'Real woman now'

[KissesAX]

I've just seen a comment on Facebook to someone's pregnancy 'congratulations you're blooming with your pregnancy, you're becoming a real woman now'.

AIB unreasonably over sensitive that this woman considers women who've not yet conceived or can't any less woman than people with a child? I'll find it hard seeing this person and speaking to her now, I don't have fertility issues (I'm aware of) but do want a baby soon and I'm actually hurt.

^doesn't bother me...anymore but earlier on it would have been upsetting and made me feel like shit. Someone who is at that stage of their infertility battle could be really hurt by it. Even if they know it's bullshit, there's that fear that that's what people think. (They don't.)

What a ridiculous comment. Seeing as I’m never going to have kids, guess I’ll always be a fake woman then.

Maybe seeing that this is an upsetting thread the OP could ask to have it taken down?

You mean the 11 years from puberty to the birth of my first born I wasn't a real woman? What was I then? A Barbie doll?

I had those sort of comments after my three caesarian sections. In the words of one of my colleagues I apparently I do not know how it feels to be a mother because I didn't push

A relative of mine said that he didn't think women should be able to choose to have c sections because 'you shouldn't get to pick what day' your child is born. I was pregnant at the time (very early on, not formerly announced) and fully planning on having a c section due to losing my first daughter. I wanted to bite his head of but I bit my tongue. He also declared formula to be 'poison'.

He's a grade A knobhead. We don't see him much, thankfully.

I'm infertile and needed IVF to get pregnant. My womb issues mean I can't sustain a pregnancy and after losing healthy babies the top miscarriage Drs have confirmed I can't carry

The only way we will have a baby is through surrogacy

My inability to bear children makes me feel like a failure as a woman. Like I can't do what I'm supposed to be able to do.

I will never be able to experience pregnancy and childbirth for myself, and am coming to terms with the fact that the only way we can turn one of our frozen embryos into a person is if another woman carries our child for us

Her comments just reinforce how being barren makes me feel less of a woman

How sad if popping a baby out is the only thing that makes someone feel like a real woman. There's so much more to women than that.

@bananafish81

My DNan announced my husband is yet to become a 'real man' until he father's a daughter.

I was told I'm now a 'true woman' for giving DH a son.

Thanks Nan, so sweet of you. Do all my other children not count them or do they become irrelevant since they never rook their first breaths?

Probably thoughtless not malicious

I have fertility issues. The issue being infertility. Even if I didn't, I would still think she was ignorant at best... (I won't tell you what at worst ).

Is it just me or is the world becoming increasingly more full of people who engage mouth (or typing fingers) before brain?

Urgh that's a fucking horrible comment. SO insulting to women with no kids.

Reminds me of that poxy ad for (I think) Mercedes Benz, where they say 'grow up and have a family.'

Fuck off.

I would call her out on it. I hope it was just an ignorant mistake, and that she profusely apologises.
Twat.

No you are not being oversensitive, that's a fucking horrible thing to say. Usually the sort of shite trotted out by those women who have achieved literally nothing else in their lives except having babies.

I would ignore any crap on social media but there are some women (as evidenced on this thread) who do believe that pregnancy, childbirth (and sometimes breastfeeding) is the ultimate expression of the female gender and what the female body is designed for.

I don't, and I am childless but I have had very lovely friends express this view. Not in a twatty way like 'I'm a real woman now' though. Apart from the (short-lived) friend who said breastfeeding made her feel extremely powerful as the baby was entirely reliant on her for survival and would die without her. Completely untrue obviously as formula is available and she was just a bit weird anyway.

Apart from the (short-lived) friend who said breastfeeding made her feel extremely powerful, as the baby was entirely reliant on her for survival and would die without her.

WOW. I almost choked on my coffee laughing at that! 😂🤣

My poor niece has had to give up on the only dream she ever really had, which was to be a mother. Now someone, and a woman at that, tells her that she isn't really a woman. Oh, wonderful.

Bing - she was very odd though and always had a weird beatific smile on her face when talking about breastfeeding. She breastfed her DC till 5 and 2 and was unfortunately conforming a bit to the idea that some people have about extended BF (which I have no issue with at all) as being about the needs of the Mother.

I saw her offer BF in public to the elder and him seem embarrassed and refuse though I'm sure he happily had it in private. But she loved telling everyone about how BF her 4/5 year old meant she was the only one who could give him comfort in such a special way.

She was devastated when the younger one refused BF of his own volition at 2 when the elder had carried on for so long.

I mean genuinely devastated like she felt she had no purpose left and her body was no longer of any significant use.

I hear this occasionally. My response is usually, "So in your book, Rosemary West is a real woman, but Florence Nightingale wasn't?"

Fuckwits.

I do think giving birth is impressive. But so is running 5k after starting running. Or rising up in your field of work. Or making a piece of art from scratch. It's a shame we can't celebrate all the awesome stuff we do every day. Life is incredible.
I may have had wine

Slightly off topic but in a similar vein l used to be very slim and very toned. < sobs> l could look good in a potato sack Whilst a lot of men could hardly take their eyes away , a lot ot women would often tell me ( strangers aswell usually or casual acquaintances at most) that of course men liked 'real women' or ' with a bit of meat on' or 'something to grab hold of' and so on. Funny how remembering some of the work colleagues in particular how in the next breath they would be saying how many points were in their cake or how many sins a bag of crisps were etc. I felt like saying 'what's the matter , you tired of being a real woman ?' I often thought can you imagine the fuss if ld started looking them up and down saying similar comments in reverse. Women seem to do this just knock each other down, why ?

I agree that it's silly and not something to put on Facebook. But in their defence, people as a whole are cultural beings who have always, in all places around the world, liked to demarcate life and a lot of people like to focus on rites of passage-first tooth, first holy communion, pregnancy, marriage, graduation etc etc. I think the comment was just recognition of having gone through one of these rites of passage. Perhaps insensitively worded.