Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The character or state of being feminine; female nature; womanliness.
- noun Womanhood; women collectively.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The quality or nature of the female sex; womanliness.
- noun obsolete The female form.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The sum of all attributes that convey (or are perceived to convey)
womanhood .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the trait of behaving in ways considered typical for women
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Women who choose to remain childless are free to compete as men do but their femininity is suspect and it, rightly, pisses them off.
It’s My Motherhood, And I’ll Celebrate It If I Want To | Her Bad Mother 2009
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This season's touchstone of understated femininity is soon to be passed over in favour of sexed-up, vibrant skirts and dresses, as seen at Roland Mouret, or in favour of a new androgyny championed on the catwalk by Dries Van Noten and Balenciaga.
Paris fashion week: wardrobe updates Jess Cartner-Morley 2010
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Anna is extremely feminine and her femininity translates into her fashions.
' 2010
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Sadly, where I live and work in science in the real world, femininity is indeed looked down on as a marker that a woman could not possibly be serious about science.
On Being a Woman and a Scientist Candid Engineer 2008
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Reading this passage was the first time I found anyone put into words what I felt … which was that femininity is not at odds with intelligence and competence, that the two are perfectly able to complement each other.
WE RULE THE WORLD; WE JUST LEAVE THEM THE DRY PARTS arhyalon 2007
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Masculinity, just like femininity, is a performative act.
Blog Against Sexism – Some (disjointed) thoughts on Masculinity & Masochism | Living the Liminal 2007
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Thoughts on aging and femininity from a veteran cultural observer.
Cover to Cover 2006
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This is not to suggest that the new clothes themselves caused changes in femininity, although it is arguable that the clothes helped women experience their bodies in new ways.
"Make It Yourself": Home Sewing, Gender, and Culture, 1890-1930 2006
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“A short animation clip that deals with the minimizing of the abstract and subjective term femininity into statistics.”
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Thoughts on aging and femininity from a veteran cultural observer.
Cover to Cover 2006
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