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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

i don't know what women are. do any of you?

143 replies

chibi · 15/06/2013 15:26

i am asking honestly. womanness is not a consequence of chromosomes or external morphology. it is about feeling you are a woman.

i don't feel like a woman. i don't even know what that would feel like.

everyone i have spoken with has assumed i am a woman, and i have done things some people associate with women like menstruating, being pregnant etc.

i used to think that because of my external morphology and the whole giving birth thing, and people's assumptions and my upbringing that i was a woman but now i am not sure.

if you are whichever gender you identify with and feel you are, and i don't feel like a woman, (i don't know even how they feel) but am i one because i also don't feel like anything else?

OP posts:

Thumbwitch · 15/06/2013 17:34

I don't see how it is sexist, Vegeham - more a case of there are enough people who don't feel that they fit into the already-defined social constructs that a "new" one needed a name?

LeStewpot · 15/06/2013 17:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

EleanorHandbasket · 15/06/2013 17:46

I haven't said anyone's transphobic (I don't think?).

I am prepared to admit I'm wrong, but I read the op and subsequent posts as a goady, pokey dig at the legislation etc around transpeople. Which never ends well and is just exhausting and a bit boring.

I'm tired and ratty today and might be imagining it though.

Vegehamwidge · 15/06/2013 17:48

Thumb Well I can't articulate it very well atm. I feel really down.
My reaction was that by creating the words/ identities genderqueer and agender for people who don't fit into gender roles or don't really "feel" like a gender it makes it sound like that type of person (which includes me I guess) is abnormal and different.

Blistory · 15/06/2013 17:49

Why not have the discussion ? If it gets deleted, it gets deleted.

There is something seriously amiss if women can't discuss the definition of women.

Thumbwitch · 15/06/2013 17:53

Vegeham, different yes, abnormal - well no, but I see where you're coming from. I think, and your feelings around this are still just as valid whatever I think, that if you feel like chibi does, finding out that there is a name for it must mean that there are more people who feel the same way as she does (and you too?) which kind of makes it more normal, because you're not the only one, iyswim.

But if you're also feeling like you're a "failed woman" then I can see how you would be more upset than relieved to hear that there is another term, possibly applicable to you.

Portofino · 15/06/2013 17:55

I am a biological female. I have all the bits and have given birth. I never really think of myself as "womanly". I am just me. I have friends of both sexes, I go to work, I do not believe myself to be an inherently better parent or super brilliant at housework because I have a vagina. Interestingly, if I think "womanly" I think first of well dressed curvy women who like shoes.

Blistory · 15/06/2013 17:59

You can't fail as a woman.

Where you might think you've failed is because you're expected to demonstrate female traits. Whether a trait is female or male isn't innate but society tells us it is. Or you can consider gender as a line that you fit somewhere on with male at one end and female at another.

Neither have anything to do with sex. Neither have anything to do with failure.

IMO.

Portofino · 15/06/2013 18:03

It IS an interesting question. I work in ICT and am trying to think of occasions where gender influenced a situation or interactions as in a female using "womanly charms" to get something done, or sexism from the other direction.....the worst thing I can currently think of is HR asking me about work life balance when I applied for promotion.

Vegehamwidge · 15/06/2013 18:14

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have commented on this thread without thinking a bit first. I got upset because I've been critized/joked about/bullied by people close to me becase they think I behave and think "like a man" and that I should be more feminine. A recent hurtful incident happened yesterday. I know I'm female and that is a sexist way of thinking but it still hurts.

Uptheairymountain · 15/06/2013 18:19

I don't necessarily identify with being a woman - I think of myself as a person and, ridiculously, have sometimes felt surprise at being referred to as female. Have given birth, breastfed etc. So not dissimilar to TrucksandDinosaurs and Portofino, I suppose, in that I see myself as a person rather than a gendered construct.

TunipTheVegedude · 15/06/2013 18:21

I'm really upset at the idea you can't ask this question without being accused of being goady. What have we come to?

Portofino · 15/06/2013 18:33

Ooh thought of something. Some men let me enter/exit the lift ahead of them.

Portofino · 15/06/2013 18:33

So do some women.

EleanorHandbasket · 15/06/2013 19:15

Do you know, it is fucking nuts, isn't it?

We should absolutely be able to talk about this. I'm just scared of the bun fights and perceptions of hate speech that this sort of thread descends into.

I'll take my hangover and bad mood and go away. Chibi, so sorry.

TunipTheVegedude · 15/06/2013 19:17

Sometimes I think we should just step back and let people who think internal gender identity is everything have the term 'woman' if they like, and those of us who were assigned the gender woman at birth because of our biology and think it makes a difference what you are socialised as and what your body is like, can just step back and use a different word. Parsnips or something.
Then I think, no, that's ridiculous. The term 'woman' has been used in a certain way for millennia and if we allow it to be changed we are cutting ourselves off from all that history. And besides, women are socialised to be walked all over so I should stand up against it.
And other times I think I should just die in a fire or rape myself with a broken bottle like the hateful transphobe I clearly am....

Portofino · 15/06/2013 19:42

I have no issue with men wanting to become women, or vice versa. I have to admit am a bit naive about whether feeling like you are in the wrong body is a genuine, I need to lose my penis thing or whether people would be better suited by a less rigid gender construct in society thing. But if you want to be a woman, embrace being a woman. Fight the patriarchy along with the feminists, don't try to fight the feminists and use innate male privilege to your own advantage.

FreyaSnow · 15/06/2013 20:03

Chibi, maybe you could read a copy of My New Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein, do all the quizzes and come back and tell us the results?

I keep wanting to buy it but can't justify the cost at the moment. It is 25 pounds.

Original poster

chibi · 15/06/2013 20:12

has she updated? i read the original in the late 90s- v interesting

am going to n america this summer, will see if i can get it

OP posts:

FreyaSnow · 15/06/2013 20:22

Yes, there is a new version and it has the Ruby Slippers on the front. You can get it on Amazon UK. Did the original version not help you decide your gender (or lack of it)?

Solari · 15/06/2013 20:36

I consider myself as someone without a gender identity (and always have done before I knew that there was a name for it).

I was born with a female body and have always lived as a woman (including giving birth etc), but I feel that "I" am actually just inhabiting it temporarily, and am neither male nor female.

If I found myself without any body and was given the choice of a male or female one, I would be more interested in other aspects (ie. physical health), and wouldn't find the sex of it particularly relevant.

TunipTheVegedude · 15/06/2013 20:52

So not feeling like you have a gender identity is a thing?

I always thought I was a woman because that is the shape my body seems to be and everyone around me treats me as less than a man a woman. I had no idea it was meant to feel like something.

EleanorHandbasket · 15/06/2013 21:05

I quite often feel like a superhero usually after three glasses of prosecco but I don't fancy my chances jumping off a building...

FloraFox · 15/06/2013 21:47

Tunip I don't think it is a thing. I have no conception of what this feeling of womanliness might feel like but I don't think I have an absence of it. I was raised in a feminist family, my mother was very opposed to the "girls do this, boys do that", pink/blue attitude which was fairly prevalent then and seems to be coming back more. I feel that categorising gender seems to be based on those very same old attitudes and that seems to me to be the wrong way round.

NiceTabard · 15/06/2013 21:53

I don't "feel" female. Or male. Or anything really, I just feel like me. I also don't know what people mean when they say they "feel" like a woman.

Interestingly, from the POV of what I enjoy doing and how I think and what I'm good at and so on, I am far more male gendered than female. But that doesn't make me a bloke, presumably.

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