Living as a woman

@GenderlessVoid I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Mammogram. Only had it twice but it hurts so much! I've got B/small C cup boobs. If they were any smaller I literally don't know how they would have managed it? You'd end up with your whole body wedged in the machine!!
I asked the technician if she'd ever done it and she said no because I'm too young. I laughed and thought, yeah, so am I love!

A positive one: wild how we get to choose to make humans.
Like... if women like me don’t say yes to this whole “creating life” thing, humanity just stops. No pressure, right?
Also love that I get to pick who to do this with — like a walking, talking filter for evolution. Sorry not sorry, but selfish, arrogant, patronising guys? Yeah, you're not getting past the gene pool bouncer.
Honestly, it’s kind of amazing to know that choosing love, kindness, and decency in a partner is part of shaping the future.

The expectation to mother like you don’t work and to work like you are not a mother.

Sitting with her sisters, holding my best friend’s hand as she died.

She had a husband, a brother and close male friends. I don’t know why, but it was the women in her life who stayed with her to the end

We are mighty, aren’t we? I’ve cried at many of the posts on this thread. Sending so much love to you all ❤️

So much solidarity for all the women on the thread.

Being on holiday abroad as a teenager and being overcome with shame about having a 10 day period that was just soaking through pads within half an hour and drenching the bed every night.

Childbirth cramps. Coil insertion no anaesthetic-cramps. Smear test yowch. Thrush.BV. UTIs from hell. Mammogram, boob crusher.

Permanent yet preventable damage to our bodies because medical professionals dismiss real symptoms as anxiety or age

watching family court be used to continue abuse and not protect vulnerable children

Being told by police text messages from ex admitting abuse and rape wasn’t enough to even arrest him

@GenderlessVoid
💐

…words fail me.

Being told to stay at home to have my miscarriage, no notion of what to expect, eventually getting an ambulance to come, paramedic asks how many towels I have used, “bath towels?” I replied. I was taken to A&E and left in a corridor for hours. Got taken to a room where a clinician scraped away at me to “get rid of the product”, she was smiling, it was torture. I was denied a D&C for several hours until I kicked up a stink and it was granted; they found 2 cysts, the size of oranges.

Getting told by my mother that if I slept with him more, he'd be more inclined to help with housework and childcare.

I know this was said by a PP... but reading these makes you realise why women are pissed off at the notion that a man claiming to be 'living as a woman' because he has an interest in wearing skirts, having long hair/wigs, make-up, tittering behind a raised hand and a fondness for knitting? Femininity has nowt to do with 'living as a woman'.

Femininity is the sprinkles on top of a whole trifle of complex layers of beautiful, harrowing, amazing, painful, magical and frustrating experiences that women go through because of our biology. That woman trifle can still be a bloody fantastic trifle without the sprinkles too.

Gosh, I'm feeling so much reading this thread , so many similar experiences. Mine are generally pregancy related!
-I started to bleed at work during my first pregnancy and STILL finished my shift as I didnt want to let my patients down.
-having my boobs "manhandled" without consent when attempting to BF
-horrific PND twice. Being told by a travel insurance helpline that this has to be disclosed when buying insurance for the rest of my life (?)
-having every single GP appointment from then on ,no matter what ailment, still being linked to my mental health.
-putting up with every single smear/mammogram without complaint because "its just part of being a woman". Realising when working in cancer care how many women avoid cancer screening tests because how painful/distressing/trauma they can find it. Being aware that ,solely by being a woman, the health service expects you to bear pain (during procedures such as hysteroscopy) or distressing circumstances without complaining or adequate pain relief; and that social care service expects you to care for older and /or disabled family members no matter your own family /health/job situation.
-realising that the NHS,despite it being kept afloat by generations of hard working women, still prioritises the wishes of men ( in their trans woman identities), over the safety and dignity of women.

Nearly dying and nearly losing my baby at 32 weeks pregnant due to a partial placental abruption. In a state of delirium afterwards on a side ward in the maternity ward hearing other mothers with their newborns beside them and not knowing what was happening with my baby in the ICU.

Having a very dismissive male consultant come in and tell me I should have spotted the signs sooner (there were no signs) and that the instantaneous bleed and pain whilst I was driving home could not have been the start of it (it was). Midwife with him kindly pointed out I'd done the right thing coming straight to the hospital and he said yes, you and your baby were only half an hour from death. Gave me such bad anxiety I didn't sleep when we eventually got home with our baby for first 6 months. I'd just stare at him to see if he was breathing. The constant wires and beeps at the hospital had been a weird comfort to me.

When I was 19, being attacked while swimming in a public pool by a man ( a stranger ) who dragged me under the water and tried to pull down my bikini bottoms.

The sports centre manager told me that he could call the police if I insisted but he would advise against it , as it would be very awkward for me, they would ask me all about my sexual history and let’s face it I was wearing a bikini . And was I sure it wasn’t in fact my boyfriend who was playing a prank on me?

Being at university on a male dominated course and realising that all the male students went to the pub with our ( all male ) lecturers on a Friday after classes. The men called the staff by their first name but we were expected to call them Dr/ Professor Smith.

I recently met a man I was at uni with and he was reminiscing “

” Andy / Dave / Ian (lecturers ) were such great guys, anytime we missed lectures they would give us notes, give us an extra tutorial ,help us with our essays , give us tips on exams questions. If our lab reports weren’t up to scratch, Dave would let us resubmit them. I don’t think I would have graduated without all that support, I was pissed half the time I was there.”

This was 30 years ago and none of the women students knew this was happening. We got NONE of that, it’s as if we were on different courses .

We had to write our names on the ( handwritten ) exams scripts that went to the external examiners . The women all wrote their initial plus surname ( J Smith ) as we were sure we were being down marked . The men all wrote their full name ( John Robert Smith ) so they could still tell our sex anyway.

One Lecturer told me that we were the first year that no woman had dropped out because she was pregnant, but that we would all probably get married and have a baby straight after graduation. It was clear that most of the academics staff thought they were wasting their time teaching us and we were taking places away from legitimate male students.

Getting a biopsy without pain killers.

Realising in the second half of my 40’s that it’s now safe to smile at strangers, having spent all the years since being a teen cultivating a magnificent bitchy resting face to avoid any chat up attempts

I’m really smiley now I’m invisible!

Thank you. And love to you and everyone else on this thread who has experienced horrendous shit, just for “living as a woman”, or as it’s better known, being a woman ❤️

I had similar at a double glazing appointment - the guy said he should reschedule for when my husband was home. I said I didn't have a husband it was MY house.

Buying a dark, patterned top for a rare night out when DS was tiny, not for any sense of style but for camouflage, because the sound/sight/thought of any baby, not even mine, produced a let-down reflex that could have your eye out.

Backing it up with those ever so sexy absorbent towelling circle things to stuff in a bra (having removed the chilled cabbage leaves first. I'm not a total style-free zone).

Being told at a bathroom showroom that they would not talk to me about a bathroom renovation because my husband wasn't with me and the salesman didn't want to waste his time having to tell us everything twice. I walked out.