How to pass as a woman

I do that. DD also does that. I've seen other women do that

Don't kick out behind to close a door.
I knew someone waiting to change gender - they had long hair and flowing skirts but when they wanted to close an open door they kicked backwards with their dainty sandal to close it. It somehow seemed something women dont' do.

I tend to walk like Delaney's donkey with a leg at every corner balancing the head on the days when I'm identifying as able bodied and trying to pass. It doesn't usually work that well, since the basic, hard fact is that I'm not.

And then I have to question why I'm not facing up to and accepting my reality, which is that this body just doesn't look or do what I wish very much that it did. Why be ashamed of it? Why deny it?

Well I walk sideways on the days I'm identifying as a crab.

Unless you're identifying as a crab but are pissed out of your brain. Then you walk forwards.

If you live in Stepford maybe

I'm writing a tutorial "How to pass out as woman":

step 1: be born a woman
step 2: pick a method of losing consciousness: get drunk, faint, have extreme fatigue etc

the end

the poor transwomen following this Northern European gender guideline are just pursuing a 1950s idea of women which will make them out of place with the majority of women and nudge them into the transvestite area

Yes, exactly - this is guidance for conspicuously passing oneself off as someone who has no idea what being a woman means.

At best it's misleading, at worst it's horrifically cruel to all those people being sold the fantasy that dressing like a woman will solve their inner turmoil.

@QueenSue

🤣
Exactly!
I knew someone will get them laydees!

Zing

spend time around ladies

😳

where are all the ladies? I don't know any

And there is a 'How to pass as a minor' heading in the same list as the woman one we've been looking at.

This is all the problem of confusing sex with gender. Gender is a social construct. So the poor transwomen following this Northern European gender guideline are just pursuing a 1950s idea of women which will make them out of place with the majority of women and nudge them into the transvestite area of big hair, eyelash extensions, long nails, slinky dresses and high heels.

Well said Artichokeleaves.

Oh fgs.

The only way to be a woman is to be biologically female.

The whole point of feminism (read the label on this forum) is that women can be biologically female and yet look any way they choose, dress how they choose, like what they choose, have the career they choose, have any sexual orientation, have children or not have children, be as masculine or as feminine as they happen to like being, and still be biologically female .

That is how women escape being objectified and oppressed by gender stereotypes.

So yes. Women are likely to find this really bloody offensive and say so when they are being mocked like this. Imagine 'how to pass as Autistic'. Or 'how to pass as Black'. Or 'how to pass as a child'. And if women saying so is 'transphobic' then again we establish: the posters claiming this are saying in fact then that they believe women's rights and freedoms are incompatible with the political movement they support.

On a feminism and women's rights forum.

Reminder that men used to wear stockings. The 18th century was the best century for men's fashion in my humble opinion.

It certainly isn't saying not doing them is "womaning wrong"

Trying to look at the ‘how to pass as a woman’ more sympathetically, the whole list shows the extent to which a would be trans woman might really be following an illusion and dream - ever elusive.

The state of imagined femininity must represent some sort of hope for something.
Is it to be ‘sexy’, desired, chased or subservient? Is it to be more emotional, among a nurturing friendship group? Is it to feel close to lived females in the person’s life when the males were awful? There must be lots of different reasons.

I agree the instructions are laughable when compared to reality. They read like 13 year old girls’ magazine instructions of the 1960s ( which I used to spend hours reading and love). It is true … where is Joan of Arc, Bodicea or George Eliot. But it would be interesting to understand what these men are after.

The other thing is that though these traits might be regressive stereotypes many women do actively want to conform to stereotypes too. Whether to be like an ethereal waif; or wear hair extensions, have injections to have fish like lips bug breasts and botox forehead.

The other way round - how to pass as a man might have useful tips for women at work. Margaret Thatcher famously had coaching to lower her voice. On a recent thread suggesting how to write to a company about why it is wrong to have pronouns, some suggested the original writer should have avoided any hint of emotion - the equivalent of a level voice. Angela Merkel, Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May have short haircuts ( though not butch) and they would not have had the power they did had their hair been long in our particular societies where the leaders have been men before.

So I am suggesting people do manipulate stereotypes so as to adjust other people’s perceptions and treatment of them or to achieve certain outcomes.

We are a long way from stereotypes not affecting outcomes.

I presume trans people want to do this to the nth degree when they try to ‘pass’.

This brought to mind a 1990s sitcom where one bloke had been on a date with the 'perfect woman' who 'even wore stockings'. His mates explained to him that there is only pair of stockings that women share for use on first dates and after that they switch to tights...

This seems to suggest that they think trans people are basing their transness on a collection of stereotypes.

It also seems to suggest a fundamental incompatibility between feminism - which questions gender and refuses to accede to the imposition of stereotypes - and the whole idea of 'trans', which seems to require stereotypes to be observed/adhered to in order to work at all.

Please reflect in your mirror

To be fair, we don't have to do any of those things to "pass" as women because we already "pass", even if we never wear heels, plunging necklines or foundation.

It's just an article about what men need to do to pretend to be a woman. A pointless exercise from my point of view, but I don't object to their hobby.

I do object to the idea that following those instructions is anything other than an elaborate pretend game, a man is still a man.

There I was, thinking that my uterus, vagina, ovaries, breasts and double ✖ chromosomes were enough. Now I have to shave too?! 😤