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?

They were just "for instances" though hathor.

The post didn't mean that all women have experienced these things. She meant that they are the sort of things that women often prefer to talk to other women about, than to men, for a variety of reasons.

If you didn't for one second think it, why on earth did you say it?

would anyone expect to post and have it go unremarked? even if they popped up later to say well really i am soooo antiracist you have no idea

And I get that some of the issues are contentious and difficult. I do.

If I didn't I'd hardly post here, would I?

But I'll tell you this much. I don't ever try to offend. Ever. On any thread I'm ever on. I try really really hard to stay calm and use unemotive language. And you can all look for my posts - I was hathorinareddress before I put the 69 on the end. I wouldn't ever ever want to upset anyone on here.

But how is anyone supposed to explore their feminist side, and post here musing on the start of what I had thought might be a feminist journey, if they have to think through every single word they might utter.

And where even an apology on the thread, as soon as I realised some might be offended wasn't enough.

I was a new poster here. I hadn't posted in here before.

I don't know that I will again.

Chibi - I'm done.

I'm out of this section.

I was posting as I tried to understand what it might mean to be a feminist.

Obviously this place doesn't welcome those who are new and trying to understand and might make mistakes along the way.

I wish you all well, and every luck and success and I am sincerely sorry for anyone who I have offended or hurt - it was unintentional.

I am very very upset that my words have caused such gross offence and I can only apologise.

Oh blimey.

OP, I honestly think that now you are being a little oversensitive. One poster has been upset by a part of what you posted, and (although I don't know her) appears to have memories that have been triggered by what she understood your post to mean. Most other posters didn't take what you said to mean that at all. If you genuinely want to understand the issues, then I think you would serve yourself better to stay, even if you just read for a while. I don't usually come in here myself and I think you've raised some interesting issues.

One of them was the notion of distancing oneself from other women, and believing that in acting like a bloke, "one of the lads", etc. you are in some way protected. I know that this isn't what you said at all, but it's been pointed out - by chibi, in fact - as a side issue and I'm now thinking rather a lot about my time at university - most of my life in fact - and whether I have made the same mistake. I certainly know other women who have, and it rarely works out well for them.

So your posting here has been very useful for this fledgling feminist, at least.

Maybe I give off a very "fuckoffdon'tmesswithme" vibe or something

Maybe you've been very lucky. I certainly 'miss out' on a lot of unwanted attention now I'm old and raddled, but I hadn't perfected that vibe as a child. And I'm not talking about anything life changing or traumatic, like many many women have experienced.

Twat

I am sitting here in tears. I don't even know why I'm bothering to post this since I'm such a twat. And so insensitive. And all the rest.

I never ever meant to offend or upset anyone. I wanted to know if my experience was typical.

I've been through counselling and am on medication (again you can check my posts) for anxiety caused by the way my ex-husband treated me. I didn't think any of that was a feminist issue because he was just a dickhead in general, and I was hoping to use this thread to explore some of the issues I felt around that and the ways in which I could support and bolster my daughters so that they did not feel they had to dress and look in a particular way as they grow older.

But obviously I am a twat and should just fuck the fuck off to the far side of fuck. One way.

Oh and for the record. He held me down. Frequently. He raped and beat me. Often. He burnt my arms. Poured boiling oil on my breasts and stomach.

Just so you know.

But I am an insensitive twat who can't possible know what it's like.

And before anyone else comes and jumps on me and gives me a right good kicking on here.

I'm probably lying. And making it up. And if I posted photos of the scars on my profile they'd be done with fake make up. Or something.

I'm done. Seriously and utterly done with this.

Oh Hathor

And before anyone comes on here and tries to tell me it was because I was a woman - no it wasn't

It was because he could

It was because he believed he had the right.

He would have done it regardless of my sex.

My sex is not why he did what he did.

He did it because he could.

And because he thought he had the right.

And it's not about me.

It's about him.

And anyone who tries to tell me I don't know and I don't understand or my viewpoint is wrong or I am a twat or cruel or any other thing can fuck off.

I'm sorry.

The winky vibe thing upset me and as I said nothing lifechanging or big happened to me.

OP- your treatment by your ex-husband sounds very specifically mysoginistic. I would say you do have that shared experience you describe.

Sorry again.

That is horrific. Is he locked up now?

Why the fuck did he think he had the right?

And no one else has ever sexually assaulted me or even looked at me in a way that I found offensive.

He did it because he could

He did it because I didn't do what he wanted.

It wasn't about me.

And I would never ever ever say to any victim of anything ever that it was their fault.

No he is not locked up.

we co-parent.

it's all ever so nice and civilised.

he's a pillar of the society

every time I went to the doctor it was an accident.

(which is a sarky chicken hmm at me by the way not at any one else)

I told my mother what he was like when I was 21. She said I'd made my bed I would have to lie in it.

So I did. I just got on with it and I did the best I could.

And anyone who would for one second think that i would ever ever be offensive to anyone else is so totally and utterly far out of order it isn't even funny.

I hear you.

It's never about the victim. Always about the perpetrator. The individual.

I'll tell you - and I understand that your experience is in an entirely different league - why my cousin thought he could assault me at 10 years old. Why I couldn't walk down the street without being leered and shouted at. Why I had my breasts and arse groped by strangers.

Because, to them, I was a sex thing, there for their pleasure. Whether I consented or not wasn't important.

Because, when I walked down the street or went into a pub, I needed to be reminded that I was in a space that belonged to THEM.

Because they could.

It wasn't about me.

Did you know? A 100watt bulb (the old ones) makes a corker of a scar. If you forget. And there's no 40s. So you get taught a lesson.

But actually, having said that it sounded misogynistic to me, my interpretation is utterly irrelevant.

It happened to you and I can really understand that any attempt to package it as a shared female experience is spectacularly hurtful and wrong.

Would you ever consider doing anything now? Do you feel he is a risk to anyone else? Your child/ren?

I'm sorry, I'm very upset and very angry but I don't get the misogynist thing.

He's just a dick. In general. It so happens I am a woman but I have watched him treat others with the same disdain and disrespect (although not the violence to be fair) but the disdain and disrespect is the wrost.

And that's not because I am a woman.

It's because he is a dick.

I don't have enough evidence to restrict his contact.

Which is why I'm so upset and strident when women post things like (as another poster has) he's done xyz - well that won't be enough, unless you have EVIDENCE and can back up what you're saying.

And that isn't be unsympathetic.

It's realistic.

hathor I hear you and I'm wrong and I apologise.

Most certainly he is a dick, OP. I am sickened and shocked by what has happened to you.

I wonder why he felt that he, specifically, had the right to do that to you?

One realisation that I've had, reading these boards, is that very often we fail to see individual experiences as part of something bigger.

Your ex-partner did that. He's a dick.

The adult man who leered at my 12 year old daughter? Pervert.

My cousin assaulted me. He was a wanker.

Those countless men who grope and catcall women - are doing it right now, as we talk here tonight? Assholes, each individual one of them.

But all those individual incidents together - maybe they add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. Why do they think they can do that? Why are they often RIGHT that they can do it?

Help - don't apologise to me I was wrong and my comment upset people on here and i never ever meant it to.

What set me thinking was the trans threads (sorry)

The problem isn't with the trans as a group and whether or not they have penii. The problem is always with the specific individual and what they choose to do with their own particular penis and how they choose to behave.

It cannot be generalised - I have a lovely DP who would no more hurt me than rise and fly to the moon.

It's about a specific individual - it's always about a specific individual. And if someone is a rude arrogant self centred unfeeling individual, then they can be male, female, transgendered or anything else they want to be, it's still about THEM in particular.