Woman

A woman is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. The term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "women's rights". "Woman" may also refer to a person's gender identity. Women with typical genetic development are usually capable of giving birth from puberty until menopause. In the context of gender identity, transgender people who are biologically determined to be male and identify as women cannot give birth. Some intersex people who identify as women cannot give birth due to either sterility or inheriting one or more Y chromosomes. In extremely rare cases, people who have Swyer syndrome can give birth with medical assistance. Throughout history women have assumed or been assigned various social roles.

Etymology

The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman. In Old English, wīfmann meant "female human", whereas wēr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone"; however, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 13th century had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr. The medial labial consonants f and m in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female", underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female; modern German retains the colloquial term "Wampe" from Middle High German for "potbelly"). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.

Women (novel)

Women is a 1978 novel written by Charles Bukowski, starring his semi-autobiographical character Henry Chinaski. In contrast to Factotum, Post Office and Ham on Rye, Women is centered on Chinaski's later life, as a celebrated poet and writer, not as a dead-end lowlife. It does, however, feature the same constant carousel of women with whom Chinaski only finds temporary fulfillment.

Plot

Women focuses on the many dissatisfactions Chinaski faced with each new woman he encountered. One of the women featured in the book is a character named Lydia Vance; she is based on Bukowski's one-time girlfriend, the sculptress and sometime poet Linda King. Another central female character in the book is named "Tanya" who is described as a 'tiny girl-child' and Chinaski's pen-pal. They have a weekend tryst. The real-life counterpart to this character wrote a self-published chapbook about the affair entitled "Blowing My Hero" under the pseudonym Amber O'Neil. The washed-up folksinger "Dinky Summers" is based on Bob Lind.

Women (album)

Women is the debut album by Calgary band Women, recorded by fellow Calgary-native Chad VanGaalen. It was released in 2008 on VanGaalen's Flemish Eye record label in Canada, and on Jagjaguwar in the US. The song "Sag Harbour Song" is a direct reference to the suicide of the artist Ray Johnson, like "Locust Valley" and "Venice Lockjaw" on Women's second album of 2010, Public Strain.

Recording

Women was recorded by Polaris Music Prize-nominated Chad VanGaalen, in "[VanGaalen's] basement, an outdoor culvert and a crawlspace." It was recorded using boom boxes and tape machines, contributing to its lo-fi sound.

Reception

Women was released to favourable reviews, with Cokemachineglow naming it as "the best 'indie rock' record released [in 2008], hands down."

Track listing

References

External links

Lover (clothing)

Lover is an Australian fashion label launched in 2001 by designers Susien Chong and Nic Briand. The label began as a weekend stall at Bondi Markets with a ten-piece collection of random separates. Since then, Lover has risen to prominence in Australia and internationally.

Background

Lover's collections all draw upon inspirations from the worlds of art, music, film and pop culture. Designer Nic Briand says each collection "has a narrative and central character". Influences on the duo include Jean-Luc Godard, early Woody Allen films, Black Flag, Marianne Faithfull. Nic Briand's influences tend to be "heavier" such as the Wu-Tang Clan, comic books and Jimi Hendrix, whereas Susien Chong's are "softer" elements such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, ballet and Roberta Flack.

Collections

Melodies (SS 2004)

Features a palette of cream, pale blue and black with polka-dot motifs and the Lover trademark oversized buttons. Influences:

Miss Francoise (AW 2004)

Black, white, red and midnight blues are used, with oversized buttons and satin. The collection has a masculine edge with pieces such as crisp white shirts, cuffed wide-legged pants and suspenders.

Kesha

Kesha Rose Sebert (born March 1, 1987) (formerly stylized as Ke$ha) is an American singer, songwriter and rapper. In 2005, at age 18, Kesha was signed to producer Dr. Luke's label Kemosabe Records. Her breakthrough came in early 2009 after appearing on rapper Flo Rida's number-one single, "Right Round". Her debut album, Animal, and her first extended play, Cannibal, were released in 2010. Kesha's music and image propelled her to immediate commercial success, with Animal debuting as the number-one album in the United States. She also achieved two number-one singles, "Tik Tok" and "We R Who We R", and a string of top-ten hits singles from the album and its re-release. At the same time, she continued to write songs for other artists, including "Till the World Ends" for Britney Spears. Warrior, her second studio album, was released in December 2012, spawning Kesha's eighth top-ten single with "Die Young". "Tik Tok" is among the best-selling digital singles in history, selling over 14 million units internationally.

Lover (novel)

Lover is a lesbian feminist novel by Bertha Harris, published in 1976 by Daughters, Inc., a Vermont small press dedicated to women's fiction. It is considered Harris's most ambitious work, and has been compared to Djuna Barnes's Nightwood and the stories of Jane Bowles. Harris has said that it was written "straight from the libido, while I was madly in love, and liberated by the lesbian cultural movement of the mid-1970s."

Aesthetics and Critical Reception

Lover's prose is distinctly postmodern, eschewing conventional narrative for experimental narrative techniques. In contrast to some lesbian novels of the time, such as Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle (also, incidentally, published by Daughters), which used a prototypical bildungsroman technique with a lesbian placed squarely at the center, Lover reflects complex notions of radical lesbian philosophy, community, family structure, and eroticism by using highly inventive, often fantastical storytelling techniques. In Harris's introduction to the 1993 edition, she writes, "Lover should be absorbed as if it were a theatrical performance. There's tap dancing and singing, disguise, sleights of hand, mirror illusions, quick-change acts, and drag." Amanda C. Gable has argued that Lover "can be considered an exemplary novel within discussions of both postmodern fiction and lesbian (or queer) theory," and calls for "Harris to be added to the group of writers such as Wittig, Anzaldúa, Lorde, and Winterson, who are discussed within the context of a postmodern lesbian narrative."