Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Why do you enjoy being a woman?

181 replies

OrderOnline · 27/02/2018 19:36

I am happy I was born female. I just am.

OP posts:

Report

SnibbleAgain · 27/02/2018 20:29

Hmm

i don't really feel super-allied to it tbh, I've always felt like a "person" which is why I find the trans stuff a bit baffling

My thoughts are probably fairly trivial and have their pros and cons. I'm small so easy to get through crowds / front of bar. Equally, get pushed around / squashed in crowds and that sort of thing.

Um.

I'm honestly not sure. It's good to have a wide choice of clothes and things I suppose although I've always preferred men's clothes shops - they're calmer and have more space and a few nice things usually in all the sizes. I like the colours they "get". Women's clothes shops are like a massive explosion of stuff and I often look in the door and think fuck it.

I am heterosexual and so it's been much easier to get a partner than if I was a bloke who fancied men, due to numbers. OTOH the behaviour of men towards me from age 12 up has often been unpleasant / hateful and made me very angry.

It was pretty cool actually making human beings with my body and I feel a bit amazed when I look at them sometimes, but I had pretty bad PND and anxiety related that went on for a long time and TBH my mental health is still not where it was pre kids.

It's a lot of ambivalence, I suppose? I never really wonder what it's like being a man, but if I was one then I'd just be me in a different body with a different set of experiences and challenges to feel ambivalent about I expect.

I'm not able to come up with much TBH but I'm quite happy being me IYSWIM and me happens to be female so that's fine.

TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 27/02/2018 20:31

Female friendships

Patodp · 27/02/2018 20:32

Multiple orgasms.

SprogletsMum · 27/02/2018 20:34

My favourite thing about being a woman is that I grew my children in my body and gave birth to them. I was able to be their sole source of nourishment for a while. I enjoy being a sahm so for me, the expectation that women do the majority of child rearing has worked in my favour.

OlennasWimple · 27/02/2018 20:36

Shoes and clothes are far nicer and more varied for women

Being pregnant wasn't brilliant but I did quite enjoy giving birth and I still can't get my head around the fact that I grew a whole person inside me and then pushed it out, then bf it until big enough to eat proper food. That's bloody amazing

(Note - I'm not reducing femaleness to motherhood, and I know what it is like to struggle to carry as well)

Halebeke425 · 27/02/2018 20:36

Was going to respond with "I don't" but actually yes multiple orgasms I'd definitely the high point for me. And I suppose making and sustaining a person with my own body was pretty cool.

FissionChips · 27/02/2018 20:38

I don’t. Can’t think of of anything remotely enjoyable about it.

OrderOnline · 27/02/2018 20:40

I still can't get my head around the fact that I grew a whole person inside me

OP posts:

OrderOnline · 27/02/2018 20:42

actually yes multiple orgasms I'd definitely the high point for me

OP posts:

chipsandgin · 27/02/2018 20:44

I liked making/feeding babies with my body, felt lucky to be the person who grew them and breastfed them. On the flip side I don't like periods or that the malfunctioning parts of my body related to that are on the inside and require surgery.

Other than that I just like being a person, there has been nothing other than the baby making which has been particularly good or bad or different other than that in my life that because I am female.

None of my relationships (career, social, family), achievements or life experiences are in anyway influenced by being female and the amount of generalising about 'men' and 'women' on MN I find saddening and hope it is not a reflection of the reality in this country - thankfully in my own experience it hasn't been. I thought we had moved past that and were heading to a place in time where sex and gender were largely irrelevant. According to a lot of stuff I've read on here recently, apparently not!

Although obviously the multiple orgasms are a bonus!

Adviceplease360 · 27/02/2018 20:47

My favourite thing about being a woman is that I grew my children in my body and gave birth to them. I was able to be their sole source of nourishment for a while.

This

QuentinSummers · 27/02/2018 20:47

Babies

Female friendship

Sparkly shoes

nemno · 27/02/2018 20:49

Growing and feeding my DC with my own body was amazing. But the best bit was being the woman who got my husband.

Most other specifically female or feminine things are meh at best.

Sanderz · 27/02/2018 20:55

I'm another one who feels not especially wedded to it. Some social aspects of being a woman suit me, some do not. Same with some aspects of my body; pregnancy was ...interesting... and I value having done it, but equally I would have been okay with trading it for a lifetime of no periods. But it is what it is, it's me, and fundamentally I do like "me" so there we go.

I thought we had moved past that and were heading to a place in time where sex and gender were largely irrelevant

I grew up believing this is where we were heading too, and being pleased about it.

MrGHardy · 27/02/2018 20:56

Because I had to work so hard to achieve this feeling of womanhood.

rosy71 · 27/02/2018 20:59

I don't particularly like or dislike being a woman; I just am one. Most of the time I just feel like a person.

Having said that, being pregnant, having 2 babies and breastfeeding them was pretty amazing. Very tiring too though!

Italiangreyhound · 27/02/2018 21:05

I grew one of my children in my body, and other I grew in a pot in the garden (actually he was adopted but anyway). I love the fact I have birth to one child but curiously the fact I did not give birth to the other hasn't stopped my relationship blooming with him.

I don;t especially like being a woman, I think we are shat on fro a great height. I feel so angry women are treated so badly in society and I can't get round it. Nothing about nice clothes, or variety of colours or my on again off again affair with shoes makes up for the way women are singled out for bad things in life.

BUT being a woman is what I am and there is no other option for me so I better just smile and carry on.

tinytemper66 · 27/02/2018 21:05

I was born a woman; therefore I am a woman. End of.

JustHooking · 27/02/2018 21:06

I loved being pregnant and breastfeeding

Nickynackynoodle · 27/02/2018 21:07

I think being born female is the biggest disappointment of my life. But I am what I am so what I enjoy about it now is being fucking awesome at my job.

SomeDyke · 27/02/2018 21:07

"Although obviously the multiple orgasms are a bonus!"
I guess, being a dyke, I never had anything to compare with, so as far as I'm concerned, the multiple stuff was just normal. And the lesbians I knew who had had sex with men previously, I guess the conversation was more about how males weren't that pleasing, rather than their own response. My one moment of extreme smugness though was sharing an office with a straight chap, who kept complaining that the lesbians upstairs were at it for hours and kept giggling................

And compared to gay men, we're cuddlier!

PurpleCrowbar · 27/02/2018 21:09

Motherhood. Hated pregnancy & giving birth - would gladly have let xh do both! - but looking back...yeah, go female me.

Other than that you can keep it. I'm happy with my female body; if I woke up tomorrow with a male one that would a) be interesting & fun & b) probably make give me a tad more career gravitas.

Increasingly, since I stopped having babies & definitely since recent menopause, it's just not important to me either way. The current boyfriend wouldn't fancy me if i were male bodied. That's about it.

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Email address

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

FissionChips · 27/02/2018 21:12

Feel like I’m the only one who’s never had a multiple orgasm
My breasts are also the wrong shape to breastfeed, I hated pregnancy and am not a fan of babies.
I’d be happy if I woke with no boobs and a dick, don’t think DH would though

DaisyDrip · 27/02/2018 21:12

My favourite thing about being a woman is that I grew my children in my body and gave birth to them. I was able to be their sole source of nourishment for a while. I enjoy being a sahm so for me, the expectation that women do the majority of child rearing has worked in my favour.

This. I love being a mum and now a gran. While motherhood doesn't define me it's a huge part of who I am and something I treasure and I count myself very lucky to have been able to experience.

Italiangreyhound · 27/02/2018 21:13

Oh I did love breast feeding, (definitely that more than being pregnant, which was crap, felt sick a lot). If I think about it I can almost feel the 'let down' (is that what it's called?) and my baby is a teenager.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.