To wonder what ‘living as a woman’ means?

[Stressmode]

I don’t think I ‘live as a woman’. I only wear men’s clothes, for work and at home. Don’t own makeup or any woman specific items. Hobbies are motorbikes and wood work. My job is in a traditionally male industry. I am the only woman on the team. I know I am genetically a woman. I have a womb and have given birth to a kid. My name is androgynous sounding. It is the name my parents picked for me.

Non of how I am is a sex thing, or an identity thing. I just like practicality and comfort.

I am constantly mistaken for a man. I get challenged about using womens toilets. I am nearly 6 foot tall. A lot of the time I enjoy male privilege. For example I can go running at night with worrying.

What does it mean to ‘live as a woman’? If I say I am a woman, is that enough? Why is it that men have to become a caricature of a woman to live as one?

Genuinely confused by this…

I agree that gender ideology is regressive cos it reinforces stereotypes, but I'll wager you know fine well that "living as a woman" = a man in a frock, calling himself Sally

The only way to live as a woman, is to be an adult female human being. Regardless of what you wear, what you call yourself, who you sleep with, it's all irrelevant.

No male person lives as a woman and never can.

Of course not. The only way to ‘live as a woman’ is to be one. The men who say they identify as women are at best identifying, as their idea of femininity. They cannot live as a woman because they are men.

Well today it's meant watching UK's strongest man while wearing shorts, a t shirt and no make up and drinking a beer.

I did do the laundry though, so maybe that counts.

It's just being a human adult female, which no man can be how ever much he wants to.

Agreed. This isn’t my choice- I just got this body. I shall always refuse to live up to the stereotypes and expectations placed on my sex.

Dp was doing exactly the same as me re the TV, clothing and make up bit. Oddly we can totally tell who is male and who is female.

If someone who isn’t a biological female then they can only pretend to be a woman, which is appropriation and enforces stereotypes. It is a fantasy. Women are diverse and are. That’s it. Only women can live as women.

Despite all the shit and discrimination, I like being a woman. I hope I'm not reincarnated as a man.

You don't need to live as a woman or a man, you just are. It's a state of being, not living

If you were would you identify as a woman?

For most of us it’s living with a uterus, earning less than men and being dismissed by the medical profession.

No, I wouldn't have the gall!

There was a very good thread on this in the feminism and gender section. Some genuinely awful tales, and some good ones, none of which can be appropriated by a man in a frock.

You're living as a woman because you're a woman!

Being a woman doesn't mean what you wear, what work you do, even who you choose to have sex with.

It just means that you were born a woman and you're alive.

Living as a woman = being a woman, biologically. No other criteria matter. Wear what you like, work in whatever trade you like, love and be attracted to whichever adults you like, have children or don't. I am sorry people challenge you because you 'look male'. The trend towards stereotyping femininity and masculinity is so restrictive.

I am constantly mistaken for a man. I get challenged about using womens toilets. I am nearly 6 foot tall. A lot of the time I enjoy male privilege. For example I can go running at night with worrying.

I know a fair few very tall women. None of them ever get mistaken for a man. And in nearly fifty years of using women’s loos, I’ve yet to see even a single woman “challenged” about using them. And how can women “enjoy male privilege”? I don’t know any women, not even the 6ft ones, who are under any impression that their height makes them immune to being attacked at night. Male strength isn’t just about height, but about body shape, size and musculature.

It sounds like you are in a very unusual position, OP, compared to other women.

You have female reproductive organs and hormones, may have periods, may be able to gestate, may go through the menopause.
You are more likely to be raped, abused and/or earn less than a person with male reproductive organs.
The rest is a fetish.

Yup, I am size 20 through being really muscular from sport and working as a tree surgeon. Short hair and work clothes complete the picture. May be not what women expect to encounter when using the loos at motorway services!

Well you probably get a double- take but I'm sure most women would recognise you as female after a moment

This

I believe it's more how you feel within yourself rather than specific job or clothing. Living as a women for 10 years means I have been calling myself and seeing myself as female for 10 years

What does that mean? How do you see yourself as female? You look down and see a female body or you feel you fit with what? Stereotypes?

How can you feel like a woman? You either are or you aren't, there isn't some magical womany essence.

So if I felt like a black woman (I'm white), used fake tan and makeup to live as a black woman, called myself a black woman for 20 years, would you believe I've become a black woman?

"Men's shirt, short skirt" according to Shania.

Today for me, living as a woman meant putting my period pants on before heading out for the day "just in case" as I knew there wasn't much by way of toilet provision where I was.
It also meant people joking "ohhhh! Are you menopausal?" Everytime I used my fan rather than saying "its hot isn't it?" Like they did to my son.