Do you mean characteristics by women artists, or depictions of women? There are loads of good books about this - I'd recommend:
# Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology
by Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock
# Women, Art, and Society (World of Art) by Whitney Chadwick
# Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and Histories of Art (Routledge Classics) by Griselda Pollock
# Gender and Art (Art & Its Histories) by Gillian Perry
# Differencing the Canon: Feminism and the Writing of Arts Histories (Re Visions: Critical Studies in the History & Theory of Art) by Griselda Pollock