Womanhood
Womanhood – a socially and culturally recognized status of being a woman, associated with ideas of female adulthood, femininity, maturity, dignity, sexuality, motherhood, care, respectability, responsibility, and the norms by which a person is recognized as a “proper” woman in a given society.
Womanhood is not identical to biological femaleness. It refers to the cultural meaning of being a woman and to the expectations attached to female identity, behavior, embodiment, sexuality, emotional expression, family roles, reproductive capacity, and social responsibility.
In gender and feminist studies, womanhood is analyzed as a historically and culturally variable construct. Different societies define womanhood in different ways, often linking it to modesty, beauty, marriage, motherhood, domesticity, care, sexual respectability, or moral virtue. Feminist theory critically examines how such norms shape women’s identities, opportunities, constraints, social value, and relations with men and with other women.
See also: Femininity, Manhood, Masculinity.
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