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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.

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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.

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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).

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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).

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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]

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Style Gallery 1890-96

1 - 1890-92	2 - 1892	3 - 1892-93	4 - 1894
5- 1895	6 - 1896

1. Praskovia Tchaokovskaia wears a high-necked day gown with puffed elbow-length sleeves and a fabric belt or sash, Russia, 1890-92.
2. Day dresses of 1892 have low waists and high necklines. Sleeves have a high, gathered sleeve-head and are fitted to the lower arm.
3. Evening gowns of 1892-3 feature short or elbow-length full, puffed sleeves and floral trimmings.
4. Walking suits of 1894 show shorter skirts and matching jackets with leg o' mutton sleeves.
5. Punch Cartoon of 1895 shows a fashionable bicycle suit.
6. Photograph of woman wearing a summer dress with elbow-length puffed sleeves and a high neck, New Jersey, 1895. The tight belt falls near the natural waistline.

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Influence of aesthetic dress

The 1890s in both Europe and America saw growing acceptance of artistic or aesthetic dress as mainstream fashion, especially in the adoption of the uncorseted tea gown for at-home wear. In America in this period, Dress, the Jenness Miller Magazine (1887-1898) [1], reported that tea gowns were being worn outside the home for the first time in fashionable summer resorts.

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