the Platonic anthropology, the first incarnation…

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• Roman priestesses
  • 
    In priesthood: Ancient Greece and Rome

    The flaminica, the wife of the flamen Dialis, participated in his sacredness and official status, and so vital was her association with him and his office that if she died he ceased to perform his functions.

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• Vestal Virgins
  • 
    In Vestal Virgins

    …open to married or single women of equivalent social status, including emancipation from their fathers’ rule and the ability to handle their own property.

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science

• 
  In philosophy of science: Feminist themes

  …document the ways in which women have been excluded from participation in research projects. More philosophically ambitious is the attempt to show how women’s exclusion led to a bias in the conclusions that scientists accept. Here there is a classic and compelling example: during the 1950s and ’60s, (male) primatologists…

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• astronaut
  • 
    In astronaut: History and highlights

    …and the Soviet Union, no women were initially selected as astronauts. (In the United States, 13 women, the “Mercury 13,” underwent some of the same testing as the seven Mercury astronauts. Wally Funk, who later became the oldest person in space in 2021, was among them.) In 1962 the Soviet…

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social issues

• adultery
  • 
    In adultery

    …in Roman law, an offending female spouse could be killed, but men were not severely punished. The Jewish, Islamic, and Christian traditions are all unequivocal in their condemnation of adultery. The culpability of both men and women is more explicitly expressed in the New Testament and the Talmud than in…

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• affirmative action
  • 
    In affirmative action

    …of minority groups and for women. Affirmative action began as a government remedy to the effects of long-standing discrimination against such groups and has consisted of policies, programs, and procedures that give limited preferences to minorities and women in job hiring, admission to institutions of higher education, the awarding of…

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• ancient Cretan dress
  • 
    In Aegean civilizations: Dress

    Cretan women wore short-sleeved jackets that left the breasts bare and ankle-length flounced skirts, although shorter skirts to just below the knees are also attested. Marble figurines of men from the Cyclades assigned to the Early Bronze Age have belts and narrow codpieces like those of…

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• cigarette smoking
  • 
    In cigarette

    … the prejudice against smoking by women was broken, and the practice became widespread among women in Europe and the United States in the 1920s.

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• civil rights
  • 
    In civil rights: Civil rights movements across the globe

    Most notably, women, having gained the right to vote in 1920 via constitutional amendment, also have made many gains in the area of employment rights. The women’s rights movement has thus far been stopped short of passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have codified equal…

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• family and kinship
  • In family

    …usually a man and a woman (almost always from different lineages and not related by blood) along with their offspring, usually living in a private and separate dwelling. This type of unit, more specifically known as a nuclear family, is believed to be the oldest of the various types of…

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• feminism
  • 
    In feminism

    Throughout most of Western history, women were confined to the domestic sphere, while public life was reserved for men. In medieval Europe, women were denied the right to own property, to study, or to participate in public life. At the end of the 19th century in France, they were still…

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• gender roles
  • 
    In gender role

    …defined until 1955, men and women have had gendered roles throughout history in most societies. For example, beginning in the early 19th century, many European societies subscribed to the Victorian gender ideology of separate spheres, which stated that men and women were meant for different roles in society.

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• influence of “Advocate of Moral Reform”
  • In Advocate of Moral Reform

    …about 1845, campaigned to rescue women who were victims of moral and physical corruption and to reassert woman’s centrality to family life.

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• magazines
  • 
    In history of publishing: Women’s magazines

    Women’s magazines frequently reflect the changing view of women’s role in society. In the 18th century, when women were expected to participate in social and political life, those magazines aimed primarily at women were relatively robust and stimulating in content; in the 19th, when domesticity…

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  • 
    In history of publishing: Women’s magazines in the United States

    The bond with advertising is probably most evident in magazines for women, since they are the greatest buyers of consumer goods. In the United States, up to the mid-1930s, such magazines were largely “trade-papers for home-makers.” There were exceptions,…

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• Prague population
  • 
    In Prague: The people

    …War II; there are more women than men, and a sizable proportion of the female population is past the age of fertility. The natural rate of population increase is very small. A tendency toward small families is a reflection of both difficulties in housing and increased participation by both parents…

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• prostitution
  • 
    In prostitution

    …historically most prostitutes have been women and most clients men.

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• sexual activity
  • 
    In Germaine Greer

    …championed the sexual freedom of women.

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  • In human sexual activity: Sociosexual activity

    …more often than by the female, who generally rejects or accepts the male’s overtures but refrains from playing a more aggressive role. Petting in some form is a near-universal human experience and is valuable not only in mate selection but as a means of learning how to interact with another…

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  • In human sexual activity: Economic influences

    …in progress—was the emancipation of women, which brought with it an increasing acceptance of premarital sexual activity, the concept of woman as a human being with her own sexual needs and rights, and the possibility of terminating an unhappy marriage without incurring serious social censure. A second major change was…

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• status and link to infant mortality rate
  • In infant mortality rate

    In areas where women have few rights and where there is a large income difference between the poor and the wealthy, infant mortality rates tend to be high. Contributing to the problem are poor education and limited access to birth control, both of which lead to high numbers…

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• women’s rights movement
  • 
    In women’s rights movement

    …and greater personal freedom for women. It coincided with and is recognized as part of the “second wave” of feminism. While the first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women’s legal rights, especially the right to vote (see women’s suffrage), the second-wave feminism of the women’s…

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SPECIAL FEATURE

• Women in Science

sports and games

• 
  In sports: Gender and sports

  Many upper-middle-class women played golf, tennis, and field hockey; a few lower-class women boxed and wrestled. Women have had to campaign strenuously for access to “inappropriate” sports such as rugby and weightlifting, but they have been relatively successful in their efforts and now participate in a great…

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• baseball
  • 
    In baseball: A national pastime

    Although women were playing baseball as early as the 1860s, their involvement in the sport was confined for the most part to the role of spectator. To counter the game’s reputation for rowdiness, baseball promoters took pains to encourage women to attend. “The presence of an…

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  • 
    In baseball: Women in baseball

    Women have played organized baseball since the 1860s. Students at the all-female Vassar College formed baseball teams as early as 1866. In 1875 three men organized a women’s baseball club in Springfield, Illinois, divided it into two teams, the Blondes and the…

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• basketball
  • 
    In basketball: U.S. women’s basketball

    Clara Baer, who introduced basketball at the H. Sophie Newcomb College for Women in New Orleans, influenced the women’s style of play with her set of women’s rules, published in 1895. On receiving a diagram of the court from Naismith, Baer mistook dotted…

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• chess
  • 
    In chess: Women in chess

    Separation of the sexes in chess dates from about 1500 with the introduction of the queen. Chess became a much faster, more exciting game and, thus, came to be perceived as a more masculine pursuit. Women were often barred from the coffeehouses…

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• cricket
  • 
    In cricket: Women’s cricket

    Women first played cricket in England in the 18th century. In 1887 the first club, White Heather, was formed, and it survived to 1957. In 1890 two professional teams known collectively as the Original English Lady Cricketers were in action.

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• field hockey
  • 
    In field hockey

    …hockey became increasingly popular among women. Although women’s teams had played regular friendly games since 1895, serious international competition did not begin until the 1970s. The first Women’s World Cup was held in 1974, and women’s hockey became an Olympic event in 1980. The international governing body, the International Federation…

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• football
  • 
    In football: International organization

    The Under-19 Women’s World Championship was inaugurated in 2002.

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• ice hockey
  • 
    In ice hockey: Women’s hockey

    Though considered a male sport, hockey has been played by women for over 100 years. The first all-female game was in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, in 1892, and the first world championship was held in 1990. Recognizing the growing popularity of the sport, the…

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• lacrosse
  • 
    In lacrosse: Women’s lacrosse

    Popular in the British Isles, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States, women’s lacrosse was first played in Scottish and English private schools in the early 1900s and was introduced to schools and colleges in the eastern United States by…

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• marathon running
  • 
    In Boston Marathon

    …Roberta Gibb became the first woman to complete the race, though she ran without an official number. In 1967 Kathy Switzer, who had given her name as K.V. Switzer on the race application, was issued an official number and completed the marathon, although the race director tried to have her…

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• pentathlon
  • 
    In pentathlon

    In 2000 it became a women’s event in the Olympics. Originally a five-day contest, the modern pentathlon was shortened to four days in 1984 and to one day in 1996. The fencing competition is a round-robin tournament comprising one-minute, one-touch épée duels. The freestyle swim covers 200 metres. Competitors draw…

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• physical culture
  • 
    In physical culture: Women and athletics

    One of the greatest misconceptions about physical culture in the modern era was that it was meant for men only. Early efforts to incorporate European gymnastics into a liberal education were instigated by Catharine Beecher, scion of a New England family that…

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• polo
  • 
    In polo: International competition.

    …from common, British and American women also play polo. In the United States, women compete against women on the collegiate level, and there is a women’s National Handicap competition. Occasionally a woman also acts as the fourth member of an otherwise all-male team.

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• rodeos
  • 
    In rodeo: Rodeo structure

    Most prominent rodeos also include women’s barrel racing and team steer roping as regular program events. Steer roping, a traditional cowboy practice and a familiar rodeo event for several decades in the early 1900s, is today an infrequent competition because of considerations of animal welfare.

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• rugby
  • 
    In rugby: Women and rugby

    While rugby was being professionalized during the 1990s, a parallel revolution was under way in the sport. Because the relationship between masculinity and rugby has been passed between fathers and sons, and rugby participation became synonymous with learning to be a man…

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• surfing
  • 
    In surfing: The rise of women in surfing

    There were originally so few women surfers that often they would compete in men’s events, and this continued well into the 1970s. A women’s professional circuit began in 1977, but not until the mid-1990s did women take up surfing in large numbers.

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