I don't appear to have the typical female experience I'd be interested in what some of you have to say

[hathorinareddress69]

Not a thread about a thread but on another thread I realised that I don't seem to have had the typical female experience, and I just wondered what you thought (since LRD suggested this was not a scary place)

I don't seem to have had the experiences that some of the feminists have - I don't feel the need to share with females, I never had a man leer or wolf whistle or try to look up my skirt.

My best friend is a man and I can (and do) discuss anything with him and he does with me.

Am I that abnormal?

you have shaved your legs maybe or epilated or immac'd using products produced for women for women to use in ways men don't.

you may have plucked your eyebrows, waxed your lip, lined your eyes or painted your lips. men 'can' do these things to if they want to but they aren't expected to - don't do it or go through a phase of doing automatically.

you have suffered the discomfort of tights. you may have worn strange big knickers or spandex suits to distort your body.

you may have looked in the mirror and considered botox given it's being marketed at you from all angles.

you may have dieted, exercised, followed fads to achieve a flatter tummy, get rid of those bingo wings, lift your breasts.

you may have spent money on potions that have to be ritualistically rubbed into your thighs to get rid of 'cellulite'.

and on and on and on.

and you didn't decide to do these things out of thin air. you were told in one way or another over and over again that they were necessary - necessary things for a woman to do.

TBH there's a helluva lot of that I haven't done

yes but even your not doing it with have marked you out somehow or said something about your identity. if you didn't shave your legs it will probably have been commented on or frowned upon. if you don't wear make up you'll have probably had your 'natural look' commented upon. etc.

Not that I'm aware of, but probably behind my back - true.

it's like potential fertility - it's not just the women who can and do have babies who are marked by it it is also those who can't or choose not to and the way they are perceived, feel, etc because of that erring from what is seen as typical female experience.

a woman who chooses not to have children is notably a 'childless woman'. a woman who chooses not to be a wife is notably a 'single woman'. a woman who has a child without a man is notably a 'single mother'. our differences from that perceived norm mark us out as much as our conformity to the norm does itms.

and our differences normally mark us out for stigma too.

Hathorkickass - I get the feeling that you think that by saying that some of your experiences are related to the fact that you are a woman, that this somehow excuses the perpetrator.

In fact IMO it is the opposite. The point of feminist analysis is that it identifies patterns of things that are done to women by men, is not to 'explain things away' or justify them. AT ALL.

The point is not to victim blame.

The point is to place the blame squarely where it belongs - on the male perpetrators of violence and the male dominated society which allows violent men to get away with hurting women. The focus is on the violent men.

At the same time some women find support and healing in sharing their experiences and finding out that many many other women have been subjected to similar male violence. The point of this is to find strength in numbers and solidarity. Having said that, of course no woman is under any obligation to accept the above or embrace it.

Yes Beachcomber, that's exactly how I feel.

I very much agree with you here sAf;

i think sisterhood is an outcome of consciousness raising and a conscious effort then to overcome our conditioning in dealing with each other. it is counter to what we are trained for so it takes effort and work to strive for it and 'be' part of it.

Maybe (and I'm musing again so I might say this wrong) maybe because of the experiences I have had, and never having experienced sisterhood - then that makes it hard for me to understand it.

So how can I overcome "conditioning" if that's what it is?

IYSWIM

When you hear a feminist say "X happens to women because we are women", does that sound to you as though the feminist is somehow removing the responsibility from the perpetrator?

And then that responsibility/focus has to go somewhere so it must be placed on the woman?

I think that is what you are saying. And I can see why that would make you angry - because that would be victim blaming. It is the same as saying a woman was sexually assaulted because she is wearing a short skirt.

That however is honestly not my experience of feminism. The analysis and sharing is not done to 'blame' women, quite the opposite! It is there to help individuals understand that they personally as people, human females, are not to blame for their experiences at the hands of violent males within a violent male society.

Yes Beachcomber, that's exactly what it sounds like!

With regards to sisterhood, unfortunately there are lots of women who prop up the patriarchy and its culture of male violence. That is part and parcel of being an oppressed group.

But there are lots of women who are able to refuse the role patriarchy tries to impose on us of controlling, policing and placing each other in a pecking order. And that is what the sisterhood is to me.

Let's take a light-hearted example. On the Daily Mail website there are always loads of articles about how fat/thin/saggy/wrinkly/anorexic/haggard/badly dressed/well dressed etc certain famous women are.

The (misogynistic) point of these articles is twofold - one we are encouraged to point and laugh at the celebrity women. That takes her down a peg or two and makes us feel better because we see that even these famous beautiful women struggle to meet the ridiculous and unrealistic beauty standards that we are all held to. Secondly we are made to feel bad about ourselves by these articles because the supposedly 'fat' celebrity is probably only a size 8 and 'badly dressed' celebrity probably looks better than we do even in our most flattering outfit. So that takes us down a peg or two as well. Win win for patriarchy, right?

Sisterhood in action is to refuse to play these roles - for the celebrity woman to not play the role of the fembot and for us mere mortals not to point and laugh at these women. Win win for women and feminism .

Of course this is a fairly banal example - this subject is much more complicated when it comes to things like FGM and forced marriages.

Hathorkickass feminist analysis is not about blaming women for being victims of male violence.

It is about helping individuals see that there are patterns of behaviour in society and that these patterns adversely affect women as a group. That is in no way our fault.

I always think that childbirth can be a good analogy here. I have a friend who had a horrendous first birth - she was induced and then the classic 'cascade of intervention' happened. At the end of it all she was left physically damaged and emotionally traumatised.

For years she felt that it was her fault - that her body was faulty and that she was rubbish at giving birth. She blamed herself.

Feminist analysis of childbirth experiences helped her to heal and find the strength to have a much wanted second child. The analysis was to show her that what happened to her had also happened to countless other women. In a way it had happened to her due to the fact that she was a woman, but the focus of why she was damaged like this, is in fact on the male dominated society which does not allow women to birth in optimum conditions. It doesn't allow us to do that because we are 'only' women. That does not in any way make it our fault - it just helps us to understand why these things are allowed to happen. That knowledge can be healing and it can help us to defend ourselves against future violence (sometimes, obviously it depends on the type of violence). For example my friend used the knowledge to find a supportive feminist doula and to have a homebirth with a midwife who understood her birth trauma.

Thank you - that's very useful and has given me plenty to think about.

I'm glad. You are welcome.

You don't need to have any particular kind of experience to be a feminist. You just need to open your eyes beyond your own reality and look at women as a group in your society and the world around.

I've never been raped, or beaten up by a man, or treated with major disrespect either by men. My husband is as liberal as you can expect, we love each other, and I can probably say he's the best person I've ever known in my whole life.

However, I do see injustices every day done to women, just because of their sex.

Girls from other countries are brought into this country to work as prostitutes. Women becoming vulnerable and dependant, either on the Estate or their husbands when they have children. Inequality of pay at work. Inequality in the division of labour at home. It's everywhere. All you need to do is be critical and keep an independant mind.

You don't need to be a feminist if you don't want to. But what I'm trying to say is that being a feminist has to do more with ideology than with personal experience.

my closest friend is a man, I am married to him. I imagine most women who live with or are married to men are best freinds with them. it ain't that unusual you know.