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?

in 1982 when sending out my first business letter as a lawyer I put my signature as A N Other (or my real initials of course) and the partner said I had to add my first name and Mrs so that scuppered in week 1 of work my plan not to let my gender be known!

On my voice most of my work is by email - sometimes I don't speak to clients for even as much as a year or two! I also can sing tenor, alto and soprano with a massive range and have always regarded my voice as one of my most useful tools in all kinds of ways although I very much doubt I could easily be taken as a man on calls even if when I was singing the bass line to a 4 part choral thing the other day for fun!

"I still feel like a woman. I just do."

And of course this is all fine and good.

What is a bit of an issue though is that this new quality - "gender identity" has come along and statements like one at work from stonewall are made (which I can't find on google at the mo) - stating that the vast majority of people have a "strongly held" internal sense of gender ID and that not to have this is rare.

Who have they asked though? This quality has been cited and described by trans people to describe their experience - by definition they will have this quality, this feeling. It's extrapolating this to assume that most people do that is a bit of an issue. Who have they asked? Plus of course when women say, hold on, loads of us don't have this feeling, the explanation is not that OK maybe it does exist but isn't as universal as we thought, but that women are too stupid to know their own minds. Apparently we are all so comfortable with our internal gender ID that we don't even notice it. Well that's not misogynistic at all.

It could be this is something that is relevant mainly to trans people (others don't have it) or sometihng that is predominant among men - that is also possible.

For me it is like spirituality. I understand and accept that some people have an inner feeling (spritiuality)that there must be "more" - and have that can manifest in various belief systems whether organsied religion or something personal. However, I have no feeling like this. It's not a denial or a repudiation, it's just not there. And that is fine. Saem with gender ID. Not there, no idea what that feeling is. Accept that others have it. But, what of it? It's irrelevant really isn't it, and if internal ID is nothing to do with biology, personality, norms of dress, norms of behaviour etc then what difference does it make to anything?

As I've said up thread I did really think most people had a sense of internal gender identity. I know I used to and if you had asked me to articulate it I would have struggled but only because I was trying to resist stereotypes. Of course it was made up of stereotypes. Not pink fluffy ones. What I really meant was that I was not masculine, and that was based upon a stereotype of masculinity.

SarahCarer

What struck me about your comment upthread was that you quite obviously projected your thoughts and beliefs about your thoughts on all the women you know.
I sometimes say that sort of thing too and I now realize that it is a tell for projection. So thanks for that.

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference
by Cordelia Fine

Here is a book that would be good for people to read.

No do you know what I moved from my position too readily. If most people don't think gender identity is internal and immutable why on earth are gender critical voices in the minority? Why do we so often get accused of bigotry? Why has "Women are from Venus Men are from Mars" sold over 50 million copies? And yes I will re-assert it. Most people I speak to think male and female brains are different. I am not projecting. This is what they have told me. I was told repeatedly before my ds was 3 months old that he would be lazier, more aggressive and slower than his sister. "Boys!"

@bewilderness thanks for the book recommendation. It sounds right up my street. I'm actually quite shocked that my comment about gender delusion earlier on got deleted so I'm gratified that a proper expert has already coined the term.

Sarah I don't think gender critical opinions are in a minority just that most people haven't found it necessary to express their opinions as it doesn't impact on their lives much yet. As for 'men are from Mars women are from venus' it is hardly a scientific textbook and more a vague interpretation of social conditioning from the self help genre.

I'm not sure that makes much sense. Gender critical doesn't mean transgender critical. I am openly gender critical in all sorts of ways as gender norms are negatively affecting me and my family all the time. Maybe that's why I get more dissenting feedback!

I’ve just finished Delusions of Gender after it was recommended on here.

I found it quite hard going (all the technical stuff about the design of experiments)but enjoyed it.

Most people I speak to think male and female brains are different. I am not projecting. This is what they have told me. I was told repeatedly before my ds was 3 months old that he would be lazier, more aggressive and slower than his sister. “Boys!” - but that is all due to socialisation not an innate difference in their brains. Lazier because women’s place is serving men and boys, aggressive because “boys will be boys” (no, boys will be held accountable for their fucking actions) and slower because again, why should he bother when nobody is pushing him to do more, bless him, he’s a boy, let him sit and play with his cars while the girls tidy up the toys.

Obviously testosterone will have an effect too, but again, that’s not to do with brains, and is one of the reasons some people cite for trans women behaving in strikingly similar ways to men. Even with their lady brains, the imbalance in hormones will have an effect on behaviour , levels of aggression etc.

Nothing I’ve read here or anywhere else, has convinced me that anyone can intrinsically feel like a woman or a man without referring to biology or to societal expectations of gender.

Read through and really interesting posts.

How do you even know you ARE a woman?
I am a woman because I was born with a vagina I suppose. I feel this is a trick question!

Maybe I don't fit into the stereotypical role. I don't wear makeup or care less about pink sparkly stuff, I'm a complete loner and about as emotional as a brick . Who knows but I definetly don't feel like a woman

That's fine but.... playing devils advocate...

If you are are mesuring and distancing yourself against gender roles that could be feeling like a biological women: with self awareness and reflection to assert I am not a stereotype.

Moreover, giving your identity its own definition of what it is to feel as a woman personally shaped by these external socialisation and concreting beliefs.

But no, it's merely a female body, not important, not nearly as important as someon'es internal feelings...

Merely can define purely or significantly.

I feel angry on behalf of actual diagnosed transsexuals that they are now lumped in with this new wave gender fluid trend.

Yes it's a multisided debate

Nothing I’ve read here or anywhere else, has convinced me that anyone can intrinsically feel like a woman or a man without referring to biology or to societal expectations of gender.

I think my own feeling definitely refers to biology and societal expectations.

I think it shows it's hard as there are varied definitions of -feeling- and -woman (sex vs gender)-. So it's easy to talk at cross purposes in a web of different meanings.

Intrinsically or "inherent characteristics, not depending on external factors" is more closely linked to the brain you are discussing which is such a tricky one. Goes to show to exact -feeling- is half the problem!

@thebewilderness: For others, who have been told they were lesser all their lives, feeling like a person and not an object is a goal to strive for.

@polkadotwellies: Feeling like a woman is not feeling like an object. It's a shame you feel they are interchangeable.

There are men out there who think that women are objects. There is a whole genre of media, "porn", devoted to portraying women as objects. There is a whole 'nother genre of media, "women's mags", devoted to telling us how to starve ourselves thin and wrap ourselves up like pretty parcels, objectifying ourselves in the process for male consumption. Feeling like, and being treated like, a full person is an ongoing project for me that is still not complete. Not hating myself for my weight, looks, grey hair, etc is a struggle at times. Do men, who are presumed at all times to be full people, judge their own appearance so harshly?

This shit really hurts my brain 😩

Just catching up with this thread and the thing that struck me was how much of this argument is caused by limited vocabulary and misunderstanding.

Unpacking:
A says: "I feel like a woman, I am a woman"
B says: "You do not feel like a woman. You are a man"

B hears: "My sense of inner self clashes with my understanding of masculinity to the point that I must reject masculinity. This sense of inner self feels more feminine to me and seems to be how women must feel. I must be a woman inside. By extention this must also be how you feel inside. Inner feelings are much more important than physical shape so you must now accept that I am in exactly the same category as you for all practical and legal purposes."

B thinks: "You can't conclude that what you are feeling is what I am feeling, you only know what you feel. The categories of man and woman are generally limiting and ideally only ought to even exist to describe biological facts, with everything to do with how a person thinks and feels and believes being centred around their freedom as a person first, man and woman being descriptive of only physical shape and chromosome type." (This being expressed briefly as B's reply above)

A hears: "You do not feel how you feel. You are limited to conforming to masculine roles because being trans isn't a thing. Trans doesn't exist. You don't exist."

No wonder this is getting tense on both sides. Neither person is stopping to check what the other person really means, or clearly explaining themselves to check that their words are understood.

I of course don't know what is going on in other people's heads but I am pretty sure that B's perception of what A means is completely wrong - A is not denying that Trans is thing, is not saying that trans people don't exist or that people with penises must get on with being manly men. I acknowledge there may be some people who do think that way but the vast majority of feminists really don't.

We really need to talk about this properly, slowly, carefully and taking time to understand one another deeply. There probably are on both sides some actually unreasonable people, and some people who just don't have the capacity to take the conversation to a deeper level, that's part of the huge diversity of humanity too. However, most of us are probably reasonable people who have the capacity for a more nuanced conversation but are currently being prevented from having it due to all the shouting and name-calling.

@myrelationshipiswierd Yes I know and I agree. I don't believe gender is innate. I am highly critical of gender. I argued further up that the belief it is innate is a kind of mass delusion. My comment got deleted for being against talk guidelines and it turns out someone has written what looks like a very good book stating more or less the same thing. I get a bit frustrated here at FWR that people seem to think everyone knows gender does not come from within. That there are not girl brains and boy brains. If we can't see the way others think it is hard to reach a common understanding

If we can't see the way others think it is hard to reach a common understanding

However there is an added complication here because many people won’t explain what they think.

Great post Imchlibob. I can understand the erasure comments although it is obviously not literal. But for a lot of people their identity is dependent on the way others see them. So when others refuse to see them as the them they want to be seen they feel the person they believe they are inside is disappearing. It is seriously messed up but I can see the same in my own mind. My identity is a little bit tied up with the belief that I have the same potential in my brain as any man. When someone asserts that male and female brains are fundamentally different (intrinsic in the claim you can have the wrong kind for your body) that could undermine my sense of self.

@merrymouse I agree. And when people claim "I just feel I am a woman and I can't explain it" I hear "I can't explain it without using stereotypes - you're trying to trip me up" IF gender identity is nothing but a single word then it is nothing.

Like others on this thread ‘feeling like a woman’ for me as a female is complicated.

I feel like a person I would say. I am reminded that I am a woman by things related to my female biology, I am reminded I am seen as a woman by relentless everyday sexism which I feel often alienated me from myself or causes splitting.

Being seen as a woman by others has been an overwhelmingly negative presence in my life for all my life. In order to feel positively about myself and to retain a cohesive sense of self it is essential that I feel like a person rather than a woman.

This is inevitable IMO when the cultural meaning of ‘woman’ is so loaded and stereotyped.