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The symbol of the Roman goddess Venus is often used to represent the female sex.

Female (♀) is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova (egg cells).

Defining characteristics[link]

The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male. A female individual cannot reproduce sexually without access to the gametes of a male (an exception is parthenogenesis). Some organisms can reproduce both sexually and asexually.

There is no single genetic mechanism behind sex differences in different species and the existence of two sexes seems to have evolved multiple times independently in different evolutionary lineages^{[citation needed]}. Patterns of sexual reproduction include

• isogamous species with two or more mating types with gametes of identical form and behavior (but different at the molecular level),
• anisogamous species with gametes of male and female types,
• oogamous species in which the female gamete is very much larger than the male and has no ability to move. There is an argument that this pattern was driven by the physical constraints on the mechanisms by which two gametes get together as required for sexual reproduction.^[1]

Other than the defining difference in the type of gamete produced, differences between males and females in one lineage cannot always be predicted by differences in another. The concept is not limited to animals; egg cells are produced by chytrids, diatoms, water moulds and land plants, among others. In land plants, female and male designate not only the egg- and sperm-producing organisms and structures, but also the structures of the sporophytes that give rise to male and female plants.

Etymology and usage[link]

The word female comes from the Latin femella, the diminutive form of femina, meaning "woman," which is not etymologically related to the word male. In the late 14th century, the spelling was altered in English to parallel the spelling of male.^[2]

Mammalian female[link]

A distinguishing characteristic of the class Mammalia is the presence of mammary glands. The mammary glands are modified sweat glands that produce milk, which is used to feed the young for some time after birth. Only mammals produce milk. Mammary glands are most obvious in humans, as the female human body stores large amounts of fatty tissue near the nipples, resulting in prominent breasts. Today some human females also surgically augment their breast size. However, mammary glands are present in all mammals, although they are vestigial in the male of the species.

The mammalian female has two copies of the X chromosome as opposed to the male which carries only one X and one smaller Y chromosome. To compensate for the difference in size, one of the female's X chromosomes is randomly inactivated in each cell. In birds and reptiles, by contrast, it is the female who is heterozygous and carries a Z and a W chromosome whilst the male carries two Z chromosomes.

Mammalian females bear live young (with the rare exception of monotremes, which lay eggs). Some non-mammalian species, such as guppies, have analogous reproductive structures; and some other non-mammals, such as sharks, whose eggs hatch inside their bodies, also have the appearance of bearing live young.

Symbol[link]

A common symbol used to represent the female sex is ♀ (Unicode: U+2640 Alt codes: Alt+12), a circle with a small cross underneath. According to Schott^[3], the most established view is that the male and female symbols "are derived from contractions in Greek script of the Greek names of these planets, namely Thouros (Mars) and Phosphoros (Venus). These derivations have been traced by Renkama^[4] who illustrated how Greek letters can be transformed into the graphic male and female symbols still recognised today." Thouros was abbreviated by θρ, and Phosphoros by Φκ, which were contracted into the modern symbols.

Sex determination[link]

The sex of a particular organism may be determined by a number of factors. These may be genetic or environmental, or may naturally change during the course of an organism's life. Although most species with male and female sexes have individuals that are either male or female, hermaphroditic animals have both male and female reproductive organs.

Genetic determination[link]

The sex of most mammals, including humans, is genetically determined by the XY sex-determination system where males have X and Y (as opposed to X and X) sex chromosomes. During reproduction, the male contributes either an X sperm or a Y sperm, while the female always contributes an X egg. A Y sperm and an X egg produce a boy, while an X sperm and an X egg produce a girl. The ZW sex-determination system, where males have ZZ (as opposed to ZW) sex chromosomes, is found in birds and some insects and other organisms. Members of Hymenoptera, such as ants and bees, are determined by haplodiploidy, where most males are haploid and females and some sterile males are diploid.

Environmental determination[link]

The young of some species develop into one sex or the other depending on local environmental conditions, e.g. many crocodilians' sex is influenced by the temperature of their eggs. Other species (such as the goby) can transform, as adults, from one sex to the other in response to local reproductive conditions (such as a shortage of males).

See also[link]

Look up female in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Females

• Dakini
• Femininity
• Feminine side
• Gestation
• Girl
• Lactation
• Male
• Transwoman
• Transman
• Woman
• Womyn

Sources[link]

Ayers, Donald M. English Words from Latin and Greek Elements. Second Edition. 1986. University of Arizona Press. United States.

References[link]

Ivet lalova

Personal information
Nationality	Bulgaria
Born	(1984-05-18) 18 May 1984 (age 28) Sofia, Bulgaria
Sport
Sport	Running
Event(s)	100 metres, 200 metres
Medal record Women's Athletics Competitor for  Bulgaria European Indoor Championships Gold 2005 Madrid 200 m

Ivet Lalova (Bulgarian: Ивет Лалова, born 18 May 1984 in Sofia) is a Bulgarian athlete who specialises in the 100 metres and 200 metres sprint events. She is the tenth fastest woman in 100 metres history, the fastest white woman in the world,^[1] and finished fourth in the 100 metres and fifth in the 200 metres at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Her career was interrupted for two years between June 2005 and May 2007 due to a leg injury. She is engaged to the Italian sprinter Simone Collio.^[2]

Career overview[link]

Childhood and junior years[link]

Lalova's parents, Miroslav Lalov and Liliya Petrunova, were talented sprinters. Miroslav was the Bulgarian 200 metres champion in 1966. Lalova began competing in swimming and gymnastics at age 10, and soon switched to track and field. She became the Bulgarian Youth champion in the 100 metres competition in 2000, and placed fourth in the 200 metres at the 2001 IAAF World Youth Championships. At the 2003 European Athletics Junior Championships, she won both the 100 metres and 200 metres events.^[3]

Senior career[link]

On 19 June 2004 in Plovdiv, Lalova tied Irina Privalova as the sixth fastest woman in 100 metres history, recording a time of 10.77 seconds.^[4] At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she placed 4th overall in the women's 100m competition, and 5th in the 200m. At the 2005 European Athletics Indoor Championships, she was awarded a gold medal for her time of 22.91 seconds in the 200m.

On 14 June 2005, Lalova's career was interrupted when she broke her right femur after a collision with another athlete while warming up for the 100m sprint at the Athens Super Grand Prix.^[5][6] In June 2006, the Bulgarian Olympic Committee awarded her the IOC "Sports and Fair Play" prize for her conduct in the aftermath of the incident, when she declined to seek compensation from her fellow competitor or the event's organizers.^[7]

Lalova was appointed to the European Athletic Association Athletes Commission for 2006–2010 following an election held in August at the 2006 European Athletics Championships.^[8]

Lalova returned to competitive racing on 29 May 2007, at the Artur Takač Memorial in Belgrade, winning the 100m in a time of 11.26 seconds.^[9] In August 2007 she reached the quarterfinals of the women's 100m sprint at the IAAF World Championship in Osaka but failed to progress, finishing in fifth place with a time of 11.33 seconds.^[10]

At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Lalova was eliminated in the semifinals of the Women's 100m, finishing her heat in seventh place with a time of 11.51 seconds, and was eliminated in the second round of the Women's 200m.

In March 2011 she moved to Italy joining the group of Professor Roberto Bonomi. Later, in 2011 she started her season with 11.08 and 22.66 and after a week won the 100m Diamond League event in Oslo with 11.01 (2.1 m/s). After another week she ran the second best time of her career 10"96 (0.8) during the Balkan Championships in Sliven, Bulgaria.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• IAAF profile for Ivet Lalova

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ivet Lalova