Why can't you *feel* like a woman?

[polkadotwellies]

I might be wrong but after reading some of the threads it seems some woman can't feel like a woman: Womanhood is merely biological.

I am biologically a woman and feel like a woman. I just wonder why that's such a contested concept?

There's so much word salad on this thread it's set the lettuce spinning - the lettuce is feeling like a woman now

polkadot referring to your 3-point post above:

1. Is still all external stuff, just the memories or reactions to the external stuff, not an internal (uninfluenced) 'feeling' as such. It reminds me of the Rebecca West quote:

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” but replace 'feminist' with 'woman', and substitute 'treat me like a doormat'. But at the end of the day, it is reactionary/absorbed from the external, even if it subsequently generates 'feelings about', it is still not 'an autonomous feeling'.

1. Seems to be a point about socialisation, realising you have been dealt the 'shit hand' of 'being a woman', and finding solace with others in the same boat. Again, external forces, your reaction to, etc.

1. Is your cumulative reaction to life experiences, the emotions derived from that - but no, there is no 'feeling like a woman' that is the direct result of that (even if there is, it is a reaction, not 'a feeling' as such)

In summary, your points all go in the direction of:

• Stuff happens to me
• Causes emotions
• Causes reactions
• Makes me want to seek out others in same boat
• I have made an identity out of this (identity is not feeling either)

What I took away from that, is that any emotion 'as a woman' is really 'cumulative reactions to how shitty society treats humans born with female reproductive organs'. In summary - I think we all have that, hence feminism.

“For me womanhood is biological but defines my identity and mind.”

Well yes, but can you separate feeling like a woman from feeling like you who happens to be a woman?

I can’t.

I feel like a woman because I am one because that’s my biology and that’s how I’ve been raised and treated by society - I can’t identify a distinct feeling of being a woman outside of that. There’s no general womanliness that I can identify that isn’t linked to those that I know I share with a n other woman.

Lots of psychobabble in your posts.

I know I am a woman because things relating to my biology eg pregnancy, childbirth, smear tests, periods. I suppose that's the closest I get to 'feeling' like a woman

I 'feel' like what other people perceive as a woman when I get stereotyped or patronised. They foist that on me

Yimmini said it better than me

I feel like a woman every time I am in a meeting room and the clients direct their questions to my male , less qualified sidekick. I have to really work to gain credibility, while the men automatically have it.

That makes me feel like a woman on a regular basis. Not sure any transwoman can have experienced that though.

Seriously, the only times I “feel like a woman” are when I notice things playing out differently for me because I am a woman. You know, when I randomly flooded all over a plane seat, when I was harassed on the tube by a chap who seemed to think I should be grateful for his attentions, when I was overlooked at work in favour of men etc. All of those things are down to biology or to society’s treatment of women, not to my innate womanly feelings.

My identity as a woman and with other women is because we have a shared experience, the details of that shared experience having been described above by PP.

I’d also add being told in a myriad of ways from childhood that you’re not good enough, clever enough, strong enough etc. because you’re a girl.

And being referred to as a girl when you’re grown up.

Not all women have experienced all these things but are likely to.

We deal with that shared experience in different ways. Some minimize, some deny, some internalise, some rebel. Those last lot become feminists.

I’m willing to accept there is such a thing as gender identity- or more accurately sex identity- where you identify as a sex so are at pains to take on the external markers of gender.

But it’s not the same as the lived experience. Why does it have to be? Why can’t transwomen be transwomen? No one is saying they shouldn’t exist or have rights.

You sometimes read something so bloody profound it makes you tearful
When an abusive man wants to be abusive it is his perception that decides what you are.

This is true, despite me looking quite male and even being taken as male previously, men seem to know that i am woman and act accordingly.
As I get older it's less insidious and certainly less brutal, but it's still around.

Great post from YimminiYoudar.

And from IfyouseeRitaMoreno, yes My identity as a woman and with other women is because we have a shared experience.

Some women seem to actively like the shit and inequality. we had one posting on Thursday night. she and I do not feel alike, but we're both women.

I can be objectively classified as a woman by taking a peek at my reproductive set up.

the inside of my head cannot be objectively classified at all, and the same for everyone else's.

polkadotwellies, you and I are both women. how do you know we both feel womanhood the same way?

The thing is OP, I can't even definitively say that my experience of seeing the colour we agree to be called "red" is the same as yours, or anyone else's. I can't say that my experience of guilt or jealousy is the same. I can't say that my experience of having diabetes is the same as the next person with diabetes, or depression, or cancer.

I don't know what your "feeling like a woman" feels like, and whether it is at all similar to mine. How can you say you feel like a woman when you don't know what other women feel like? Which woman do you feel like? Do all women feel the same? That would be ridiculous to assume.

So, we can only say that we feel like ourselves. We can have some experiences in common, such as menstruation, paying taxes and eating roast dinners on Sunday but that reflects that we are biologically female, work in this country and are partaking in a stereotypically British meal. Some of that is because we are female and some of that is just our behaviour based on where we live. Not all of us will do those things and it won't change our status as Female. Something else determines that. Our experience of it might not be the same though.

I feel like a human most of the time. I don't and never have done most of the stuff a lot of women do and even at 13 or 14 consciously chose not to go down the path of make up, nail polish and that kind of thing. I have felt like a woman when giving birth and menstruating (the latter stopped last year) and reading my older diearies recently PMT for many years meant a week a month I didn't feel great. That was certainly a big part of my experience of being a woman.

Some of the things people say are female or male or not always so and just prejudice or conditioning.

People will feel their being a man or woman in different ways. We all differ. I tend to a bit different from some people, wear the same clothes every day don't often look in a mirror and that kind of thing from active choice I suppose and of course plenty of men spend a lot of time choosing clothes etc too.

Men's treatment of me as people say above also has an effect too although hopefully that will soon cease as I grow older. I am usually in charge or giving the talk (I do a lot of public speaking) so people tend to defer to me and I am relatively senior in career terms so these days do not really have any male/female work differences or indeed feelings. Feelings of power and control and ambition which I have are human rather than male or female in my book.

It is certainly an interesting topic.

OP - how do you even know you ARE a woman?

as a teenager I used to actively seek out female authors. I found male authors incredibly irritating. At the time I believed it was because of some innate female 'soul' that meant women's writing spoke to to me in a way men's couldn't (don't shoot me).

Now I understand that in fact I was subject to a number of factors:

• I had a low tolerance for views that differed from my own
• Men generally write boring and/or unrealistic female characters where they write them at all, and I was after role models
• I was trying to make sense of things that were happening to me as a result of suddenly being a 'woman' in the social sense (cat calling, unwelcome groping etc) and was looking for shared experience

I don’t understand how someone can insist what they are feeling is what people of the opposite sex is feeling - but there maybe is something to the “feeling bit” - maybe science will show that some brains react a certain way for a reason. I’m willing to keep an open mind on that - but your brain being wired differently to most folk of your sex making you confused, still doesn’t make a man a woman or a woman a man.

I’m not a particularly “feminine” woman. Was a bit of a tom boy - often preferred hanging with the boys as a young teenager. Physically I’m strong and good at sports, my facial features are even strong, not soft. I’d buy Men’s Health before a girlie type mag. I hate seeing women/ girls caked all the time in make up, especially the current OTT look or always in high heels. I just don’t get wanting to be super feminine and all the trappings. So yes, I’m interested in what makes us the way we are - if it’s just socialisation and personality- or if there’s something else going on biologically.

I think the point (and don't shoot me here, it's been a while since I last read the female eunuch) that Germaine Greer, Simone De Beavour and others make is that there's the biological fact of being a woman, and the social fact of being a woman.

The meaning biological fact is immutable.
The meaning of the social fact changes all the time. No one has raised their hat to me recently.

And it's that social fact that people are talking about when they speak of 'feeling like a woman'. But because we use the same word for both things, it gets transformed into 'I'm the same as a person with a womb and ovaries, even though I have a penis and testicles'.

Xenia - just read your last post and all that really resonates with me. I never got a pedicure still i was in my 40’s. I do spend most time with women in social situations and value my female friends and relatives hugely even though as a younger teen i found the boys in my street less complicated and often thought they did more interesting stuff with less stupid superficial expectations.

Maybe some women do feel like a woman, but that is irrelevant to the fact that they are a woman.

I may not feel like a woman, but still I am a woman.

If I were not a woman I would have no way of knowing what it feels like to be a woman, so couldn't claim that is how I feel.

IYSWIM.

I know is what it feels like to be me - being (biologically) female and autistic affects every aspect of my life.

If you can feel like all those other things why are you offended at feeling like a woman

I'm not offended! Where did you get that idea from OP?

I wouldn't say I feel like a woman, except when affected by the biological reality of being a woman (eg. periods, pregnancy) or the social reality (eg. other people's reactions to me being female)

It's not an inner thing, it's something imposed upon me.

I can imagine that identifying with other women could be interpreted as a inner womanhood, but to me that connection is due to shared lived experiences. The same ones as above, biological reality and social expectations.

I don't identify as a woman, I am one whether I like it or not.

@polkadotwellies

None of us can know if we feel like a woman. You could have felt like a platypus since the day you were born and you would never know because you've never had the experience of feeling like anything else.

The only thing we can know is that we have certain experiences that arise directly from having a female body, which is something that only people with female bodies can experience.

When people talk about 'feeling like a woman' they're generally talking about several different things which they confuse and associate:

a) feeling like they have a female body
b) having the feelings and experiences that arise directly from having a female body
c) feeling 'girly' or having an affinity (or acceptance of) for the sex based stereotypes which are assigned to women.

The problem is when we use these thing interchangeably we reinforce the sexist notion that female bodies naturally give rise to 'girly' feeling and behaviors.

I'm trying to understand your post but your list seems to be a mish-mash of those plus just personal morality.

"my experience of prejudice or the positives of womans' networks (b - experiences arising directly from existing in a female body), my beliefs that women are just as valuable to men, my belief that the history of women is important (both of these are personal morals which men can also hold just as often) and my memories or schemas growing up has shaped my identify and ego (b - experiences arising directly from existing in a female body)".

In a certain sense I suppose do 'feel like a woman'. I have a female body, I have always had one, i experienced a female puberty, exist in society as a female, and my female body and its cycles do impact the way in which i exist in the world. I reject the idea that any of these are something that a non-female can ever experience.

It's not that you can't feel like a woman - you absolutely can if you are one. You cannot however 'feel' something you have never been. I can't 'feel' 60 years old as I've never been 60 years old so I have no bloody idea what it feels like.

as a teenager I used to actively seek out female authors. I found male authors incredibly irritating. At the time I believed it was because of some innate female 'soul' that meant women's writing spoke to to me in a way men's couldn't (don't shoot me).

Me too! And I got very heavily into cultural feminism and goddess spirituality and all of that as a result.

I read a lot of SF then and male SF authors in particular (especially the 'classics') are generally terrible at writing female characters. I really felt it when reading about societies that were supposedly egalitarian or utopian but the female starship captain is a two-dimensional airhead seduced by the hero and far too much time is spent describing her breasts.

I still usually prefer female authors but I no longer think it's because of some kind of special female essence that makes us understand each other better. Shared experiences, sure. I don't know what it is to feel 'like a woman' because, as others have said, how can I know how every other woman feels? I just feel like me.

And of course it falls apart if applied to any other characteristic. Can you feel like you're a certain race? Or age? Or is it that you just are? If I say I'm 30 and somehow feel 30, does that mean all other 30-year-olds have this same feeling? Can a person who is 12 or 60 have this feeling, and if so, does it matter more than material reality and mean that they are actually 30?

I don’t feel like a woman because there isn’t an alternative. It is not like emotions that change; I feel happy, I feel sad etc. I can only be me and feel emotions that arise out of my interactions as me with the world. I cannot say ‘I feel like a man’ as men have no alternative either they only feel emotions they feel through there interaction with the world. I could decide to try and present myself as a man to the world and I may feel happier because of it but I still not feeling like a man or a woman just me interacting with the world.

OP, if you woke up tomorrow feeling like a man, what would be different?

Of course you can feel like a woman and I would hazard a guess that most women do plus trans women also do. I certainly did before I became GC and therefore emancipated from it. It is basically the stories we tell ourselves about who we are based on a combination of what we are told by others and sex-based stereotypes. For many of us it is only once we see those stories as being imposed on us (we were foiled into thinking they came from within) that we can truly become ourselves. The unique individuals that we are.