Why do you enjoy being a woman?

I like being a woman because there is a secrecy about our lives. We are a subversive underclass and there is some pleasure in that. I have formed deep and lasting (and sometimes fleeting and ephemeral) friendships based on the connectivity that exists between woman as a result of our oppression

I like the fact that I can grow a baby in my belly.

Those are the only bits that are good.

#WDIT
Women Do It Too

Oh yes, not having to pretend to be interested in sport in order to bond with a peer group.

I always think how DULL men's conversation is.

And if feminism really just means 'equality for men and women',

It doesn't. To me anyway. It means women's liberation from patriarchy.

then why are feminists not more supportive of issues affecting men?
Because feminism is about women and we're allowed to centre women in our conversation and activity. I'm happy to support male groups working to address the horrendous male suicide rates, but don't tell women they've got to do that gruntwork too. We're busy trying to overthrow patriarchy, raise children and do the dishes. Don't tell us to lead on men's issues too, that's up to men to do and we can support them doing it. Just as it's up to us to lead on women's issues and men's role is to support us.

Women can be misogynistic MRAs too.

#equalrights

velourvoyageur - well yes absolutely. DH and I are going through fertility treatment and both have our issues and I can say that there is a very marked difference in the way that we are spoken to and "handled" because the onus is very much on me as the woman. People and doctors are generally nice - it's not a complaint as such - just quite evident. And of course what looms over me is that time is running out, as it isn't for him and the fact that we both put it off but that was largely driven by the fact the consequences it would have had on me as the woman. So of course this is not "what it makes me happy to be a woman" but is very much part of "what makes me a woman".

apparently feminism just means 'believing in equality for men and women'. But I've read plenty of nasty, intolerant and bigoted comments from feminists (on this site amongst others) and I wouldn't like to associate myself with those kind of people, even if they're in the minority (I know there are plenty of nice feminists around too)

And if feminism really just means 'equality for men and women', then why are feminists not more supportive of issues affecting men? For example, I find it really shocking that suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45. But on here, it's largely ignored, or attributed to men being violent and selfish

Honestly, that poster does come out with some stuff that is standard "MRA". Doesn't mean she's a man.

gen·er·al·i·ty
a statement or principle having general rather than specific validity or force.
ster·e·o·type
a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Are generalities like stereotypes?

Could you be any more arrogant and patronising?
I don't think so. I did my very best.

velourvoyageur what an interesting and thought-provoking post. I'll have to read it again now.

That is an absurd accusation. You will be shocked to hear that I also set myself up to know what women look like, and even act like, inasmuch as generalities apply.
If you tick all the MRA boxes you are gonna sound like a man because the MRA's are mostly men.
If you do not like opinions and generalities, lass, you are not going to like it here

Could you be any more arrogant and patronising? I didn't see anything in the post on which you have appointed youself judge and jury that the poster sounded like a man/ is an MRA.

As for not liking opinions you are the one getting wound up by having your opinion challenged. The calling out "oh must be a man" becomes absurd on here at times.

Setting yourself up to determine what a woman should sound like.
That is an absurd accusation. You will be shocked to hear that I also set myself up to know what women look like, and even act like, inasmuch as generalities apply.
If you tick all the MRA boxes you are gonna sound like a man because the MRA's are mostly men.
If you do not like opinions and generalities, lass, you are not going to like it here.

Re: the pregnant thing...(TW for discussion of fertility)
IMO even if you don't have a child - not the right time, fertility issues or choose not to - female children and teenagers have a very different upbringing simply because it is expected that they will someday be pregnant. And boys and men don't have to plan ahead wrt to such a tight window of possibility, and they also know they will never have to contend with 9 months of pregnancy - in fact they grow up not even having to imagine what that would be like, so they obviously just don't have the wider understanding which comes from subconsciously assimilating what you observe of female figures in your life as part of your future. They can only look from the outside in. Idly imagining the impossible, then blinking and shrugging it off as something you, as a boy, will never face anyway is a world away from realising (to whatever degree of consciousness) that because something is a biological possibility for your sex, you, as a girl, will at one point in your life be forced to make some sort of choice about it. And we grow up in these separate spheres, the boundaries of which become more immutable as we imbue them with social meaning.

I have always seen my future structured according to the timescale I'd follow if I'd one day want to conceive a child - e.g. pre-TTC, TTC/preg, after-preg. Since childhood I've seen female adulthood as a series of nodal points where general life choices hinge on unpredictable biological function - opening one door closes another. I'd be amazed if most female teenagers and women in their 20s did not imagine their thirties as significant predominantly in relation to uncertain fertility (even if we're sure we never want kids, we're told we'll never know when we'll get the Urge and have to scramble in the tight margin we have left). This then of course feeds into other major decisions we make.

Not all women will be pregnant but all female-bodied people will have (to) anticipate(d) being pregnant (whether through choice or not), and of course this is a lazy triumph for the patriarchy, which can then develop that to serve its ends. So women may be childless currently, they may indeed never conceive or have a child, but TIM - your experience of parenthood (before, during, after) simply differs from theirs in more respects than it is similar. If a woman can't carry a child to term because she's had a hysterectomy, she experiences this differently to Adam off the street who can't carry a child to term because he's never had a uterus. Adam hasn't walked around since toddlerhood with the idea that he could one day give birth. That we should even need to explain...

Aaaand...what I like about being a woman? Being able to connect with women (platonically, romantically) on the level that is only possible between female-bodied people. I see it's been mentioned quite a few times. I wouldn't have understand that at all as a teenager. In the same vein, what I get from Colette and Kate Bush is probs pretty different to what a man gets.

Then you get these ones saying "enjoy your erasure" to women.

They couldn't be more in your face about it. And this is cool and progressive?

I suppose hating women has always been in fahsion really.

That new advisor for Labour said there is no way of defining woman, and there doesn't need to be. They said that recently.

Labour can fuck off.

Yes that makes me v angry.

She meant that we have to be trained into our (subservient) position in the world aka femininity.

The wilful trolliness is just astounding. I think some of them believe it though? That she actually meant, there is NO SUCH THING as a woman, there is no objective way of saying what one is, no precursors or factual ways of being that make one, any person can be a woman if they decide to "become" one.

Yes. De Beauvoir was referring to gender, power and patriarchy.

The meaning is surely that a female human is indoctrinated into femininity? Beauvoir wasn't suggesting women 'become' XX from a different chromosomal state.

One is not born, bur rather becomes, a woman
This quote is shamelessly and routinely appropriated by Transgender ideologues.

I don't.

Reading the Guardian Review from last Saturday, in an article on Daphne du Maurier, Simone de Beauvoir was quoted as saying "One is not born, bur rather becomes, a woman".

Does it matter if it was a man or a woman :/

Thebewilderness
No, I said that the post ticked nearly every MRA talking point so it did seem like a man posting
Accuracy is important

What you said was I agree with you Otter to Otter's comment The post above sounds like it was written by a man pretending to be a woman

Setting yourself up to determine what a woman should sound like.

I mostly hate women's fashion, I'm very much a comfort>all type person and popular fashion just doesn't resonate with me at all. I am overweight and I feel like I look terrible in anything 'fashionable'. Tend to just stick with hoodies and jeans and even jeans are uncomfortable but I don't feel it's acceptable for me to wear joggers yet I see men walking around in joggers all the time.

To be honest after thinking about it I find being a woman, knowing the disadvantages I have had and will have in life compared to men, just makes me feel depressed. For me and my DD's.

I enjoy being me, an adult in my own right. I think the closeness I have to my children is partly because I am their mother & partly because of my personality. I am also closer to our dogs than my husband is.