1The state or condition of being a woman.

1. 1.1 The qualities considered to be natural to or characteristic of a woman.
   Mary was cultivated as an ideal of womanhood

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Women were, strictly speaking, not allowed to fulfill the highest ideal of filial piety, an ideal that was ironically grounded in the virtue attributed to ideal womanhood - the maternal instinct to care and be cared for.
   • This more primitive expression of womanhood is fused with the typically reclining posture of renaissance figures, such as Michelangelo's Dawn.
   • All through his sermons Topsell tries to portray Naomi and Ruth as symbols of ideal womanhood who are guilty of no moral or religious offense.
   • True womanhood emphasized the qualities of piety, purity, maternity, submissiveness, virtue, and domesticity.
   • On the other hand, womanhood is associated with the characteristics of being sensible, tender, nurturing and caring.
   • Also, I think you're assuming that Wittig and other lesbians/feminists want to ‘liberate’ a true, natural womanhood from cultural baggage etc.
   • Within America itself, strong female characters emerge from and repudiate the caricatures of womanhood that populate the narrative.
   • From its inception, the genteel performance was connected with ideologies of gender, particularly the ideal of true womanhood.
   • A male clergy found a way of harnessing the devotion of women, whether in congregations or not, to promote the cult of the Virgin, both as a way of feminizing Catholicism and of legitimizing the virtues of womanhood and motherhood.
   • I don't think it tells us about deep underlying trends or revisions to ideals of womanhood.
   • Women responded positively to this new ideal, for it endowed motherhood, and thus womanhood, with a new sense of dignity and purpose.
   • Backed up by the views of psychologists, doctors and an actress who almost died trying to conform to the currently dominant stick - insect look, I looked forward to a return to a healthier ideal of womanhood.
   • She has presented women figures in an artistic impact-assessment on the concept of womanhood across centuries.
   • However, the Virgin Mother, the ideal of womanhood as presented by a patriarchal church, has been at the expense of real women.
   • Graves's goal was to promote model womanhood for young women by writing about ideal types.
   • Central to the idea of Mother Teresa is this idea of womanhood, of the feminine, of selflessness, calling and sacrifice.
   • Is this girl the type and quality of womanhood best suited to this man for a successful life?
   • Whether or not these methods were flawed matters not; what is important is that ideal womanhood was, in part, physical.
   • Motherhood is a powerful metaphor because it is central to esteemed ideals of womanhood, particularly among Latinos.
   • Eventually, however, the honor, strength, character and womanhood of Radha the woman prevails and she returns back to her hungry children with honor and dignity.

   Synonyms

   womanliness, femininity, feminineness, womanly/feminine qualities
2. 1.2 Women considered collectively.
   half of Britain's womanhood is dress size 14 and over

   Example sentencesExamples

   • This time we play Cupid, and what we behold is a smoother landscape with fewer peaks and valleys, a thoroughly modern image of taut contemporary womanhood.
   • The virtue of white womanhood could not be assumed; it had to be enforced.
   • I work for my ideal of German womanhood with whom, some day, I will live my life in the east and fight my battles as a German far from beautiful Germany.
   • By the time the duo meet years later, however, Kajol has mutated into the quintessential image of traditional womanhood, perpetually clothed in chiffon saris and polite diffidence.
   • And did Berry baring her torso in Swordfish provide the wholesome image of black womanhood that the NAACP says it wants to promote?
   • And in any case, polyandry is certainly not the ideal for Indian womanhood.
   • They are relics from the past, certainly, but a past ideal of Indian womanhood that impinges all too easily on India's troubled present and has serious repercussions for India's future.
   • Poverty pins them between traditional ideals of Italian womanhood and the claims of urban workplaces.
   • These imagined and real mothers provide an important counter to the negative images of black womanhood circulated in other media.
   • The sit-in was therefore rife with just the sorts of contradictions which communists identified with proletarian womanhood, and women became obvious and crucial actors in its realization.
   • This characterisation is problematic, as here Mehta is reinforcing the stereotype of docile, demure, and pristine femininity as the ideal form of South Asian womanhood.
   • She personifies the ‘unstained patriotic American womanhood our boys are fighting for.’
   • These comments reveal the contested space within the very image of modern womanhood in the 1920s: was it ‘wild’ to dance, play bridge and go to the theater?
   • The resolution of the Duchess's feud with the Binney family underscores the character's position as the apparent antithesis of true black womanhood.
   • Yet public opinion had been captured, and it was taken for granted that lynching was a just response to the barbarous sexual crimes against white womanhood.
   • African women may feel multiple allegiances: community affiliations, ethnic identification, global womanhood, and racial solidarity.
   • When Ting returns to the fight club, he's obliged to defend the honour of Thai womanhood from a shaggy Australian behemoth.
   • My insights into French womanhood were greatly expanded when I met Mamie and Tantine, who are respectively Robert's mother and aunt.
   • Stoker wanted us to be revolted by the sexualizing of pure English womanhood, to see their corruption as striking at the foundation of English life and, by extension, civilized society.
   • It depicts the strength and courage of Indian womanhood.

   Synonyms

   women, womenfolk

   womankind, womenkind, woman

   the female sex