Talking about sex not gender - woman means adult human female

Rarely post on here but Archery Annie's friend's experience made me so .

There IS an alternative to colonoscopy - CT colonography which only requires a thin tube to be inserted into the back passage. CO2 is used to inflate the bowel which is then scanned. It is a much gentler pprocedure than colonoscopy and used where patients cannot tolerate the colonoscopy. Many patients in my hospital have this procedure. I'm horrified that your friend was treated so badly. Bet it would be different for a male patient

It was 1973, large former grammar in the north of England. Male head of dept, age late 30's.
My exam results at o level were actually better in the sciences than the arts subjects, but "girly brain".

averylongtimesasspartacus

Head of science at my school also said that girls brains couldn't understand science. From dates you're a little older so can't be the same school as this was a young male teacher that was new into the head of science position. Even at the time I was surprised he was head of science as he was very inexperienced and there were a number of more experienced female biology teachers, but I worked out why sigh

I grew up with my mum - just the two of us. I saw her ground down by a system in the 60's which made her reliant on the man who had abandoned us yet would not allow divorce or a financial settlement.
She fought sexism and discrimination against single mothers to carve out a career and to bring me up, at the cost of her health.
She was a woman.
As a teen I was told at school by the head of science that girl's brains were not suited for the sciences, that the arts subjects were better. At several job interviews in the 70's I was asked what my husband thought of me having a career - how would he cope?
Through out my teens I learnt to deal with unwanted attention from men and boys, who felt that they had a right to touch, to grope, to stare, to comment on my female body.
At 13 I was groomed and raped by a man in his 30's.
In my 30's I was sexually assaulted by a friend of my husband, my husband still thinks that it was nothing special and just "banter" I should forget.
I have had crippling period pains and dreadful flooding during the menopause, just my age said the male gp.

I am a woman.

I've been lucky as a woman.

I don't remember gender stereotypes as a young child. I played with things that interested me. Which happened to be cars and paints and action men. I wore whatever hand-me-down clothes I owned and didn't care about how I looked. The only bits of segregation I remember at school were crafts at primary school (knitting for girls, woodwork for boys. They let the girl who asked swap to woodwork) and PE at secondary. The girls never did football or rugby. I don't know what the boys missed out on.

As a teenager I formed wonderful female friendships. I started to experience street harassment for having the temerity to exist. Mostly it was negative comments on my appearance, which I still didn't care much about. I gravitated towards maths and science. I was the only girl in my A level maths class and physics class. When I complained about the sexist maths teacher I was told not to be too sensitive.

I did a physics degree in a great department ... that did not have one single female member of staff. Well, no academics were female. Both secretaries were. I had a baby during my PhD. When I came back after the 4 months maternity leave allowed by my funding body I seemed to no longer be a member of the department. I still worked there to do my experiments, discuss with my colleagues and meet my supervisor, but I just wasn't included in the life of the department any more.

I got married. I refused to have patriarchal traditions at our wedding. I kept my own name. 14 years later I still fight on a very regular basis for the right to have my own name. My younger daughter is disabled and needs a carer. As my husband completed his PhD before me (what with no maternity leave, etc) he was employed and I wasn't, having only just qualified, so I became a carer. It's a role I'm happy with, but I am aware that I've sacrificed my financial independence. Now I'm 40 and more invisible so much less street harassment, though men still occasionally tell me to smile. I still don't give a damn about my appearance and I know I'm judged for that in a way that my husband is not. So that's my tale of being a lucky woman. Definitely would have been easier as a man.

Argh even autocorrect defaults an accidental space and m to man

I am a woman

I a man a woman and I have been socialised to flatter men to get their support. I still do that dealing with the transwomen allies and I hate myself for it. It feels like I'm prostituting myself

Fucking hell, LaSqrrl I had a colonoscopy a couple of years ago, I was mortified as I couldn't tolerate the pain at the end ( I have given birth twice) they kept saying but its just the last couple of inches. They gave up in the end, I was screaming and said I had to come back when they could sedate me.
No wonder people want to restrict what is said on MN, look what we find out when women talk to each other.

I'm another 'lucky' woman like LangCleg. It was only when it belatedly dawned on me that most others weren't as lucky that I got why feminism was necessary.

If I try to think of times when I've 'felt like a woman' (rather than simply being me) it's always to do with the biological reality of being female. Mostly the womb doing its own powerful, unstoppable thing during excruciating dysmenorrhea (bad) and childbirth (good).

I am a woman.
When I was a girl, I watched my mother be beaten by my step father. I looked after my terrified sibling, I called the police, I listened to my mother's lamenting. I still freeze when I hear an angry male voice.

I am an adult human female. When I was a child human female, I was teased for having hairy legs, I shaved them in secret. I had creepy boys smelling my hair in class and cornering me at birthday parties. I was called flat and frigid. Desperate to be cool, I tried to prove the frigid label wrong. I was called a slut instead.
I am a woman.
I bled for nearly 3 months after losing another pregnancy in the 2nd trimester. I have faced the mirror and felt like a failed woman because my body would not conceive or carry a baby.
I am a woman.
I have held my child, birthed from my body, and breathed the earthy scent. I have been rushed to theatre where I watched a doctor's hand, arm, elbow disappear into my vagina, and where I was complimented on how nice it looked after having literally just pushed a small human out through it.

I am a mother, my daughter is a teenager. This world is not good enough for her. Not even close.

I think having a child sealed the deal. My eyes were opened and I could not unsee.
I saw how I had up until then tried to placate men. I no longer smile when told to, apologise for my anger or go along with things so as not to be unpopular
And this is the me that my daughter sees

so moved by this thread I've decided to delurk...
I too have had a lucky life but still one that includes sexism, misogyny, sexual abuse, economic and legal inequality. It also includes losing my dream job and therefore my rented home when I became pregnant as a single woman. I was refused an abortion and ended up in a mother & baby home run by nuns. Medical professionals tended to patronise me at best and to treat me as immoral and stupid at worst. An adoption charity who were trying to persuade me to give my child away told me I was a 'very selfish girl' when I wouldn't do so. Friends and some members of my family rejected me. It was these experiences that helped me truly understand what being a woman entailed. I have been a feminist ever since.
I am so grateful to this community for offering a space where I can write those last two sentences without having to (re)define the meaning of woman or feminist, without having to deny my/our lived reality. But I am also angry and distressed that it has come to this.
Love and strength to all of you.

Woman = adult female = XX chromosomes = class of mammal able to gestate and give birth.

I am a woman because of my biology, the socialisation that stems from that and the life I have consequently led.

My female biology has resulted in (inter alia) - being groped by males from the age of about 8, being subjected from the age of 12 to visual assaults (flashing) & lewd comments/ suggestions by adult males, dealing with periods in semi-secrecy due to my mother's own upbringing, debilitating period pains, having comments passed about my body by total strangers (men, of course), being date raped, being led down limiting female pathways for education/careers and consequent earning capacity, an abortion, early marriage, five more pregnancies including 2 miscarriages one needing a blood transfusion, labour & birth & bf, ingesting hormones so I didn't conceive anymore, divorce leaving me financially disadvantaged because of the above. Having to wait an extra 6 years for my state pension without having the time or wherewithal to plan for that. In my 50s still fending off indecent propositions from men. When the fuck does that end?

Yet I am happy and proud to be a woman, I would never want to be a man.

Until I was about 10 I wanted to be a boy (I thought). Actually I didn't. I just wanted to lead the carefree lives that boys are allowed to live. So I cut my hair short and always wore trousers, except at school. We are talking many decades ago here as I am older than most MNers I imagine. Luckily my parents were very relaxed so indulged my "tomboyism". Today I expect I would be in a queue for transing.

It was no surprise then that the 3 careers deemed suitable for girls by my school were nursing, teaching and secretarial work. I rebelled by becoming a journalist. Of course, being the 60s and 70s I had to fight like hell all the way for equal pay and equal rights to prove I was a fully functioning adult human, rather than someone who deserved less because I was that second rate person, aka woman, even though I won awards and worked harder than any bloke I knew. I discovered it is true that you have to work twice as hard to get half as far as a man - well, true in those decades anyway.

I have though been "lucky" in many respects. Married for over 50 years to someone who was a new man before the concept of new man was invented. Fully engaged in childcare etc. He always had my back. I have had a good career as well as two DCs largely because of that.

But, I have also had to care for elderly sick relatives (which I didn't resent because I loved them) and have had a late miscarriage. I had a horrible first birth, which left me with damage. Life sucks sometimes.

I am the middle of three sisters. I was the one who was called a tom boy. I wanted to play with toys that were supposed to be for boys, I wanted short hair and I didn't like wearing dresses. My dad let me have some things but usually I was not allowed. Only got short hair when I was in early teens.
This did not mean I was a boy. I was a girl that didn't like the stereotypes. I am now a women that hates the sexism and stereotypes designed to keep us in our place
Despite being a tom boy I was still subject to the same crap my sisters and other women have to go through
I was 9 the first time I was flashed by a man because I am female
I was 11 when grown men started harassing me on the street because I am female
I have been groped more times than I can count because I am female
I am lucky never to have been raped.
I am still judged because of notions around gender. Because I still have short hair, because I have never married, because I never wanted kids.
I am a woman because I am an adult human female not because I feel like a woman. There is no feeling like a woman you just are one because of Biology

*The 'default' for the majority of medical procedures or medicines are based on the 'male default.'
*
A very salient point LaSqrrl - and I can't see this this changing any time soon in the current environment.

When I was 11, I was mocked for not shaving my legs. Why would I? I was ELEVEN.

At 13, I was embarrassed by my newly forming breasts, when the local boys made comments about them.

At 17, I lost my virginity because the boy in question wouldn't take no for an answer. He kept pulling my clothes down, I kept pulling them back up. I just gave in.

Also at 17, I was at a lads house, and he obviously wanted to sleep with me. I was nervous. Unsure. He said 'I'm gonna rape you in a minute'. (He didn't rape me)

From 18-21 I was groped in clubs because I dared to wear a skirt. All I had to do was walk past, and apparently that meant they could touch me.

To be honest, it didn't bother me much at the time (apart from the boob comments) but now I am older, it sends chills down my spine. Because I realise why it didn't bother me then. It's because it was EXPECTED. It was just what happens. The rape comment esp freaks me out. What sort of language is that?

At 30, my womanliness almost killed me. An ovarian cyst ruptured and filled my abdomen with 80% of my own blood.

At 31, I lay crying on the bathroom floor, not wanting to flush my miscarried baby, while my 5 year old watched cartoons downstairs. I then went down into the kitchen to make dinner.

At 32, I gave birth to a baby girl. And now, at 33, I am filled with dread at how this world will treat her.

I am a woman, because I was born one. I don't feel like one, I just am one. And I realise why we are the oppressed sex. It is because we hold the power of life. Men can't grow and sustain a life with just their bodies. And they feel threatened by that. So they use their physical strength and take advantage of our tenderness to make themselves feel powerful. Well, that is how I think it started, anyway....

That we get such crap from the medical profession - because we ARE women, females.

Male is the default, even for 'category woman' it seems.

Fuck that noise!

due to her 'body' not opening up fully

This is a load of crock. For my colonoscopy, it was that they needed the 'small' ("pedriatic"!) probe to 'go around the corner' of the bowel. Nothing to do with the initial (anal to first bend) thing. After reading your comment Anchor, I now start to wonder whether this is a fairly common 'problem' with women getting colonoscopies. That women's bodies are smaller (with a lot more 'reproductive shit' packed into a tight place) and that the 'default' for the majority of medical procedures or medicines are based on the 'male default'. Bigger bodies, bigger colons.

Yeah, makes me wonder why they don't have the smaller scope on hand when they do this. Maybe just to make women feel bad about their bodies it seems.

I can identify with ArcheryAnnie's comment:

There came a flash of understanding, not all that long ago, that what I wanted was not to have been born male, but born into a world where being born female was to be treated and socialised as though I was as fully human and as worthy as if I'd been born male.

I'd been a feminist my whole life, and yet it took decades for me to get to the point where I understood this.

Although for me, I saw that difference, and was really fucking angry about being treated differently. For a while (later on), I was hoping that all the 'equality speak' would 'kick in' and be sorted out. Not so. Forty years later, still has not happened. Needless to say, I am a bit more angry.

Did I mention the anger?

I was the only girl growing up in a large male dominated and highly competitive household.

I felt very different, alienated I suppose, and frustrated as a girl because I couldn't better the achievements of my older brothers and Dad.

My mum has been an inspiration to me as a woman (adult human female) but when I was growing up she was under my dad's thumb and appeased him constantly, due to his temper and jealousy.

She is not under his thumb now and the tables have turned - due to an increase in confidence and self belief, having achieved highly in her career and earnings.

But growing up in a stressful and sometimes toxic environment did affect my own confidence and how I behaved as a young woman.

I also appeased men, and used my sexuality and 'charm' as a form of power and a way to get their 'respect' and validation.

I look back and wish I had realised what a false premise this was, and how much happier I would have been if I hadn't done this.

I want all girls and young women to feel confident in their bodies and their capabilities. To know that they are at least equal to their male peers and that they don't have to conform to sexual stereotyping to feel beautiful and worthy.

I had a termination at 21 and found this very hard to cope with. I kept it as secret as I could and felt guilty, ashamed and grief stricken over my 'lost' baby.

The consultant who approved the termination was appalling - he treated me like an errant child and told me how irresponsible I was for getting pregnant. He spelt out that it was in HIS gift to decide whether I could have an abortion or not, and that if he granted me it this time he would not be as tolerant if I got pregnant again.

I will always remember him coming to see me in my hospital bed prior to being taken for the surgery - it was terrifying to know that I would shortly be under the knife in his hands.

One of my closest women friends has needed a colonoscopy investigation - after going through the procedure they told her it had been inconclusive due to her 'body' not opening up fully. They told her she would therefore need another one.

She has refused and asked if there was any alternative.

She saw the consultant last week and he was very critical of her, saying there was no alternative and demanding to know why she was refusing this procedure.

"Because I have been anally raped", 'was her reply. She was shaking very badly by this time.

His next question was: "What is your line of work?"

My 61-year-old friend has never been a prostitute. And, even if she had been, what business is it of his and why would it be relevant to him in this particular instance?

His assumptions and attitude are still typical of what women have to put up with from some medics.

The facts are that she was repeatedly raped during her long marriage. And never reported it until she found the courage to divorce him a few years ago. She is still traumatised and her experience with this consultant has not helped one bit.

That reminds me of an old joke:

What's the difference between a consultant and God?

God doesn't think he's a consultant.

As a girl I was expected to do (a lot) of household chores, these took priority over homework. I couldn't identify my way out of these

I am a woman