If you had the choice would you rather have been born male?

[khuliloach]

I have been thinking about this a lot lately and its getting depressing. I am 41 and just know I would have had a much better life being a male.

I hate who I am. I have two lovely children, loved being preg and all that. But just see all the males around me have such an easier time. Including husband, who's life hasn't changed at all since having children.

He is so free and has no ties.

I would just love to be a man!

CallMeACynicBut - I was relieved to have girls. Admittedly for a weaker reason - I felt it was less likely that they'd end up at risk from rugby injuries.

Lol, Pico2, you do have a point there. (Sorry for laughing if there was a personal reason for worrying about that particularly - I do, and then think, well at least he won't die in childbirth....)

ps I do earn more than my DH and he doesn't resent it :-)

I like being a woman but it's hard to know if that's because I only know how to be a woman.

Despite all the shit (it angers me that young girls have to put up with menstruation when boys are still running around being carefree children, misogyny, physical demands of pregnancy, childbirth and now menopause for me which is utterly crap, plus relentless sexism and objectification of women) I think overall women have better lives than men.

I think that's the case because we have better mental health. We know, because we live in a man's world, that we are unlikely to be rulers, captains of industry, world cup heroes etc, so we allow for other routes to happiness.

That's my thought anyway.

"To be able to pee standing up."

She-pee apparently! As featured on that Navy School program t'other day. :-) Things have progressed a bit............

Some say it's only the patriarchy, teaching us that females must sit to wee, that prevents women from learning to do it standing.

CallMeACynicBut - no close personal reason, but I did work with a guy who was very injured in rugby before I met him.

I hadn't thought of the childbirth thing though. I think I might suggest CS for my DDs as I (and my pelvic floor) wish I'd done that.

God yes. I don't imagine it would be easier though, just different.

What I'd like most is the freedom to do anything I want to and to be part of the unseen male masses as I go about my day; not be gawped at for being a woman in a mans' world.

Getting dressed would be a lot easier too.

I've dreamed of being a cowboy for years!

I remember saying to my doctor in the midst of post natal depression, "I'd make a great Dad".

I've tried a shewee, but can't seem to get the hang of it. I tilt it wrongly & all the pee runs out the back, soaking my trousers. I wouldn't feel confident using it somewhere where clean dry clothes weren't available!

I'm glad some of you feel confident walking alone after dark, but I was socialised not to and even though I force myself to sometimes, I still feel very uncomfortable - more so in the countryside than in the city. Irrespective of the actual attack stats, which I agree show men at more risk, I cannot shake off my conditioning. Conditioning that I wouldn't have had as a man. When I was growing up if a woman was attacked the first question asked was 'What was she doing out at night alone?' Proper victim blaming that a man wouldn't get. I also grew up in the North during the period of the Yorkshire Ripper murders, which probably had an effect also.

I think the penis looks like an ok thing to have but I wouldn't like that hideous ball sack. Or the fact that I've got a 60% chance of having erectile dysfunction when I feel stressed.

Women's orgasms are definitely better. You can just tell.

I love being female and would never change it. And I've never given birth or grown a human successfully so it's not tied to that.

I would have liked to travel like men do though. And just generally get the advantages they do.

In an equal world I would never be a man. In our world I would almost never be a man - I suspect if I lived in one of those shit countries where women have shit lives my response would be different.

I think the penis looks like an ok thing to have

It's really not, it's awkward and ugly, just sort of hangs there.
it can cause great pain if you sit on a bike saddle too quick, it gets caught in zips far too easily and there is nothing you can do with it that makes it look any less like a hastily defrosted Happy Shopper Sausage.

I dunno. When I watch movies about men being comradely and brotherly to each other and the (one) woman is just on the sidelines, as a prize or a helper, then I often think how nice it would be to be a man, to see yourself reflected everywhere.

definitely.
seemed more fun as a child.
hated childbirth.
had to have ivf so thats me injecting meds, blood tests etc whilst dp just had a cup.
peeing standing.
ive got pcos so irregular periods
periods
menopause
makeup
men have much more sensible clothes. i never wear heels or skirts or dresses.
long hair.

so i guess it is expectations (still) of women that ruin being a woman for me. yes i can wear trousers, but there are still times dresses are expected.
but also fear when walking alone at night, worry you arent pretty/thin enough. why men always like your friend etc. teen pregnancy.
it would be awful being a woman before/without contraception, imo

I go out walking all the time at night and also in the early hours of the morning. It's never crossed my mind not too!

Me Too Daisychain - i'm happy to go off on my own though the hassle i've had travelling in some less enlightened countries as a woman is crazy - i wish men could experience that side if being a woman.

No, i'm happy being a woman and glad i was the one to experirnce pregnancy, childbirth, being closer to my children. I think men have a lot of pressures. They are also mire likely to be victims of violence, to be murdered, to be in prison and to commit suicide, to be sent to war etc.

And what about bringing race into it. Would you rather be a white woman or a black man? Or a confortable middle class woman to a working class man from a more deprived, closed backgroubd.

I was assuming I'd be born into a similar family background to my own (white, working class, poor) when I said I wouldn't want to be male. I don't think my decision would change if I had the opportunity to change into a man from a more privileged background, I still wouldn't want it.

Being born as a black man would be very different to being born as a white one, and there's a huge difference in the experience of different classes too.

I'm happy being female but one thing I would've liked about being male would be being invited to do stuff with no sexual expectations. My husband and other men i know travelled a lot when younger and got invited to crew on boats in exotic places just by falling into conversation over a pint. They had some fantastic experiences and weren't expected to fuck the boat owner as well as work.

Possibly. I think I might have had more adventures and I would have earned more money. I get the impression it is more fun bring a man most of the time, but men also have higher suicide rates, so maybe it isn't always. I wouldn't like to be the only breadwinner, male or female, not that this isn't a valid choice, just sounds stressful! I think more men than women are still sole breadwinner although I have no stats to back that up.

yes most definitely

seconding all points raised by naty1

I'm happy being female but one thing I would've liked about being male would be being invited to do stuff with no sexual expectations.

Yes! I hadn't thought about it, but this totally strikes a chord with me.

There'd be alot of upsides to being a man. More money, more freedom, less harassment ... and I could be a genuinely good man, a rare beast indeed.
But the downside would be that I'd be expected to share locker rooms and so on with men. But since trans"women" nowadays get access to all female spaces, that probably doesn't matter.

If the choice was presented to me, I'd probably choose to have been born as man.

And then I'd dismantle patriarchy from the inside.

There's many things about patriarchy that we cannot change. But your husband not taking equal responsibility for the children? You can change that.