Asia Under Girls 044

Conversely, in certain 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 may, in such a culture, imply that she is sexually experienced, which would be an insult to her family.

In some settings, the use of girl to refer to an adult female is a vestigial practice (such as girls' night out), even among some elderly women. In this sense, girl may be considered to be the analogue to the British word bloke for a man, although it again fails to meet the parallel status as an adult and the only true American English parallel to girl is boy. Gal aside, some feminists cite this lack of an informal yet respectful term for women as misogynistic; they regard non-parallel usages, such as men and girls, as sexist.

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Under Girls 043

The word woman can be used generally, to mean any female human, or specifically, to mean an adult female human as contrasted with girl. The word girl originally meant "young person of either sex" in English; it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child. Nowadays girl sometimes is used colloquially to refer to a young or unmarried woman. During the early 1970s feminists challenged such use, and use of the word to refer to a fully grown woman may cause offence. In particular previously common terms such as office girl are no longer used.

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Under Girls 042

Womanhood is the period in a female's life after she has transitioned from girlhood, at least physically, having passed the age of menarche. Many cultures have rites of passage to symbolize a woman's coming of age, such as confirmation in some branches of Christianity, bat mitzvah in Judaism, or even just the custom of a special celebration for a certain birthday (generally between 12 and 21).

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Under Girls 041

The symbol for the planet Venus is the sign also used in biology for the female gender. It is a stylized representation of the goddess Venus's hand mirror or an abstract symbol for the goddess: a circle with a small equilateral 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 an equilateral cross (representing matter).

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Under Girls 040

A very common Indo-European root for woman, *g^wen-, is the source of English queen (Old English cwēn primarily meant woman, highborn or not; this is still the case in Danish, with the modern spelling kvinde), as well as gynaecology (from Greek gynē), banshee (from Old Irish ban) and zenana (from Persian zan). The Latin fēmina, whence female, is likely from the root in fellāre (to suck), referring to breastfeeding.^[2][3]

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Sexiest Girls 055

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". ("Wyf" also evolved into the word "wife".) "Man" does continue to carry its original sense of "Human" however, resulting in an asymmetry sometimes criticized as sexist.^[1] (See also Womyn.)

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Sexiest Girls 054

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 English. This derives from a Proto-Indo-European root "man-" meaning hand. A similar cognate is Old Norse "mund", hand, as well as most Romance words for "hand", such as French main and Portuguese mão. The distinctive and dexterous hands of humans, compared to those of other animals, are the basis of this term and the similarly derived term, "manual" (from Latin "Manus", hand), by hand.

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Sexiest Girls 053

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

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Sexiest Girls 052

Girl athletes and working women

In the 19th century, poor women were known to wear corsets "boned" with rope, rather than steel or bone, to facilitate work in the field.

Approx. second half of 1880's poster showing Annie Oakley wearing short-skirted attire

A 1897 ad, showing a relatively early example of an ordinary non-sea-bathing woman in public view in unskirted garments (to ride a bicycle)

The Wigan "pit brow lasses" scandalized Victorian society by wearing trousers for their dangerous work in the coal mines. They wore skirts over their trousers, rolled up to the waist to keep them out of the way.

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Sexiest Girls 051

Artistic dress movement

Main article: Artistic Dress movement

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and other artistic reformers objected to the elaborately trimmed confections of Victorian fashion with their unnatural silhouette based on a rigid corset and hoops as both ugly and dishonest. Their wives and models adopted a revival style based on romanticised medieval influences such as puffed juliette sleeves and trailing skirts. These were made in the soft colors of vegetable dyes, and were ornamented with hand embroidery in the art needlework style.

The style spread as an "anti-fashion" called Artistic dress in the 1860s in literary and artistic circles, died back in the 1870s, and reemerged as Aesthetic dress in the 1880s, where the emphasis was not so much on honesty and purity as sensuality and langour.

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki