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Sex differences in human physiology are distinctions of physiological characteristics associated with either male or female humans. These differences are caused by the effects of the different sex chromosome complement in males and females, and differential exposure to gonadal sex hormones during development.
A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, for instance, refers to the semantically based "covert" gender (e.g. male and female, not masculine and feminine) of English nouns, as opposed to the "overt" gender of some English pronouns; this yields nine gender classes: male, female, dual, common, collective, higher male animal, higher female ...
The ideas of differences between the male and female brains have circulated since the time of Ancient Greek philosophers around 850 BC. In 1854, German anatomist Emil Huschke discovered a size difference in the frontal lobe, where male frontal lobes are 1% larger than those of females. [6]
Women and men have been surveyed by Gallup each year concerning workplace topics. When questioned about preferences of a female boss or a male boss, women chose a preference for a male boss 39% of the time, compared to 26% of men displaying preference for a male boss. Only 27% of women would prefer a boss of the same gender. [49]
A proposed evolutionary hypothesis is that men and women evolved different mental abilities to adapt to their different roles, including labor-based roles, in society. [51] For example, "ancestral women more often foraged for fruits, vegetables, and roots over large geographic regions."
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; [16] it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child. [17]
In the XY sex-determination system, the female-provided ovum contributes an X chromosome and the male-provided sperm contributes either an X chromosome or a Y chromosome, resulting in female (XX) or male (XY) offspring, respectively. Hormone levels in the male parent affect the sex ratio of sperm in humans. [25]
Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, [1] [2] and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered feminine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors.