Woman

Biology and anatomy

The woman is the Femelle of the Mankind. The sex is determined by the human Chromosome 21, female in the case of a pair of Chromosome S XX, whereas the male sex is determined by sexual chromosomes XY. The women and the men normally have differentiated hormonal productions and the typical Hormone S of the woman are the estrogen S and the Progestérone. The genital apparatuses differ notably. Secondary sexual differences appear during the Puberté, like the Sein S, the size of the individual, the Indice of fatty mass, the Pilosité, or skeleton forms it: width of the Hip S, the shoulders. The operation even of the brain would differ according to the sex from the individual according to the American psychologist Doreen Kimura but that would relate to only the areas which control the reproduction sexuée according to the French neurobiologist Catherine Vidal.

The place of the women in the companies

Cultural definitions

The place of the women in the various cultures and times was more studied as from the XXe century and of the feminist movements , as of the researchers in social sciences sought to include/understand and fight the reasons of the inequality of condition and social status between the men and the women which is often with the base even traditional companies, and which one finds the trace into the contemporary companies. Several researchers thus tried, in particular as from the years 1970, to fight against what they perceived like a skew sexist of social sciences, in particular in anthropology and in history: the absence of the women as an object of study.

The problem of the condition of the women in the company, considered to be inequitable and unjust by the feminist , was one of the topics of reflection most studied at the 20th century and the topicality sometimes gave him a dominating place in the civil and political debate, as during the events of May 68 in France. In certain cultures, the place of the women is currently an policy issue and of topicality important, such as for example in Quebec, where the Fédération of the women of Quebec initiated the world Marche of the Women in the year 2000.

Traditional companies

See the article Political anthropology.

Women in the Antiquity

In Greece

As of the birth, the girls undergo a treatment specific to their sex and which is due to the eugenism usually practiced in Greece for economic reasons and racial. Thus the girls, considered to be more useless than the boys (indeed, the latter were formed with the art of the war and imported for the defense of the City), were more easily exposed than them (i.e. abandoned in nature), or sold. Moreover, they profited from less care and attention. In general, the women are scorned: “it is Zeus which created the supreme evil: women. ” (Sémonide d' Amorgos).

One however finds some exceptions at Pythagoriciens (see Théano).

See also: Place of the women in ancient Greece

In Rome

With Rome, the function of the woman is to marry and to have children. Its civil statute is especially determined by the role which is it his relative with the man:

puella , virgo (young girl): the girl receives primarily a domestic instruction; she carries, like the boy, a bubble which she gives up the day of her marriage;
uxor , conjux (wife): the girls marry as from approximately 14 years, then more and more early during the centuries (around 12 years at the end of the Roman Empire of occident); the woman is regarded as minor who passes by the marriage of the authority of the father to that of her husband;
matrona , materfamilias (mother): like mother, the woman is guardian of the hearth.

Women in the industrial society

Nowadays, one notes a difference in access to the professions and in the wages, which can be explained partially by the provisions of maternity, more constraining for the employer. The women occupy mainly of employment in the tertiary sector (services), in particular in relational stations or concerning to the domestic functions (kitchen, household, care, guard and education of the children). They are more prone to the precarious employment or part-time, and maternity often constitutes a brake with their professional progression. The people with the hearth are always as a vast majority of the Housewives.

According to a study of the Management of animation and research of the studies and statistics (Dares), in France in 2002, more half of female employment are concentrated in 10 professional families out of 84.

Source: According to Dares, female employment progresses, but there remains confined with the professions of the tertiary sector , Remi Barroux, Le Monde, August 12th 2004

It is to be noticed that the majority of the created jobs are it today in the tertiary sector also.

35.9%: domestic industry
25%: worker
14.4%: domestic
8%: employee

The women work in particular the textile in the factories. The manufacturers prefer the women with the men at the time of recruitment because they allot to them wages lower than that of the men. In addition to their work, they deal with the maintenance of their residence, of the meals of all the family and the education of the children. During the war, they occupied all vacant left employment, until in the mines where work requires much force.

The inequalities man-woman

Traditionally, the women were, except in some rare companies matriarcales, considered as being lower than the men on a social plan.

economic: inequality of the men and the women in front of the Employment S, the women not being able always to work or have their wages without the agreement of the husband. Their wages are on average weaker than those of the men, but this difference does not take account of the education levels;
political: quasi absence of the women on the political scene;
on the family level, the divorce can be limited, in particular with the divorce for fault at the request of the husband because of male absence of heir; certain companies also admit body maltreatment against the women, at the discretion of the husband; polygamy is almost always exclusively male (a man for several women).
on the level of female sexuality:

the women would be " passives" : thus, until the beginning of the XXe century, the Church did not admit that only one type of sexual relations: vaginal the heterosexuals reports/ratios of a married couple, with the woman on her back and the man with the top of it (position known as " missionnaire") ; any other report/ratio was regarded as a sin and the woman could not refuse with the man to have sexual relations.
this passivity supposed gives place also to Female genital mutilations, in particular the Excision.
various contraceptive methods (coils, condoms, IVG…) are often illegal in many countries, the woman not being then main of its body.

The movement of equalization of the man-woman ratios is, altogether, rather recent. It in particular spread in the Western companies in the Années 1960 (feminist movements which in particular developed there).

This movement rather remained circumscribed at the Western companies. But recently, one can see outlines of movements in favor of the women's rights to diversify in the whole world. One can thus quote the congress on the " feminism islamique" in Barcelona from November 3rd to 5th 2006, or a series of Indian laws of October 25th, 2006 which modified the essence of the right of the family in a levelling direction.

It thus remains of many inequalities, even in the Western companies.

Violence

Concerning violence, in particular marital, the women are mainly the victims (concerning the sexual assaults, more than 99% of the rapes are because of the men, and only 3% of the prison population French are female).

However, that can be moderate because:

On the one hand, the feminization of the trade associations, in particular of the police officers and the judges, involves a stronger repression of violences towards the women. The former vision of the police force and justice was somewhat " paternaliste". The victimization of the women being natural, it was regarded as " normal" (with the direction where it was current and which one could nothing make there) but one man beats his wife, for example. The women victims then hid often violences in their opposition (not to declaration of rapes; the idea that marital violences were non-existent in the middle-classes…).

In addition, the female delinquency increases.

to however note that this delinquency remains generally without violence and that, moreover, they are often dispute without victim (out-of-paper condition of identity, soliciting…). It acts less in this case of an increase of the delinquency than of a more severe repression.
In the serious cases of violences made by the women, because of the movement of social equality, one accepts less than the women déresponsabilisent themselves (“Yes, I killed my husband, but it is because it beat me… ”).

The stability of this female delinquency is explained, for Frederic Ocqueteau by the fact why female violence is different by nature from male violence. While male violence is turned towards outside, the women, from male oppression, turn over this violence against themselves: one recently saw the big raise of the number of married Afghan young girls of force who immolent themselves by fire… The State is able to deal only with the first; the second, it, is practically not taken into account by the company.

That appears in particular by typically female pathologies. The women tend to want to conform to a model; however, that which is almost universal today is the model of the Western type, i.e. that of slender women and young appearance. That involves many anorexias. In other traditional companies (Mauritania, Mali…), however, the model woman is on the contrary a mature woman with very marked forms. The women can then be gavées or gaver as of their more young age.

Scientific speech of the inequality man-woman

The scientific speech a long time (as of Antiquity) tried to justify cultural inequalities by inequalities which would be natural. Darwin, in particular, in his study on the evolution of the man, tries to justify the company victorienne (women dependant and remaining at the house). During the XXe century, however, the scientists could show the indifference of the sexes before at 2 years, which means that differences between men and women who can exist are primarily cultural and social, because resulting from education.

The scientific speech, traditionally male (scientific women remaining a minority), preserves many a priori however.

One sees today a certain recrudescence of the scientific speeches trying to justify inequalities man-woman. It is the case in particular studies on the differentiated behaviors and the cerebral reactions (psychological dimorphism). Often taken out of their context, one often popularizes these studies while saying in particular which the women are more emotional than the men because they have the left hemisphere of the brain more developed, while the men, them, using more right hemisphere, would be rather scientists. It is to forget that the behavioral differences between men and women are much more important than those between men and women.

Women and policy

The women acquired a statute of citizen with whole share very tardily, since the right to vote their was recognized for the first time in 1869 in the Wyoming, 1893 in New Zealand, 1918 with the Canada (at the federal level, provinces having already granted the right to vote at the provincial level between 1916 and 1922 but only in 1940 to Quebec), 1919 in Germany and 1944 in France

After a slow conquest of their rights, in Europe, the women are done more present on the political scene, with for example Angela Merkel become chancelière or Tarja Halonen, president de Finlande. They remain however still very largely minority.

N.B. : there are today 195 States recognized by the United Nations.

Women and sport

Certain sporting disciplines, like the athletics, the gymnastics or the sports of balloons, are organized without co-education. For the disciplines practiced at the same time by men and women, the current rule consists in exclusively comparing the performances of the women between them. In the majority of the mixed competitions, such as the marathon, where the men and the women are together, the organizers apply this rule of comparison between men on a side and women of another. The disciplines which do not hold to the women any particular category and, therefore where the performance of each one is compared without distinction " man/femme" , are very few; the majority of the equestrian sports, the automobile race and the sail belong to this last type of discipline.

In the professional sport, the wages and the premiums of the women are generally lower has those of the men: the male sport being diffused more in the media and thus causing more incomes. Football and cycling are striking examples. The principal disciplines which count women as athletes of international repute are the athletics, the gymnastics, swimming, tennis and the sail.

In the world échiquéen, special prices are often allotted to the women; Sometimes, the categories are distinct, or the players/players are units but the classifications are distinct. This is due to a will to encourage the female participation in a manifestly male activity, encouragement of which the effects could be noted. However this reward system often is included/understood like adapting to a difference in capacities between men and women. (and perhaps sometimes adopted for this reason) only measurement in favor of the co-education which does not incur this dangerous insinuation is the quota: a team of division three or more must introduce at least a woman. If this woman is generally with the last chess-board, it is due to the weak population of players which induces a weak population of strong players. But there still, this fact is often perceived as the sign of the superiority of the male capacities.

See also : the sport with female the

Women and development

The women in general are touched hard than the men by the problems of development. The Program of the United Nations for the development (UNDP) measurement that with two compound indexes of human development:

the ISDH, sexo-specific indicator of human development;
the IPF, indicator of the participation of the women.

See the article: Indicating of human development.

In his report/ratio published in 2005 on the state of the world population, the Fonds of the United Nations for the population (UNFPA) draws up a list of figures showing the inequality whose the object the women compared to the men in the world make. Among all these figures, one can note that of the number of illiterate women , 600 million, that is to say the double of that of the men.

Moreover, all confused categories, it is necessary to apply to the women as regards work the rule of 2/3-1/3: they carry out approximately the two-thirds of work (by taking account of the house work) in the world but receive only one the third of the wages.

See too

References

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