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?

And by all my life I mean all my life. I thought I was a boy until I went to school. I was very upset to find out I was a girl. I thought I was a boy because I didn’t identify with stereotypes re girls. I remember I was upset to be a girl because at 4/5 the realisation that I fell into the female category was a realisation that my life was going to be restricted by stereotypes or as I felt at the time ‘I’m never going to be able to do the things I want to do or like the things I like’.

I feel quite separate from my body - I feel like some kind of 'soul' that has been given a woman's body and then all my experience input since then has been how people treat a woman and what my body does. I don't see the 'soul' bit as being male or female. I also think that sounds ridiculous and like a religious nut.

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!

Yes but as a girl you were probably told to close your legs, that you had to wear skirts, that you had to behave ladylike - long before you really were aware of your vagina. These things are the start of how you 'feel' like a girl/woman.

Essentially you are a female because of your vagina, and from that moment the essence of your socialisation started.

If you look at all the people saying they feel like a woman, it is about their liking for female toys, clothes, activities - these things are all about socialisation not about the actual 'having a vagina' thing.

I know I am a woman due to my body, but I don't do mainly womanly things - I do a wide cross section of activities, male and female and in this climate would be called 'trans'. But the fact of the matter is that the only thing that really matters is the biological definition.

All the rest is your personality.

The world has reduced "woman" to a personality type. For a very short period we were being emancipated from stereotypes and then the stereotypes took over completely.

Personality types are not feelings.

We feel emotions and there is no gender attached to them.

True enough Kyanite. But when people say they "feel like" a woman I think they are describing thoughts, ideas, sense of self in an intuitive though inaccurate way.

I think the heart of the TRA/GC conflict is really that TRA seems to be lobbying to reinforce cultural stereotypes rather than biological sex as the distinguishing features between men and women via law because of a desperation to ID into womanhood and a knowledge (no matter how well hidden by denial) that sex change can not be achieved.

To GC this actually does wipe out decades of progress re the law which reinforces biological sex as the only true difference between men and women.

I think the whole thing shows up how vulnerable women really are because it has become abundantly clear that despite laws having been passed for decades re sex discrimination no-one really understands why they are there.

Imchlibob Exactly. We're using the same words but with radically different meanings.

Hard to find common ground there, especially when one side doesn't even want the other side to even be heard.

YY Offred. But I think it has been very easy for TRAs to achieve this because the pink brain blue brain norms have been allowed to continue unchallenged socially. Psychologists have a lot to answer for here as many have seen gender as on the whole a positive thing. So it is a "good" thing for women to feel at home with their oppression and to reinforce it on behalf of men.

YY but to me it really is evidence of how despite some progress having been made, this seems to have been almost by accident because it is abundantly clear (though not surprising given patriarchy) that society does not actually have a consensus that biological sex is how men and women are distinguished from each other and nothing else.

It’s clear that probably the driving force behind sex discrimination laws was a consensus that we should ‘try to be fair’ based on an intuition that certain things were not fair but without any kind of real understanding of how and why.

Obviously this is terrible for feminists as, despite how much work has been done in defining and explaining etc, it essentially demonstrates that progressive laws have been a paternal concession rather than actual progress because no-one who matters has ever really actually listened to women on any of this.

It’s the TRA child’s turn to call shotgun... that’s all.

Women have never even been considered able to drive.

Im sure the only person who wakes up in a morning and thinks "man! I feel like a woman!" is Shania Twain. Usually my first thought is am i late for work? Is the kettle on?

I dont "feel" like a woman. I feel like colleysmill and i am who i am and thats fine. I don't relate to what society these days seems to want to define what a "woman" is but it doesnt change the fact that biologically i am.

if you change the words ‘feel like’ to ‘experience being’
Then it all becomes clear.

I don't feel like a woman anymore than I feel like a 30 year old. I just am.

Age is a fairly good analogy for this actually.

Does anyone actually 'feel' their age? I know I don't. I still feel the same as I died as a teenager, though my adult body limits me in many ways. Not 'feeling' 30 does not mean I am actually 15. Same as not 'feeling' like a man does not mean the person is a woman. I could have surgeries and such to look younger I am sure, it might make me happy for a short time (if I could also cure my disability at the same time!) but this does not mean I am actually younger.

"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."

This is an observation that resonates with me.

I only feel my age when my joints remind me.
I oppose the idea of changing the law to require that everyone affirm how I feel rather than what my joints clearly state.

I still kind of feel like a teenager a lot of the time but would rather not identify as one if doing so would mean having a curfew and homework.

I feel like a 16 year old sometimes, 360 years old at other times, 6 months old occasionally. What does a woman of my age feel like? How do I know that state - unless I have lived before? What is feeling? What's the definition of a feeling? Is it to do with now or has it come from the past? How do I know how to discern the difference? How does anyone know what feelings really convey without doing years of therapy?

What feeling should take precedence? Am I right to impose my feelings on others? How do I contain my feelings so they don't hurt harm others? Am I right to assume my feelings should take priority and take away the rights of others to exist safely? So many questions. So many glib answers from some quarters.

When I consider at length either how I 'feel' my identity or 'feel' myself to be, then I do feel the following (in no particular order):
mother
woman
middle-aged
European
British
heterosexual
white

Although I don't feel these things like someone pinching me. They are subtle and only become apparent when they are constrasted with my external environment. This list is also a tickbox to identity.

I feel plenty of other things too like: introverted, contented; uncomfortable in crowds - but these are what is more generally perceived to be 'personality'.

What is the difference between personality and core identity?

There are certain psychological traits of mine - certain feelings that I have - which I gather are less common in men. I fancy men. I'd rather collaborate than compete, and I just don't give a toss about football. I don't like taking unnecessary risks with my physical safety. I always think people are going to find out I'm crap at everything. I think my son is the most beautiful baby ever born.

But...none of these traits appear to be particularly prevalent among trans women. They aren't peculiar to women, either, or universal among them. I've never thought of lesbians as quasi-men. Not the ones I know, anyway.

Like 100% of the rest of the world's population, I have no way of knowing whether the way I feel at any given moment would be different if I were of the opposite sex - except at times when the way I feel is directly related to my reproductive function. I felt sick when I was eight weeks pregnant. I felt blooming and happy when I was five months pregnant. I felt a bit shit when I was two weeks postpartum and had had no sleep and was dealing with lochia and stitches and postnatal depression. I know, logically, that these feelings are peculiar to women.. but not all women have experienced them, and there are other feelings peculiar to women which I have never experienced (I don't get period pains, for example).

There is no criterion or set of criteria which adequately defines the group "woman" in terms of feelings. If there were, none of us would know what they are, because none of us have ever been both a man and a woman, and so we have no way of comparing the two states.

If a man wants to "live as a woman" that's fine by me -not like I get to decide how other people ought to live. But that doesn't mean he is one.

Thinking about this further (navel gazing) I do think my feeling about my gender (rather than sex: i.e. myself as a woman, rather than simply a neutral human being) have been fundamentally affected by carrying children. Before I was competitive, angry. After kids I feel more love in my life, hugely calmer, not at all competitive, sometimes angry but mainly much more chilled and relaxed. I don't believe this is conditioning, I believe this is hormonal. I felt extremely 'loving' whilst breastfeeding - oxytocin could have a lot to answer for. Can oxytocin have long lasting effects on behaviour? I know men experience it too, but surely nowhere near to the same degree?

Sorry, I meant to say: thus before children, I felt just more me, just a human being. After kids, I feel more feminine, more womanly. I feel more aware of the fact I am not male or an anonymous person, I am a woman. I feel like a woman. I know I'm the lone voice on this thread, but I'm not trying to be controversial. The more I think about this topic, the more I think there is something to gender feelz. I guess I also think it is tightly linked to biological sex too.

@FlyTipper - totally, same here! I don't, actually, think men and women are psychologically identical, and, yes, the postpartum Smiths is way more "womanly" in the way you describe, than the childless Smiths. But..doesn't that back up the idea that if men and women differ psychologically it's because of biology, and therefore you can't be physically one thing but "feel" the other?

Just catching up.

Age is not a good analogy because for those who "feel younger" they have actually been younger and so experienced themselves what that feels like.

For a 20 year old to ID as a 70 year old might be a better comparison. As, they have never been 70, or even near, and while they might try to imagine what it feels like, they can't fully know, and anyway, 70yo don't all feel the same.

If gender feelz is a thing, well the next question is how tightly is this linked to biology. I don't believe anyone has an answer, other than something bordering on philosophy. One can believe sex and gender cannot be sundered. One can believe that sex is what you are born with and gender is a choice. Or indeed, believe that sex and gender exist independently, correlating in most people, not correlating in a small minority.

I guess that is why women on this board hold so tightly to the idea gender feelz doesn't exist, because then they don't need to think about where that might lead.