1987, K. D. M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660-1900, Cambridge University Press (→ISBN), page 275:
Leeson gave examples of 'systeren and bretheren' in an earlier period for masons and carpenters, noted that female blacksmiths paid 'quarterage' to their company, and the coopers' rules included 'sisters' until the sixteenth century, and stressed that women were to be found in many trades, from brewing to lead[-]beating. In discussing the fifteenth-century London silkwomen, M. K. Dale noted their full apprenticeship to the trade: ...
2002, Shanshan Du, Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs: Gender Unity and Gender Equality Among the Lahu of Southwestern China, Columbia University Press (→ISBN), page 131:
The most unbalanced gender roles are manifested in the taboo that prohibits women, including the leading female blacksmith, from participating in blacksmithing. In this sense, the leading female blacksmith plays mainly symbolic and ritual roles in the village power structure, i.e., achieving the completion of the post in order to maintain the sacred social and spiritual order.
2010, Meljean Brook, The Iron Duke, Penguin (→ISBN)
Beside him, a female blacksmith tested the fingers of an elderly woman's new prosthetic. Tears glistened on her wrinkled cheeks; she clutched to her breast a rusted forearm, with the Horde's sewing apparatus and pincers still attached. Though they could trade the old limbs in, most took their prosthetics home. Even knowing what the Horde had done, it was difficult letting part of themselves go— and that woman had probably worn an awl and pincers longer than Mina had been alive.
referring to cisgender, transgender, or genderfluid females
2013, Julia Serano, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive (→ISBN):
And while it has become common for people to use the word “transphobia” as a catchall phrase to describe antitrans sentiment, it is more accurate to view the discrimination and stigma faced by trans people on the trans female/feminine spectrum in terms of transmisogyny. I have found that many people who have not had a trans female or trans feminine experience often have trouble wrapping their brains around the concept of transmisogyny, [...]
2013, Shiri Eisner, Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution (→ISBN):
Note that I only discuss cis female bisexuality in this section because I could find no examples of trans female bisexuality in the mainstream media.
2013, Anne Cognito, Sunlight in the Darkness : My life as a trans woman in the shadows (→ISBN), page 130:
The 70s and 80s were hugely influential decades for me, and I witnessed the birth of electronic music at a time when I had no money to own any of the new technology; what money I had was being saved up for my surgery. Now, in my later years, I have the resources to relive something that was denied me. A trans female friend once told me "I used to be into synths". I didn't question her further on that statement, but I took it to mean she moved on after transition.
2016, Tobias Raun, Out Online: Trans Self-Representation and Community Building on YouTube (Routledge, →ISBN), page 98:
Alternatively, the trans female body is hypersexualized, as in so-called “shemale” or “chicks with dicks” pornography, marketing especially a trans female body that has not undergone genital surgery as a sexualized visual spectacle.
2017, Rick Riordan, Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor (→ISBN), page 271:
I turned to [gender-fluid] Alex. "Hey, are you female today? [...] The Skofnung Sword [...] can't be drawn in the presence of women."
1886, The Bristol Medico-chirurgical Journal, volume 4, page 3:
... the Lydian king Andramyte first introduced female eunuchs into the service of his palace. Gyges, another king of Lydia, is said to have caused the removal of ovaries from women with a view to prolonging their charms ...
2004, Charles J. Epstein, Robert P. Erickson, Anthony Joseph Wynshaw-Boris, Inborn Errors of Development: The Molecular Basis of Clinical Disorders of Morphogenesis (Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN), page 508:
XY female patients with gonadal dysgenesis are sometimes referred to as “XY sex-reversed” patients or individuals with “XY sex reversal" (Simpson and Martin, 1981). Although widely used, this terminology is somewhat vague as it does not distinguish XY females with gonadal dysgenesis from XY females with androgen resistance.
2003, Siu Leung Li, Cross-Dressing in Chinese Opera (→ISBN), page 50:
Putting these pieces of evidence together it is quite certain that in the conventions of Yuan theatre there were female players who, apart from playing the leading female role, also cross-dressed to play the leading male role, and equally certain that there were also men who played the leading male role. With regard to the role of female performers, [...]
comparative and superlative forms with "more" and "most"
2002, John Bonner, Qabalah: A Magical Primer, Weiser Books (→ISBN), page 148:
As individuals we too are composed primarily, but not exclusively, of one polarity, which may present itself as male or female. However, the most aggressively masculine of men has some feminine component even as the most female of women contains an element of the masculine. This intrinsic bi-sexuality may not always be apparent; in some the primary polarity may be exaggerated while the secondary element is repressed, in others the reverse may be the case.
2007, Bunny Crumpacker, The Sex Life of Food: When Body and Soul Meet to Eat, Macmillan (→ISBN), page 25:
If vegetables are mostly male, fruits are female, with only an exception or two. Swelling out of sweet blossoms, drooping from heavy branches, fruit is suggestively womanly in shape and image. The most obvious exception is the banana, phallic in shape, to be sure, but with a taste—creamy and sweet—that is female. Apples, the fruit of Eve, are the most female of fruits.
2013, Pamela Regis, A Natural History of the Romance Novel, University of Pennsylvania Press (→ISBN):
The heroine appeals largely to a female audience. The romance is the most female of popular genres. Nearly all of the writers and readers are women.
2013, Jane F. Gerhard, The Dinner Party: Judy Chicago and the Power of Popular Feminism, 1970-2007, University of Georgia Press (→ISBN), page 274:
Not only does being an attractive woman take time and money, he discovers that men do not listen to women, even in soap operas, the most female of genres. Dorothy sets off a feminist revolution on and off set as her character grows more assertive and devoted fans call for more.
2017, Dana Cooper, Claire Phelan, Motherhood in Antiquity, Springer (→ISBN), page 48
However, what is most problematic in this entire discussion is the absence of women's voices expressing the female perception of mother and motherhood, the most female of all human conditions, ...
comparative and superlative forms with "-er" and "-est"
Some tissues seemed to be "maler" or "femaler" than others. This was exciting enough, but the wide interest the discovery evoked led to a startling sequel.
2000, Brandweek:
[...] a tad older, whiter and "femaler" than Reebok's target market for this shoe [...]
1972, New York Magazine, page 29:
Norman, The Reporter, will be there along with 7,200 lesser journalists like Walter Cronkite, who will climb a 30-foot ladder each night to overview the 5,308 delegates and alternates—the largest, youngest, blackest, femalest, most unpredictable national convention in history.
2005, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Show Business Is Murder (Penguin, →ISBN):
I may or may not have been the youngest licensed private detective in the New York phone book, but I was certainly the femalest. My name's Naomi Weinstein. The second syllable rhymes with the first.
2008, R. Menville Douglas Reginald, Douglas Menville, R i P (Wildside Press LLC, →ISBN), page 46:
"By the way, are you a man?" "Yes, of course," I told her. Somehow I had assumed she knew. "I couldn't be quite sure, you see," she said, "only talking to you soul to soul. For once we lose our bodies there are so many gradations from malest-man to femalest-woman that you can't always draw [conclusions].
