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Concept
Female
Summary
An organism's sex is female (symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction.
A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and males are results of the anisogamous reproduction system, wherein gametes are of different sizes (unlike isogamy where they are the same size). The exact mechanism of female gamete evolution remains unknown.
In species that have males and females, sex-determination may be based on either sex chromosomes, or environmental conditions. Most female mammals, including female humans, have two X chromosomes. Female characteristics vary between different species, with some species having pronounced secondary female sex characteristics, such as the presence of pronounced mammary glands in mammals.
In humans, the word female can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or gender identity.
The word female comes from the Latin femella, the diminutive form of femina, meaning "woman". It is not etymologically related to the word male, but in the late 14th century the English spelling was altered to parallel that of male. Female is also used as a noun meaning "a female organism", though describing women as females is often considered disparaging, as it makes no distinction between other animals and humans.
Biological sex is conceptually distinct from gender, although they are often used interchangeably. The adjective female can describe a person's sex or gender identity.
The word can also refer to the shape of connectors and fasteners, such as screws, electrical pins, and technical equipment. Under this convention, sockets and receptacles are called female, and the corresponding plugs male.
Females produce ova, the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller and usually motile gametes, the spermatozoa, are produced by males. Generally, a female cannot reproduce sexually without access to the gametes of a male, and vice versa, but in some species females can reproduce by themselves asexually, for example via parthenogenesis.
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