i don't know what women are. do any of you?

Chibi, maybe you could read a copy of My New Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein, do all the quizzes and come back and tell us the results?

I keep wanting to buy it but can't justify the cost at the moment. It is 25 pounds.

I have no issue with men wanting to become women, or vice versa. I have to admit am a bit naive about whether feeling like you are in the wrong body is a genuine, I need to lose my penis thing or whether people would be better suited by a less rigid gender construct in society thing. But if you want to be a woman, embrace being a woman. Fight the patriarchy along with the feminists, don't try to fight the feminists and use innate male privilege to your own advantage.

Sometimes I think we should just step back and let people who think internal gender identity is everything have the term 'woman' if they like, and those of us who were assigned the gender woman at birth because of our biology and think it makes a difference what you are socialised as and what your body is like, can just step back and use a different word. Parsnips or something.
Then I think, no, that's ridiculous. The term 'woman' has been used in a certain way for millennia and if we allow it to be changed we are cutting ourselves off from all that history. And besides, women are socialised to be walked all over so I should stand up against it.
And other times I think I should just die in a fire or rape myself with a broken bottle like the hateful transphobe I clearly am....

Do you know, it is fucking nuts, isn't it?

We should absolutely be able to talk about this. I'm just scared of the bun fights and perceptions of hate speech that this sort of thread descends into.

I'll take my hangover and bad mood and go away. Chibi, so sorry.

So do some women.

Ooh thought of something. Some men let me enter/exit the lift ahead of them.

I'm really upset at the idea you can't ask this question without being accused of being goady. What have we come to?

I don't necessarily identify with being a woman - I think of myself as a person and, ridiculously, have sometimes felt surprise at being referred to as female. Have given birth, breastfed etc. So not dissimilar to TrucksandDinosaurs and Portofino, I suppose, in that I see myself as a person rather than a gendered construct.

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have commented on this thread without thinking a bit first. I got upset because I've been critized/joked about/bullied by people close to me becase they think I behave and think "like a man" and that I should be more feminine. A recent hurtful incident happened yesterday. I know I'm female and that is a sexist way of thinking but it still hurts.

It IS an interesting question. I work in ICT and am trying to think of occasions where gender influenced a situation or interactions as in a female using "womanly charms" to get something done, or sexism from the other direction.....the worst thing I can currently think of is HR asking me about work life balance when I applied for promotion.

You can't fail as a woman.

Where you might think you've failed is because you're expected to demonstrate female traits. Whether a trait is female or male isn't innate but society tells us it is. Or you can consider gender as a line that you fit somewhere on with male at one end and female at another.

Neither have anything to do with sex. Neither have anything to do with failure.

IMO.

I am a biological female. I have all the bits and have given birth. I never really think of myself as "womanly". I am just me. I have friends of both sexes, I go to work, I do not believe myself to be an inherently better parent or super brilliant at housework because I have a vagina. Interestingly, if I think "womanly" I think first of well dressed curvy women who like shoes.

Vegeham, different yes, abnormal - well no, but I see where you're coming from. I think, and your feelings around this are still just as valid whatever I think, that if you feel like chibi does, finding out that there is a name for it must mean that there are more people who feel the same way as she does (and you too?) which kind of makes it more normal, because you're not the only one, iyswim.

But if you're also feeling like you're a "failed woman" then I can see how you would be more upset than relieved to hear that there is another term, possibly applicable to you.

Why not have the discussion ? If it gets deleted, it gets deleted.

There is something seriously amiss if women can't discuss the definition of women.

Thumb Well I can't articulate it very well atm. I feel really down.
My reaction was that by creating the words/ identities genderqueer and agender for people who don't fit into gender roles or don't really "feel" like a gender it makes it sound like that type of person (which includes me I guess) is abnormal and different.

I haven't said anyone's transphobic (I don't think?).

I am prepared to admit I'm wrong, but I read the op and subsequent posts as a goady, pokey dig at the legislation etc around transpeople. Which never ends well and is just exhausting and a bit boring.

I'm tired and ratty today and might be imagining it though.

I don't see how it is sexist, Vegeham - more a case of there are enough people who don't feel that they fit into the already-defined social constructs that a "new" one needed a name?

I don't want to upset OP or anyone else but I'm also getting upset by the whole discussion. So please excuse me...but isn't the whole genderqueer/ agender thing sexist...? Like you need a special identity for people who don't feel like they fit into a gender roles (made up social construct)...? Sorry I may be wrong.
I'm feeling a bit shit atm at my own lack of stereotypical femininity, a bit like a failed woman actually

I feel like I live in a woman's body, but my brain, my mind, my essential self is not gendered. Gender to me is just the external packaging.
But I always thought everyone felt like that. It was quite surprising to me when I realised they didn't.

chibi. I think for everyone, the experience of gender is individual, so your feeling of womanly/ness or not is only yours, and therefore no one will feel womanly in the same way, if at all.
For me I have never particularly felt 'female' and had no particular concious thought about my emotional/psychological experience of woman. However I spent /wasted a lot of time fighting against the expected physical projection of woman, clothes/toys/friends/games as a child. I positively hated my breasts when they appeared and still find them somewhat revolting. My construct of me is as violet, not as woman. I have found a use for them (breastfeeding) which has made me feel more positive about that part of my body.
But I felt (surprisingly) bereft after my hysterectomy, and that I was no longer woman. Having NEVER particularly identified as one beforehand. I have decided that Im probably a bit odd. But Im ok at that, as Im not keen on joining any herd.

I'm very pleased that it helped, chibi. That might be a more useful place to ask your questions too, as OTHManatee suggests? Far less likely to get jumped on there. :)

I found this book quite thought-provoking on the subject of nonstandard genders, too.