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

[chibi]

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?

Surely most people don't "feel" male or female? I can't even imagine what that feeling is supposed to be like. Don't most people just feel like them?

I have always thought or felt myself to be female first. Born female, raised as a girl (didn't conform, was a tomboy) I look "feminine" ( even in non-gendered clothes to the extent it's commented on) told I think like a man ( is it possible to tell & isn't that hocus-pocus ) and I know rather feel, I am a woman because everyone around me reflects this back at me.

Do I feel like a woman? not really because I don't know how all other women experience being women in terms of how they experience themselves. I do feel like a women though when I realise that I am treated differently to a man, I feel like a women when I talk to other women and realise they have experienced the same oppression, discrimination, sexism and subjugation. So I guess I only feel like a women because I know I share certain life experiences with others based on our shared biological sex.

As I understand it, the problem with your last sentence Mini, is that it doesn't leave anywhere for transwomen to go with their sense of being a woman. Unless I categorise myself as a ciswoman, then I exclude transwomen from the group that is women.

So if biological women don't feel something specific that is "woman" then what is it that transwomen are identifying with that I'm missing ? Or is it simply gender rather than sex ?

Really interesting discussion. It s taken me ages to write this because I haven't been able to find the right words and I am not sure if I even have now.

I never really thought about this in terms of feeling like a woman until I got more heavily involved in feminism. Gender as a social construct made so much sense to me. Before that I couldn't understand why I wasn't interested in traditionally feminine pursuits and why boys were always depicted as doers and having altogether much more fun than girls etc. I felt odd because of that. I thought I felt like a woman as I grew older but really it was a reaction to being treated like a woman. So I am with Tunip here. I don't think it is possible to feel like a woman as such. I periodically get reminded I am a woman, physically but how I feel about that is socially constructed, imposed on me by society.

I also don't understand why some people are suggesting gender queer feminism as being a possible solution for you chibi. It sounds to me like radical feminism and abolishing gender would be more suitable. I am not an expert in queer theory but it seems to still be maintaining gender whereas it seems to me that you would feel more comfortable if gender didn't exist and you weren't expected to "feel" like anything/anybody.

I hope you are OK anyway and thank you for starting this thread.

kim do you think you would have felt differently if you had grown up in an environment where gender non-conformity was accepted? You've said before you were at a boys' school (boarding?) so I hope you don't mind me asking this question.

oh mini yes i most definitely am made to feel female when something happens like getting eyed by a bloke. And I've never liked it - being reminded so often that i am not simply me, to others so often I am a female to be judged/treated accordingly.

I wasn't asking you to make this thread about you kim but it's obviously your choice how much you want to talk about yourself.

chibi I'm sad that you are feeling like a freak. I really think that most people feel like you.

I don't know what it is that Trans women identify with. If gender is socially constructed (I think it is) then they identify with a construct rather than something concrete. I assume for some identifying as a woman is enough, being thought of and treated by society as a woman and finding acceptance of that would be enough.

Mini - I think the wording of your post is slightly unfortunate. It is perfectly OK not to understand something. Being trans is something outside of the experience of most people.

So I would feel uneasy saying a trans person identifies with a construction over something concrete, as it has the implication that they are after a fantasy and I think that's very unfair.

People have to survive in the society we live in now, rather then waiting for some utopia free of constructed ideas of gender and that affects us all, including trans people, in the choices and compromises we make.

So glad to see the direction this thread's taken, it's really interesting.

I was thinking about it tonight while I was out, and realizing that it's mostly when I talk to (some) men I'm most conscious of being female - I can see them looking at me a certain way, not sexual but just 'you are a woman, you are not like me, you are like such-and-such'. I do feel a lovely sense of relief when I'm talking to women I'm on the same wavelength with, and I never have exactly that experience with men, even lovely ones who're fascinating in other ways. I felt it at the conference I went to at the weekend - that I could just be comfortable in my own skin, and no-one was going to start telling me I'd got it all wrong because I'm a woman, or I should be more this and less that.

So I think I agree with kim that for me gender is something you notice when it's very wrong or very right. For me that is to do with the immediate social group I'm in, but I do think the fact of feeling miserable and not able to say why, and then suddenly feeling right, is exactly how I feel.

And yes, I agree with gosh we live in an imperfect world and we can't expect it to be the ideal where gender doesn't matter.

I've never felt like I'm very feminine, according to what society expects women to be like but I think I have felt a little bit less 'womanly' since my menopause. I'm not sure - it could just be that I feel less sexual ... I don't feel quite as 'at home' in my body as I used to.

Then I wonder how much of that feeling is from finding myself in the invisible older woman category and no longer getting so many societal messages that it's my female body that defines me - although it still does because men don't become invisible in the same way as they age.

It's all very confusing.

I do sometimes wonder how it would feel to take male hormones - whether that would make me feel 'like a man' or just like a different me, iyswim.

Your post reminded me of this recent story.

www.smh.com.au/nsw/sexless-in-the-city-a-gender-revolution-20100311-q1l2.html

It isn't something I've ever questioned but I think I feel completely a woman but it's hard to define. I just feel womanly; I have womanly curves and I love feminine things - you know dresses and pretty shoes and nice hair and being homely and having a daughter and flirting a bit and nurturing DH and the DC and enjoying it when a man gets me a drink or generally flatters me. I still successfully worked on male dominated trading floor in the 80s and 90s though and competed in a very blokey environment and now have a good different career and think men and women are equal, albeit different.

It's funny, but while I like a lot of 'feminine' things - I wear dresses, I like cooking, etc. - I would say they're one of the things that sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable in my own skin, because I get this reaction sometimes as if someone looks at me and has a totally different sense of what kind of person I have to be, to do these things or like these things.

I think it does help hugely having a DH from a very different culture, because it makes me notice how many of the things we think of as feminine or masculine are the other way around - so, in his culture, men hug each other a lot and are very touchy-feely, and they don't have the thing about 'men don't cry'.

I don't get the issue with what mini is saying that. I identify as a woman for reasons that are extremely 'concrete' and physical - it's very obvious to the rest of society. I don't think this is more powerful than the constructed aspects though - maybe less. Because when I'm on my own, my body doesn't bother me, I'm fine with it, but as soon as I come into contact with people I'm noticing it and noticing it makes people see me in this certain way. So I think the construct side of it is very powerful.

I do actually have a bit of a problem with suggesting it's not - for me it's uncomfortable close to telling little boys they're being 'silly' for wanting the pink one but not telling them why. Even you can't justify something for physical reasons, it may be a very real pressure in society that you're feeling.

In relation to Mini's post, though, I think it's important to clarify that a lot of transwomen don't talk in terms of identifying with the things in the construct. Some do, (the 'I knew I was a girl because I always preferred to play with dolls' narrative) but my RL transwoman friend talks more in terms of the physical dysphoria of having a body that feels alien, and the expression of stereotypical femininity is done either to ensure being read as a woman or to jump through hoops to access medical treatment, not because of any belief that wearing dresses is what being a woman means.

But part of the construct of what being a woman is, is to do with having a particular sort of female body, I think? I don't really know about this, but I am getting the impression that people aren't talking about an average female body such as you get from 'the luck of the draw', but an idealized female body that perfoms all its feminine functions perfectly. And that surely is a construct, because virtually no-one is born with that perfect body and most of us at some point or other are unhappy because we don't live up to the ideal?

I do need to clarify I don't see how 'construct' is a negative term, btw, or anything to do with 'fantasy', and that is not how I'm using it. I think it's very real how we form constructs of how our bodies should be, I don't think it's even meaningful to talk about biological reality as separate from the 'constructs' because we cannot think without constructing ideas.

Gender is a construct though, it is not concrete. I find the attempts to police this discussion disturbing especially when chibi has been trying to discuss how the absence of any feeling of the construct is making her feel like a freak.

Sorry if the wording in my post offends some, not meant to.

I think one of the great things that feminism is doing is questioning and challenging dominant social ideas about what it is to be a woman. To what extent are characteristics more commonly attributed to men often viewed as bad? if women have characteristics more commonly attributed to women like empathy, kindness, subservience are they being limited to performing certain roles within society and why are these characteristics always seen as good? but strangely often as weak?

I do think that womanhood is largely a socially constructed category that changes over place and time, so if I have to ask rather than guess at knowing how other women experience being a woman, its difficult to know whether Trans women are identifying with what they perceive to be a women or whether it really is something more to do with their bodies not matching with their perception of what sex they think they are. ( but it's not possible to change sex, only the sex you appear to be) If they have not grown up and been socialised into the role, if they have never had that dialectical mirroring back to them of who/what they are then they must be starting from scratch possibly with a few stereotypical assumptions thrown in. ie, if I like pink, if I like babies, I cry, I feel deep connections with people, value thinking over action etc,... maybe I am a women.

Trans women talk about passing as women. So how others see them forms a huge part of how they experience themselves. It might be impossible to experience oneself as a women if others are not reflecting and validating that.

I definitely feel like a woman.
I have an elderly relative that feels so womanly that she refuses to wear trousers. Ever.

Passing as a woman has a huge safety aspect to it though and just generally having an easier and safer time in society.

Society is not very kind to those who aren't deemed sufficiently gender conforming, whether they are trans or seen as non gender conforming in other ways.

I feel like a woman. I have periods, I have carried two babies and I look like a woman.

Generally I prefer to be with women than men I find women easier to talk to than men. I feel at ease in the company of older men but have never felt comfortable with men or boys my own age unless I am interested in them romantically.

I hate all that men are from Mars, women are from Venus rubbish. I read the book and identified more with the male descriptor.

flora - sure, gender is a construct. But I don't see why it should be offensive to say so.

It cannot possibly be entirely physical. But no-one has a physical gender. So what's the issue?

I think it's very problematic to start saying that what we feel or think is somehow less important than anything else.

Haven't read whole head, but I think I get what you mean.

I think of myself as a person, or me. I very definitely look like a woman and I am easily identified as one. I had a very stereotypical upbringing which means I'm crap at sport and good at baking, but that still doesn't mean I feel womanly because of that.

I was thinking this morning that when I think about people, I don't first identify them by their gender, but by their roles or bahviour. So work colleagues I primarily identify by their job, whether I respect them, get on with them, and somewhere down the line I am aware they are male or female, but that isn't anywhere near the top of my list.

I have the same attitude to color, it just isn't the first thing I notice about a person, and may not be how I would describe them. I would say they do x y z, then give a physical description.

I think that being a teacher, where you look at the work and progress of a student, influences this. When I meet a new class, I often know how someone works before I have learnt their name, so I focus on their behaviour/work more than the outward aspects.

I am happy just to be me. I know I'm female, it doesn't bother me too much, but if I had to describe "me", I would list things I do or believe before giving a physical description.