What is a man? What is a woman?

       Ideology and biology are the two primary variables I think of when contemplating the questions: What is a man? and What is a woman?  When I initially think of the difference between man and woman, I think of the two separate genders, male and female.  This thought, I believe, is what first pops into my head because from a very early age we as children are told that we are either a boy or a girl. 

       So, for example, say you are a girl.  You know you are a girl and you identity the classmates that look like you as girls, too, and you view the others as boys.  Because we are raised with the idea that there are only two categories, boys and girls, when we are older and discover that there are other types of people in the world besides only girls and boys, we question those people and often label them as "weird" or "different."  Why?  Because those people do not identify themselves as a "girl" or a "boy."

       The etymology of words and their derivation, I think, plays a huge role in the ideologies society has constructed for men and women.  Meaning, I believe it is important to look where the words "man" and "woman" derived in order to see why it is the words "man and woman" or "male and female" that differentiate the two genders instead of other words.  For example, Mannus is a Germanic mythological figure believed to be the "progenitor of the human race."  So, from this word, "mannus," derived the word mann, or man, which came to mean "human being, person."  Since much of how people identify one another is through labeling one another, I think it is important to understand and be aware of the origin and meaning behind the words we use to label others.

       Nonetheless, first and foremost I distinguish a boy from a girl and a man from a woman based strictly on their anatomical differences.  When a baby is born, usually the first thing that's said is, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!"  Even from the very first seconds of life, a child is marked by society as either a boy or a girl, and the people within that society have been taught to distinguish a boy from a girl based on that individual's anatomy.  So, that is how the people in the delivery room know whether to announce the newborn as a boy or a girl. 

      To sum it all up, I believe that biology is the first factor people use when identifying a person as either a boy or a girl.  Following biology, people's ideologies come into play when they try to discern how to label or identify an individual's place in society.  This is how I distinguished a boy from a girl prior to entering this class, and I use the same criteria today.

source:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=man