I don't appear to have the typical female experience I'd be interested in what some of you have to say

LRD I agree with your last para and I reckon that's a good example. I think a lot of people don't like the idea of women having complete control over their own fertility (I'm thinking of Nadine Dorries et al).

I understand Hathor - I didn't assume you did think those things, I was just just setting out my own thoughts on the issue.

I haven't seen any of your other threads so I can't comment on those.

There's a good reason they're negative, though, isn't there? It's because the default for a very long time has been that women have very few rights, and such rights as they have are an exception to that default. Because women are defined by what they are not, ie., men.

No-one has yet needed to legislated in order to protect men from having to risk their mental, physical and emotional health by carrying a baby to term - because men are not able to do this in the first place. One cannot help suspecting that, if men could get pregnant, it would never have occurred to anyone to suggest they did not have rights over their own bodies. But women, of course, by default, have historically not had rights over their own bodies - hence the need to make a law saying 'no, actually, you don't have to do this, you can have an abortion'.

I will approach this query with the assumption that's written in the spirit of genuine enquiry.

To anyone who has not experienced sexual assault ('small' or otherwise) then yes, I would say that you are lucky, and also that I am genuinely pleased for you). Unfortunately, the small assaults thread linked further up shows that a great deal of women have been through this.

If, however, you think it's because you are in some way cleverer, smarter or have made better choices than women who have experienced those things, I'd say that was being offensive - because it implies that women are partially responsible for being sexually assaulted; whereas the fault lies with the man who has done it.

Also, if you think women who have been upset by these things are over-reacting/over-sensitive, I'd say that is also minimising and offensive.

In terms of not discussing personal stuff, I'd say that is not much to do with being a 'typical' woman, or being a feminist, and more to do with the kind of person you are.

I don't think there is a 'typical' female experience.

But I do think women have rights that are specifically to do with them being female. How would you square saying 'I don't believe that women automatically because they are women have a right to anything' with a woman's right (in this country) to abort a pregnancy she carries?

Maybe part of the difficulty is that many women's rights are easiest to understand in the negative - women have the right not to be raped by their husbands; women have the right not to be dismissed from their jobs after marriage, women have the right not to continue a pregnancy, etc etc.

I don't think this changes the fact these are rights, and they are all either physically or socially or legally defined as rights women are accorded because they are women.

I haven't seen any other threads, so I'm not aware of the background. However, I can venture a response to some of the points and questions in the thread.

Perhaps it's a question of how much the "political" must become "personal" for an individual to identify with the issue in question.

Some feminists (and activists against other forms of injustice) are motivated by their personal experience of discrimination. Others may feel they have never really been affected by the issue themselves, but they can empathise with others who have and are sufficiently concerned to speak up about it.

Yet others may be somewhere in between, and I would suggest that one's position can change as you go through life, as you have different experiences, as you have more life experience and engage with more people and as you learn. Examples of this might include women who become aware of sex discrimination when they become pregnant or become mothers and those who recognise the seriousness of sexual assault or domestic abuse when someone close to them is affected.

Interesting points from madwoman above. Sometimes, at least in my experience, if I find I'm struggling to get my head around another person's experience of marginalisation, discrimination, etc., I try and unpick it - and look at what from my own experience might be "blocking" my understanding of the situation. Is there a crucial bit of information that I'm missing and where can I get it? Am I concerned that advocating on behalf of that issue will have a negative impact on another, so am resisting somewhat? Is there something within my own experience that is "blocking" me from really getting to grips with the issue - perhaps my own hopes and fears?

Kind of on that last note, it can be a huge challenge to look at the abuse and disadvantage that women face just for being women (or Black people or Lesbian and gay people, or disabled people, etc. face for just being who THEY are,) and not in some way feel vulnerable. Their experiences remind us often painfully of the sorts of things that could happen to us as well (or even that may be already happening, but we aren't yet fully aware of it!)

Already on that one

Maybe sympathy but less empathy somehow.

There is obviously no single female experience.

There are plenty of things though which women experience and men don't, in enough numbers that they prefer to talk about with others who have had that experience or similar ones. And vice versa with men obviously. And then there are things that women experience in much greater numbers, or in a different way, that they still prefer to discuss with others who have had similar experiences. And again vice versa.

Otherwise MN wouldn't exist, for a start. Women can talk about bad experiences with men, and get a generally empathetic response, even from women who have not had those experiences. I don't know what sort of response a woman would get if she talked about those things on a male dominated website, TBH.

"Small sexual assaults"? They all seemed quite serious matters to me - I'm pleased never to have come across men who behave this way.

I don't talk about periods etc to friends because I wouldn't talk about indigestion or bowel movements or dandruff either - too boring and self centred!

Hi, I don't think you are unusual OP, I feel the same, I don't see the need to discuss female things with other women, I've not been leered at by random men or assaulted in any way. I don't think that makes me less of a woman or feminist- I think the idea that it does is a bit weird really ...

Maybe look at more institutional stuff then - policies wrt mat/ pat leave?
I really don't think there is any one female 'experience', so I have no idea why I'm trying to convince you there is....

Ah, ok. Misread upthread.

I suppose if I were you ( and as I said, we're all different) I might start with the 'obvious' female stuff. Pg, birth, childcare. Maybe consider why discussing labour and childbirth/ periods is taboo for you? Menstruation gets hidden away and represented by nice neat blue water on those ads, definitely sanitised and culturally hidden - is it because it doesn't matter a jot and shouldn't affect anything about our lives? Or is it part of the 'women are unclean and messy'