Talking about sex not gender - woman means adult human female

[Acorninspring]

This is not a thread where I am "weaponising" a dictionary definition of a word by repeating it.

This is a thread for us as women to talk together about what it means to be a woman, an adult human female.

What are our biological experiences as women? And what are our social experiences growing up as girls, after our sex is observed at birth?

Why is it important that we retain the definition of the word woman as adult human female?

For me, growing up female was absolutely fine. I had brothers and male friends (no sisters, female cousins or neighbours). I was perfectly happy being one of the gang - indeed for a long time I thought I was a boy. Until I got to the age of about 10.

Periods and breasts meant I had to dress differently. The boys realised I was different and started to leave me out. I was sent to a different secondary school where I wasn't allowed to do all three sciences (girls didn't do physics then) so had to do extra classes outside school.

A late diagnosis of endometriosis explained my excruciating pain during periods from the age of 12 to 25 - and also my infertility. Having to adopt meant I had to give up work (a high paid graduate job with a future). Being main carer of a disabled child meant I couldn't return to work.

Continual gynaecological difficulties (pain and a horrible menopause) as well as caring duties have affected my whole life. And now as a 56 year old my husband has decided to walk out on a 30 year marriage, leaving me with no money, no pension, no career. And no bank account, no credit card, no means of getting credit (they want my husband to sign for me to get a credit card, unbelievable in 2018 you might think).

I'm invisible to the state, and to society.

I am a woman.

Women's achievements have often been missed out of recorded history so it looks like they have made less of a contribution than they have. We only have to look at Hidden Figures to see how the incredible contribution by women of colour to NASA was nearly forgotten entirely.

Removing and attempting to redefine the word women erases that contribution still further.

For me it has meant trying to please men and tiptoe around them all my life. This was ingrained in me from girlhood. I had tactics - how to get men to do what you want. Eyelash batting, or to say 'you're right when you say '. It worked so well. You lose credit for the idea but the idea gets done. And that was fine by me. That's how socialised I was.

It's important to keep it because the majority of human adult females identify as a woman. That's enough.

Everything about being female was embarrassing. Everything to do with periods and hormones was to be hidden. When I had a miscarriage my husband didn't talk to me for a week and I felt sorry for him. When I came home with my first baby after a section I slept on the floor in the living room so he could get a good nights sleep after running round all week getting the house ready.

Actually this is quite upsetting!

I was socialised, big time.

flowers pratchet

Okay, how do you get the flower picture?

I am fortunate. I am not a survivor of any kind. I was brought up in a family that was aware of and did its best to ensure I could recognise and fight against societal female socialisation and recognise potential patriarchal abuse from individuals and systems.

I want a world where every woman is as "lucky" as me. I think it's a disgrace that I see myself as "lucky".

Woman is the subordinate class in a sex caste system.

And that is why woman will always mean adult human female. Defining ourselves is fundamental, vital: it allows us to find each other, organise, and fight to liberate ourselves from control by male people, however they happen to identify.

My friends and I (all female) during years 7,8,9 and 10 of our secondary school years were quiet and were thought of as the 'well behaved and clever little girls'. For this reason we were split up from our small friendship group in every class except pe and made to sit with the noisy/boisterous/troublesome boys to ensure that they benefitted from our calm and studious manner. The boys I sat next to were totally disruptive and it really impacted my own learning have to act as a classroom assistant. I'm a woman. On the other hand when it came to P.E the girls had to accept whatever equipment/spaces the boys didn't use and often we were left with 7 hockey sticks between 60 of us I'm a woman. Any time I left the house I was expected to be immaculately dressed and wearing makeup/hair done nicely, my brother and my male fiends just had to get dressed - done. I'm a woman. I was expected to babysit my sisters children whenever she wanted to go out (not my brother or the childrens father) because caring is womens work obvs. I'm a woman. I should not have short hair because men don't find it attractive. I'm a woman. A homeless man stopped my then boyfriend and asked to speak to him specifically and not me because 'women are heartless bitches and they never give poor blokes a fucking penny'. I'm a woman.

pratchet i've just finished reading all of your HUGE thread yesterday. it's phenomenal. thank you thank you thank you. it has really helped me to hear all the voices of solidarity.

and i hear you re the socialisation. it is really hard to face up to, especially when you realise you are still doing it. i still can almost not bear to hurt a man's feelings, as if their pain is real and a woman's pain is, what? invisible? silent? lesser? to be expected?

Thank you for the flowers 🌺 you go on the smiley face and it gives you options and one of them is flowers.

It was mumsnet that turned me into a feminist. 100 per cent.

From being a very small girl I have wondered what my life would have been like if I'd been born male. For substantial periods of my life I have wanted that. There came a flash of understanding, not all that long ago, that what I wanted was not to have been born male, but born into a world where being born female was to be treated and socialised as though I was as fully human and as worthy as if I'd been born male.

I'd been a feminist my whole life, and yet it took decades for me to get to the point where I understood this.

I didn’t realise this until recently but I think the time I learnt a lot about the differences about men and women (and what makes a woman) was when I was ten and in a refuge. I overheard my mother talking about how my father had raped her. The law was only just changing but her solicitor advised her they probably wouldn’t get far mentioning it in court.

After that things like the humiliation of periods at school (I used to suffer with very bad D&V in the first few years of my periods), facial hair and shaving body hair and bleeding when losing my virginity and the guy telling everyone.

Then as an adult:

• rape by “friends” being laughed off as “a drunken fumble”
• having my first DC whilst young and being spoken to with utter contempt
• the way you’re spoken to like an animal whilst pregnant
• sexism at university
• sexism at work
• the sheer horror of the initial few months of pain with breastfeeding
• miscarriage
• c-section
• VBAC (and fighting for it)
• ovarian cysts
• uterine fibroids
• pressure to give up your name if you get married
• learning how to deal with and appease drunk men so they don’t turn violent
• learning how to deal with and appease men at work so they don’t target you
• learning how to deal with and appease men so they don’t deliberately try to humiliate you in conversation
• female pain being downplayed in comparison to male pain

As a girl I was expected to do (a lot) of household chores, these took priority over homework. I couldn't identify my way out of these

I am a woman

I was the only girl growing up in a large male dominated and highly competitive household.

I felt very different, alienated I suppose, and frustrated as a girl because I couldn't better the achievements of my older brothers and Dad.

My mum has been an inspiration to me as a woman (adult human female) but when I was growing up she was under my dad's thumb and appeased him constantly, due to his temper and jealousy.

She is not under his thumb now and the tables have turned - due to an increase in confidence and self belief, having achieved highly in her career and earnings.

But growing up in a stressful and sometimes toxic environment did affect my own confidence and how I behaved as a young woman.

I also appeased men, and used my sexuality and 'charm' as a form of power and a way to get their 'respect' and validation.

I look back and wish I had realised what a false premise this was, and how much happier I would have been if I hadn't done this.

I want all girls and young women to feel confident in their bodies and their capabilities. To know that they are at least equal to their male peers and that they don't have to conform to sexual stereotyping to feel beautiful and worthy.

I had a termination at 21 and found this very hard to cope with. I kept it as secret as I could and felt guilty, ashamed and grief stricken over my 'lost' baby.

The consultant who approved the termination was appalling - he treated me like an errant child and told me how irresponsible I was for getting pregnant. He spelt out that it was in HIS gift to decide whether I could have an abortion or not, and that if he granted me it this time he would not be as tolerant if I got pregnant again.

I will always remember him coming to see me in my hospital bed prior to being taken for the surgery - it was terrifying to know that I would shortly be under the knife in his hands.

One of my closest women friends has needed a colonoscopy investigation - after going through the procedure they told her it had been inconclusive due to her 'body' not opening up fully. They told her she would therefore need another one.

She has refused and asked if there was any alternative.

She saw the consultant last week and he was very critical of her, saying there was no alternative and demanding to know why she was refusing this procedure.

"Because I have been anally raped", 'was her reply. She was shaking very badly by this time.

His next question was: "What is your line of work?"

My 61-year-old friend has never been a prostitute. And, even if she had been, what business is it of his and why would it be relevant to him in this particular instance?

His assumptions and attitude are still typical of what women have to put up with from some medics.

The facts are that she was repeatedly raped during her long marriage. And never reported it until she found the courage to divorce him a few years ago. She is still traumatised and her experience with this consultant has not helped one bit.

That reminds me of an old joke:

What's the difference between a consultant and God?

God doesn't think he's a consultant.

I can identify with ArcheryAnnie's comment:

There came a flash of understanding, not all that long ago, that what I wanted was not to have been born male, but born into a world where being born female was to be treated and socialised as though I was as fully human and as worthy as if I'd been born male.

I'd been a feminist my whole life, and yet it took decades for me to get to the point where I understood this.

Although for me, I saw that difference, and was really fucking angry about being treated differently. For a while (later on), I was hoping that all the 'equality speak' would 'kick in' and be sorted out. Not so. Forty years later, still has not happened. Needless to say, I am a bit more angry.

Did I mention the anger?

due to her 'body' not opening up fully

This is a load of crock. For my colonoscopy, it was that they needed the 'small' ("pedriatic"!) probe to 'go around the corner' of the bowel. Nothing to do with the initial (anal to first bend) thing. After reading your comment Anchor, I now start to wonder whether this is a fairly common 'problem' with women getting colonoscopies. That women's bodies are smaller (with a lot more 'reproductive shit' packed into a tight place) and that the 'default' for the majority of medical procedures or medicines are based on the 'male default'. Bigger bodies, bigger colons.

Yeah, makes me wonder why they don't have the smaller scope on hand when they do this. Maybe just to make women feel bad about their bodies it seems.

That we get such crap from the medical profession - because we ARE women, females.

Male is the default, even for 'category woman' it seems.

Fuck that noise!

When I was 11, I was mocked for not shaving my legs. Why would I? I was ELEVEN.

At 13, I was embarrassed by my newly forming breasts, when the local boys made comments about them.

At 17, I lost my virginity because the boy in question wouldn't take no for an answer. He kept pulling my clothes down, I kept pulling them back up. I just gave in.

Also at 17, I was at a lads house, and he obviously wanted to sleep with me. I was nervous. Unsure. He said 'I'm gonna rape you in a minute'. (He didn't rape me)

From 18-21 I was groped in clubs because I dared to wear a skirt. All I had to do was walk past, and apparently that meant they could touch me.

To be honest, it didn't bother me much at the time (apart from the boob comments) but now I am older, it sends chills down my spine. Because I realise why it didn't bother me then. It's because it was EXPECTED. It was just what happens. The rape comment esp freaks me out. What sort of language is that?

At 30, my womanliness almost killed me. An ovarian cyst ruptured and filled my abdomen with 80% of my own blood.

At 31, I lay crying on the bathroom floor, not wanting to flush my miscarried baby, while my 5 year old watched cartoons downstairs. I then went down into the kitchen to make dinner.

At 32, I gave birth to a baby girl. And now, at 33, I am filled with dread at how this world will treat her.

I am a woman, because I was born one. I don't feel like one, I just am one. And I realise why we are the oppressed sex. It is because we hold the power of life. Men can't grow and sustain a life with just their bodies. And they feel threatened by that. So they use their physical strength and take advantage of our tenderness to make themselves feel powerful. Well, that is how I think it started, anyway....

*The 'default' for the majority of medical procedures or medicines are based on the 'male default.'
*
A very salient point LaSqrrl - and I can't see this this changing any time soon in the current environment.

I am the middle of three sisters. I was the one who was called a tom boy. I wanted to play with toys that were supposed to be for boys, I wanted short hair and I didn't like wearing dresses. My dad let me have some things but usually I was not allowed. Only got short hair when I was in early teens.
This did not mean I was a boy. I was a girl that didn't like the stereotypes. I am now a women that hates the sexism and stereotypes designed to keep us in our place
Despite being a tom boy I was still subject to the same crap my sisters and other women have to go through
I was 9 the first time I was flashed by a man because I am female
I was 11 when grown men started harassing me on the street because I am female
I have been groped more times than I can count because I am female
I am lucky never to have been raped.
I am still judged because of notions around gender. Because I still have short hair, because I have never married, because I never wanted kids.
I am a woman because I am an adult human female not because I feel like a woman. There is no feeling like a woman you just are one because of Biology

Until I was about 10 I wanted to be a boy (I thought). Actually I didn't. I just wanted to lead the carefree lives that boys are allowed to live. So I cut my hair short and always wore trousers, except at school. We are talking many decades ago here as I am older than most MNers I imagine. Luckily my parents were very relaxed so indulged my "tomboyism". Today I expect I would be in a queue for transing.

It was no surprise then that the 3 careers deemed suitable for girls by my school were nursing, teaching and secretarial work. I rebelled by becoming a journalist. Of course, being the 60s and 70s I had to fight like hell all the way for equal pay and equal rights to prove I was a fully functioning adult human, rather than someone who deserved less because I was that second rate person, aka woman, even though I won awards and worked harder than any bloke I knew. I discovered it is true that you have to work twice as hard to get half as far as a man - well, true in those decades anyway.

I have though been "lucky" in many respects. Married for over 50 years to someone who was a new man before the concept of new man was invented. Fully engaged in childcare etc. He always had my back. I have had a good career as well as two DCs largely because of that.

But, I have also had to care for elderly sick relatives (which I didn't resent because I loved them) and have had a late miscarriage. I had a horrible first birth, which left me with damage. Life sucks sometimes.

I am a woman because of my biology, the socialisation that stems from that and the life I have consequently led.

My female biology has resulted in (inter alia) - being groped by males from the age of about 8, being subjected from the age of 12 to visual assaults (flashing) & lewd comments/ suggestions by adult males, dealing with periods in semi-secrecy due to my mother's own upbringing, debilitating period pains, having comments passed about my body by total strangers (men, of course), being date raped, being led down limiting female pathways for education/careers and consequent earning capacity, an abortion, early marriage, five more pregnancies including 2 miscarriages one needing a blood transfusion, labour & birth & bf, ingesting hormones so I didn't conceive anymore, divorce leaving me financially disadvantaged because of the above. Having to wait an extra 6 years for my state pension without having the time or wherewithal to plan for that. In my 50s still fending off indecent propositions from men. When the fuck does that end?

Yet I am happy and proud to be a woman, I would never want to be a man.