Living as a woman

Being the main breadwinner whilst simultaneously looking after an elderly mother with Cancer and being a single parent. And no-one once ever praised me ‘for helping’ with the care for my own relatives - or ‘helping’ with the household chores.

this thread lol

Being scared of walking home alone after a night out.

Understanding that your body and what it looks like is public property when it comes to men commenting on it.

Realising that your beautiful 12 year old DD has all this shit to come and feeling unbelievably sad about it.

And on the plus side, looking at your new born baby in wonder that your body grew a whole new person.

Being called a slut, slag, whore etc because of how you look, what you say, what you wear, where you go, turning men down, not turning men down.

being asked ‘what I did, what I was wearing’ etc when reporting sexual violence

Growing a whole new person inside you, and being a mother.

Seeing younger colleagues leap frog me on the career ladder because I had children and worked part time.

30 years of periods culminating in the joys of menopause.

Trying to think up something to cook for tea every night.

Having permanent back pain after having 3 babies- still suffering and the youngest is 25 - it's not going to get better now!

Almost dying from preeclampsia and having to spend a month in hospital having my blood pressure measured every half hour day and night. Having to be injected with a drug to develop my baby’s lungs so that when she would have to be birthed prematurely she’d have a fighting chance. Having two failed inductions and having to beg for a c-section. Finding out after the birth that my lungs had filled with fluid and if I had gone into labour I wouldn’t have been able to breathe or push.

Luckily she survived and thrived. She has been an absolute joy to raise, and has just very successfully completed her first year at university 🥰

Suffering hyper vigilance due to csa

Injecting your own stomach several times a day to generate dozens of eggs for ivf.

(I wish I got to orgasm into a cup instead lol)

Hearing my grandmother say my 11 year old sister wasn't a proper virgin because she needed a tampon.

Walking sodding miles with SPD to try to induce labour.

Eta stupidly feeling I'd failed because I needed a caesarean.

But a good one too - the sheer euphoria and sense of power of having birthed a baby, and the absolute awe of looking at them and realising your body literally made every part of them. 🥹

Being on edge/heightened sense of awareness walking home when dark, more so if a man/men is/are in the vicinity. Less so if a woman is.

As a 11yo schoolgirl, waiting at the bus stop, being groped by an older male pupil while other waiting adult passengers just looked on passively.

As an older teen, being groped by an older boy in a lift, while other adult passengers just looked on passively.

As a late teen, on my way to post the paperwork to register my father’s death, being told to ‘give us a fucking smile luv’ by a builder.

As a student, being spiked by one of a group of males. Luckily my female housemates saw and protected me.

As a young woman, being told my crippling abdomen pains were all in my head and the flooding was normal and it was probably a heavy period and cramps. Actually they were multiple rupturing ovarian cysts.

Having my breasts squashed and manipulated for a mammogram to investigate suspected tumours.

Having people peering into and scraping my cervix more times than I can remember.

As a first time mum, pushing my new baby in a pram, body battered and bruised and stitched and bleeding, being catcalled by various men in cars and vans.

As a mid 40s single mum now, feeling men’s eyes on me wherever I go, whether dressed up or dressed down, never feeling safe and always knowing someone somewhere thinks that my body is not my own but is on display as a commodity for them to judge and/or comment on with zero consequences.

Having the car dealership owner explain to my husband details of my new car, I was there to pick up, the car I chose and paid for .

Being rubbed up against and touched up in crowded places.

Getting sexually harassed at 13 on Halloween in the local shop. I had dressed up as a zombie school girl (in our normal school uniform just with ‘scary’ makeup and hair). We wanted to go trick or treating.

Running home to tell my dad to call the police about the creep and being told that it’s to be expected now I’m getting older/turning into a lady and that the police won’t do anything.

Being asked at recruitment if I was pregnant because I pointed out there was no mention of maternity leave or pension contributions in the contract.

Being told by my boss that I should wear a body con dress. I was a teacher. I said no.

Being hospitalised because you can’t eat or drink anything having been puking non-stop due to hyperemesis (extreme pregnancy sickness) and somehow, feeling pretty lucky about that because if you’d been born a hundred years earlier, you’d have just died of it.

Being asked if I had ever had a pregnancy at an interview for Naval Engineering college, relevant how? Also being asked by same panel if I would not prefer to wear my nice suit rather than the boiler suit I was wearing when I was leading activities that morning. 1990s.

Fibroids
a colposcopy
episiotomy and 64 stitches
being verbally harassed, followed and leered at while jogging ( or just existing in public)

Being a grandmother

i think the point is being a woman has its very shit moments but joys of things like motherhood too

I know we miss the laughing react emoji but on threads like this I wish there was a sad one too. So sorry for the shit pps have been through.