Woman, what's in a noun?

What does the word 'woman' mean to you? My MA project is a series of stories about 'Women,' I am not entirely happy about this word because, and you can do this yourself, if you google it, the vast, vast majority of the links you will get will link to pornographic sites, and thus presenting negative views of women. So what is the next step? I go first to the thesaurus and look for a synonym. Most of the alternatives are degrading: petticoat, skirt, moll, broad, I can hardly believe what I am reading. So enough of that, next step the The Oxford English Dictionary online and punch in 'woman.'
 The first 3 choices of meanings offered to me before the noun, were as follows: 1.Woman found in bachelor. 2. Woman found in battered. 3.Woman found in leg. What ? OK Susan get over all of that, go straight to the noun, 'An adult female being.' alright, not entirely helpful in trying to find good, positive related accurate words. So I read down another bit and think, 'how interesting, just look at all those ways woman used to be spelled! 'Passing over the old English I spot the following:' shame' 'hell hath no fury' 'every woman is at heart a rake' Then under 'the essential  qualities of a woman'-
‘G. EGERTON’Keynotes 188 To get at the woman under that infernal corset.
There is an awful lot on this page, I will continue to study it, getting the right word seems very far away at this minute in time. Germaine Greer was right.
p.s. I'm not a feminist, I'm just shocked and annoyed at what I found.