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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. Characteristics of organisms whith a female sex vary between different species, having different female reproductive systems, with some species showing characteristics secondary to the reproductive system, as with 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.
