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?

Woman = adult female = XX chromosomes = class of mammal able to gestate and give birth.

so moved by this thread I've decided to delurk...
I too have had a lucky life but still one that includes sexism, misogyny, sexual abuse, economic and legal inequality. It also includes losing my dream job and therefore my rented home when I became pregnant as a single woman. I was refused an abortion and ended up in a mother & baby home run by nuns. Medical professionals tended to patronise me at best and to treat me as immoral and stupid at worst. An adoption charity who were trying to persuade me to give my child away told me I was a 'very selfish girl' when I wouldn't do so. Friends and some members of my family rejected me. It was these experiences that helped me truly understand what being a woman entailed. I have been a feminist ever since.
I am so grateful to this community for offering a space where I can write those last two sentences without having to (re)define the meaning of woman or feminist, without having to deny my/our lived reality. But I am also angry and distressed that it has come to this.
Love and strength to all of you.

Thank you to everyone who has posted on this thread. These are our experiences as women. I cannot believe that we are facing a situation where we are being told by males that we are 'not allowed' sex segregated spaces.

I am 'lucky' compared to some. But I have still been socialised in a particular way as a female and I recognise it more and more as time goes on. And some of my 'luckiness' is due to having spent the whole of my twenties housebound with a chronic illness that affects mostly women, that is under-researched and under-resourced.

I think having a child sealed the deal. My eyes were opened and I could not unsee.
I saw how I had up until then tried to placate men. I no longer smile when told to, apologise for my anger or go along with things so as not to be unpopular
And this is the me that my daughter sees

I am a woman.
When I was a girl, I watched my mother be beaten by my step father. I looked after my terrified sibling, I called the police, I listened to my mother's lamenting. I still freeze when I hear an angry male voice.

I am an adult human female. When I was a child human female, I was teased for having hairy legs, I shaved them in secret. I had creepy boys smelling my hair in class and cornering me at birthday parties. I was called flat and frigid. Desperate to be cool, I tried to prove the frigid label wrong. I was called a slut instead.
I am a woman.
I bled for nearly 3 months after losing another pregnancy in the 2nd trimester. I have faced the mirror and felt like a failed woman because my body would not conceive or carry a baby.
I am a woman.
I have held my child, birthed from my body, and breathed the earthy scent. I have been rushed to theatre where I watched a doctor's hand, arm, elbow disappear into my vagina, and where I was complimented on how nice it looked after having literally just pushed a small human out through it.

I am a mother, my daughter is a teenager. This world is not good enough for her. Not even close.

I'm another 'lucky' woman like LangCleg. It was only when it belatedly dawned on me that most others weren't as lucky that I got why feminism was necessary.

If I try to think of times when I've 'felt like a woman' (rather than simply being me) it's always to do with the biological reality of being female. Mostly the womb doing its own powerful, unstoppable thing during excruciating dysmenorrhea (bad) and childbirth (good).

Yes Errol. I do not feel like a woman. I know I am a woman because I have female biology. I do not have a gender identity separate from this.

Fucking hell, LaSqrrl I had a colonoscopy a couple of years ago, I was mortified as I couldn't tolerate the pain at the end ( I have given birth twice) they kept saying but its just the last couple of inches. They gave up in the end, I was screaming and said I had to come back when they could sedate me.
No wonder people want to restrict what is said on MN, look what we find out when women talk to each other.

I a man a woman and I have been socialised to flatter men to get their support. I still do that dealing with the transwomen allies and I hate myself for it. It feels like I'm prostituting myself

Argh even autocorrect defaults an accidental space and m to man

I am a woman

I've been lucky as a woman.

I don't remember gender stereotypes as a young child. I played with things that interested me. Which happened to be cars and paints and action men. I wore whatever hand-me-down clothes I owned and didn't care about how I looked. The only bits of segregation I remember at school were crafts at primary school (knitting for girls, woodwork for boys. They let the girl who asked swap to woodwork) and PE at secondary. The girls never did football or rugby. I don't know what the boys missed out on.

As a teenager I formed wonderful female friendships. I started to experience street harassment for having the temerity to exist. Mostly it was negative comments on my appearance, which I still didn't care much about. I gravitated towards maths and science. I was the only girl in my A level maths class and physics class. When I complained about the sexist maths teacher I was told not to be too sensitive.

I did a physics degree in a great department ... that did not have one single female member of staff. Well, no academics were female. Both secretaries were. I had a baby during my PhD. When I came back after the 4 months maternity leave allowed by my funding body I seemed to no longer be a member of the department. I still worked there to do my experiments, discuss with my colleagues and meet my supervisor, but I just wasn't included in the life of the department any more.

I got married. I refused to have patriarchal traditions at our wedding. I kept my own name. 14 years later I still fight on a very regular basis for the right to have my own name. My younger daughter is disabled and needs a carer. As my husband completed his PhD before me (what with no maternity leave, etc) he was employed and I wasn't, having only just qualified, so I became a carer. It's a role I'm happy with, but I am aware that I've sacrificed my financial independence. Now I'm 40 and more invisible so much less street harassment, though men still occasionally tell me to smile. I still don't give a damn about my appearance and I know I'm judged for that in a way that my husband is not. So that's my tale of being a lucky woman. Definitely would have been easier as a man.

I grew up with my mum - just the two of us. I saw her ground down by a system in the 60's which made her reliant on the man who had abandoned us yet would not allow divorce or a financial settlement.
She fought sexism and discrimination against single mothers to carve out a career and to bring me up, at the cost of her health.
She was a woman.
As a teen I was told at school by the head of science that girl's brains were not suited for the sciences, that the arts subjects were better. At several job interviews in the 70's I was asked what my husband thought of me having a career - how would he cope?
Through out my teens I learnt to deal with unwanted attention from men and boys, who felt that they had a right to touch, to grope, to stare, to comment on my female body.
At 13 I was groomed and raped by a man in his 30's.
In my 30's I was sexually assaulted by a friend of my husband, my husband still thinks that it was nothing special and just "banter" I should forget.
I have had crippling period pains and dreadful flooding during the menopause, just my age said the male gp.

I am a woman.

averylongtimesasspartacus

Head of science at my school also said that girls brains couldn't understand science. From dates you're a little older so can't be the same school as this was a young male teacher that was new into the head of science position. Even at the time I was surprised he was head of science as he was very inexperienced and there were a number of more experienced female biology teachers, but I worked out why sigh

It was 1973, large former grammar in the north of England. Male head of dept, age late 30's.
My exam results at o level were actually better in the sciences than the arts subjects, but "girly brain".

Rarely post on here but Archery Annie's friend's experience made me so .

There IS an alternative to colonoscopy - CT colonography which only requires a thin tube to be inserted into the back passage. CO2 is used to inflate the bowel which is then scanned. It is a much gentler pprocedure than colonoscopy and used where patients cannot tolerate the colonoscopy. Many patients in my hospital have this procedure. I'm horrified that your friend was treated so badly. Bet it would be different for a male patient