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Īlongside the women's movement of the 1970s, researchers began to move away from the M–F model, developing an interest in androgyny. These models posited that femininity and masculinity were innate and enduring qualities, not easily measured, opposite to one another, and that imbalances between them led to mental disorders. Their M–F scale was adopted by other researchers and psychologists. Scientific efforts to measure femininity and masculinity were pioneered by Lewis Terman and Catherine Cox Miles in the 1930s. Goffman argued that women are socialized to present themselves as "precious, ornamental and fragile, uninstructed in and ill-suited for anything requiring muscular exertion" and to project "shyness, reserve and a display of frailty, fear and incompetence." In 1949, French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir wrote that "no biological, psychological or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society" and "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman," an idea that was picked up in 1959 by Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman and in 1990 by American philosopher Judith Butler, who theorized that gender is not fixed or inherent but is rather a socially defined set of practices and traits that have, over time, grown to become labelled as feminine or masculine. The words femininity and womanhood are first recorded in Chaucer around 1380. Prudence Allen has traced how the concept of "woman" changed during this period. : 4 After the Black Death in England wiped out approximately half the population, traditional gender roles of wife and mother changed, and opportunities opened up for women in society. Women in the Early Middle Ages were referred to simply within their traditional roles of maiden, wife, or widow. Tara Williams has suggested that modern notions of femininity in English speaking society began during the English medieval period at the time of the bubonic plague in the 1300s. : 5 Among scholars, the concept of femininity has varying meanings. Venus was a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty and fertility.ĭespite the terms femininity and masculinity being in common usage, there is little scientific agreement about what femininity and masculinity are. The Birth of Venus (1486, Uffizi) is a classic representation of femininity painted by Sandro Botticelli.