If you could choose... would you rather have been born male?

[wellwisher]

I don't post in this section much, but this is inspired by the "Do you remember a specific moment where you realised that being female put you at a disadvantage?" thread.

I have become more feminist/aware of the disadvantages of being female as I've got older. The last few years, I've realised that if I could choose, I'd rather be male. I'm at an age where I'm starting to lose my looks and panic about my biological clock, and I resent that my male friends don't have these worries yet. Almost all my female friends have settled down and started to have children, often making major compromises to do so. Almost all my male friends are still single and enjoying their freedom. It feels so unfair! It's more than that though: women have so much additional CRAP to deal with - prejudice, misogyny, objectification, being punished by society for getting older/not being conventionally pretty, feeling physically vulnerable... honestly, if I could go back to the moment of my conception, wave a magic wand and be created male instead of female, I would do it in a snap. Yet, none of my female friends feel the same way - even though most of them are relatively feminist in their views.

Maybe I just feel like this because I don't have children. Maybe it's just me, am generally a bit gloomy at the moment... but I thought it could be an interesting discussion. What would you choose? Try to set aside any feelings associated with having had babies, as this clearly adds a huge emotional aspect to the issue. I hope that any future children of mine will be boys. I really feel I wouldn't wish being born female on anyone - and I'm aware of how easy women in the UK have it compared to most of the rest of the world.

I think that sex is used on a par with motherhood as a guilt trip against women in patriarchal societies. Just as you can't do right for doing wrong as a mother: witness the innumerable press reports about how particular aspects of "mothering" hurt children (bottle feeding and extended breastfeeding comes to mind).when it comes to sex either you are wrong for not wanting enough sex (ie "frigid") or wrong for wanting too much (ie "whore"). It seems that as a rule other people get to decide what is too much or too little not the woman in question.
I think every woman should decide for herself how much and when she wants sex ans with who. (Disclaimer : I think the same for men) And it goes without saying that the crucial thing is that all partners are willing and not coherced on any way.

Completely agree

Completely agree Catitainahatita.

I think you nailed it.

I am mostly happy with my with my female lot but I do think that if I had been a guy I would have had more sex. And no, I don't expect guys to initiate everything.

actually....
been pondering the op again.

i really would have liked the opportunity to be a bloke for a bit. because i think you can have more impact towards equality - get taken more seriously.

so i think being a feminist bloke would rock. a massive one, obv. i'm a pathetically small woman (one of the very few 'feminine' things about me) so it would be interesting to see what impact size, as well as gender, has.

it's a shame that the recent fem section visitors won't use their gender for the good. it could be awesome.

Ooooh interesting question.

I decided at a very young age (about 8 or 9?) that life would be SO much more fun if I had been born male. The idea grew and grew on me and I have spent most of my life sure in the knowledge that I'd have been better off being a boy. This is NOT about trans-gender confusion, it's purely societal - a logical reaction to me looking at my brothers and my male friends and my father and my parents' male friends and seeing in black and white that they have an easier time, are more admired, are given more freedoms, are pandered to, are given more licence, are louder, are funnier, are lazier, are more powerful...

Plus, I had very mixed messages from my mother who on the one hand adored the men and considered herself 'one of the boys' and was brutally dismissive of female friends and 'girls stuff' but on the other hand did 100% of the childcare, housework, cooking and 'womens work' so she would be sitting at the bar, roaring with laughter at the bawdy jokes while having done all the cooking beforehand and would do all the washing up when everyone went home.

But, my reaction was very specific to my rather chauvinistic (even misogynistic?) upbringing.

As an adult though I have learned to love women, and the woman I am. I now have lots of strong female friends whom I admire enormously for all sorts of different reasons, and whose company I adore. I call the shots in my family. I have discovered feminism, firstly through an older friend of mine and then explored it through Mumsnet and other reading.

So, on balance I would now say no, I would not prefer to be a man. Not in my life now anyway. It would have been an easier path being a man, but I like who I am and what my life is as a result of me being a woman. And I'm afraid I can't discount the baby stuff - that is a hugely important part of being a woman for me.

garlic, I think you are lucky if you have never encountered the attitudes I'm talking about. I have though. Usually not expressed to my face, of course.

But if it really doesn't matter, why are there about 500 million articles on google about how many partners women have, how many they should have and is a promiscuous woman really marriage material (usually concluded that absolutely not, or as one columnist charmingly explained, "The more people use the object, the more it depreciates and the less bargaining power it has")?

Yes, we can dismiss those opinions as outdated, with double-standards and just plain stupid, but there are still many, many people who think like that.

as for the other question, we have a handful female managers in my company, all strong assertive women. We are also, again behind our backs, called bitches - just because we won't talk about fluffeh kittens only, but we ask people to do their job. Although none of us has ever even raised the voice and we certainly cannot allow ourselves to behave like several male managers here - jumping on tables, swearing, screming - still, they are just excused with "oh, he really cares about this topic". So yes, I do believe that I would have way easier life, behaving like I do now, if I was a man.

In the fiction of Iain M Banks members of the technologically advanced civilisation called the Culture are able to choose to change sex at will, with the biological changes then happening gradually over a period of months. During their long lifespans they may change several times, and might well stay paired with a partner who themselves changes sex during the course of the relationship.

It is an interesting concept, if gender became an act of will, something that is fluid rather than (largely) set in stone then so many concepts, from inequality to what it means to be "gay" would fall away. Our gender would just be a changeable shell covering the essence of the "person" inside. What better way to learn empathy, or to remove gender based expectations!

This thread made me think of the Culture as well, Bluegrass! Though it's an interesting feature of the Culture books that the characters seem to be essentially genderless anyway, as though their sex is just a superficial physical attribute like hair colour. There's no noticeable difference in behaviour or emotions or lifestyle or expected roles for the male or female characters, in fact there's very little mention of family life or childbearing/raising as far as I can remember - so he doesn't really explore very deeply how a genderless society would work, though it's interesting all the same.

The 'future' society in Marge Piercy's 'Woman on the Edge of Time' develops these ideas a bit more I think. Although the characters don't actually choose/change their gender, it's essentially irrelevant to their lives. That's partly because they've developed the ability to 'incubate' babies outside a woman's body, so women no longer have the 'special' role of motherhood, and men can be and often are 'mothers' as well - there's also some discussion of how not everyone would consider this to be a good thing!

Ursula LeGuin 'Left Hand of Darkness' is also an iteresting read (a race that moves through the genders - male/female/neither)

I think this is a hard question to answer because we have 'lived' as a particular gender. I wanted to be a boy when I was a kid (felt they had more freedom and better toys!), I was and am not particularly feminine so found the girly thing really hard - I didnn't fit - and my best friends were boys. Now, I don't know. I don't feel the 'oh its great to give birth/breastfeed' thing. I would like the confidence dp seems to have!

Ephiny - I suppose for those characters that swap genders there probably would be no difference in behaviour, certainly no expectation that they would act differently because the person inside is the same before and afterwards. There would also be little point in raising a child with gendered expectations as the parents would have no idea if that child would stay the same or swap.

I suppose it is an expression of the ideal that in an equal society you would have no fear (perhaps even no preference) of being reincarnated as one gender or the other as you would feel confident that neither would be more advantageous.

also interesting in light of the hammering that 'pop' and his/ her parents got for attempting to raise a genderless infant. (and other similar)

Wow, lots of interesting replies and digressions here! I have actually had male friends say to me quite often that "it must be great being female because you can have sex whenever you like". I think many men do really believe this.

I hadn't really thought through what it would be like to have a penis... would it really be so bad? Can't imagine it would be more inconvenient than having breasts (does an unsupported set of male genitalia hurt when you run? any men left on this thread to answer?) - and much more convenient for peeing when out on long hikes/camping trips.

And to the person who asked: I do want to have babies, but time is running out, in a way that it isn't for my male friends of the same age. That's one of the things that kicked off this whole idea for me :(

I have thought about this quesiton a lot over the years.
and it's come at a relevant time for me.
Waiting for a baby to arrive, and we decided not to find out whether it was a boy or girl.
The more i've thought about it, the more I think that girls have life so much better than boys.
We've got so many opportunities, so much that we can do and conquer.
We don't have to live up to any false expectations of us, and we can wear what we like - trousers or skirts, pink and fluffy or blue etc.
Boys seem to have that inherent social standard set upon them - if you dress a boy in pink, people think you're strange or a hippy, and a boy couldnt' wear skirts.
when they start school, they're forced into a stereotype by parents of all the other boys (no matter what you teach them at home)

All things considered, I would never prefer to be a boy/man. I would always choose girl/woman.
and if i want to prove something, then I can, and I will.

(sorry if mythoughts on new babies upsets you, by the way, it was bad timing of my post :( )

wellwisher I hope you have a baby or even babies, good luck :)

me too, wellwisher, I wish you all the luck you need in getting pg (have been there) x

yes yes, wellwisher - good luck indeed. I didn't mean to talk about the babies in my post either, it just sort of happened. Hope that wasn't insensitive.

In response to wellwisher. No, male genetalia doesn't hurt when you run. Most men wear shorts with inner briefs incorporated which mean they stay in place too. The biggest problems come with being well endowed oddly enough, in the same way as women who are well endowed in the breast department. I'd better not say much on the theme as some here are too immature to deal with it.

The issue of having breasts to deal with during exercise has to be the biggest (alongside periods) downside to being a woman as I see it. But I wouldn't want to be flatchested either! So I'd be a C cup I think..lol..is that the best compromise?!

My buttocks hurt when I run, am I abnormal ?

Moonferret, I can only sympathise with your predicament. Have you considered contacting the LPSG ? I hear they are very supportive of their members.

Unfortunately I doubt there is such an oganisation as the WBSG

Your tedious and immature rubbish gets no reaction or serious reply from me "AF"..haven't you realised yet?

Absolutely not. I love being a woman, and never ever wanted to be male.

I like being a woman. Women rock.

I am sympathising with you mf, it must be such a trial

I am thinking of setting up a Wobby Buttocks Support Group

I think it has legs