Do you "feel like a woman"? What does that mean?

[Fingernailbiter]

I have always said I think it’s bollocks that everyone "knows instinctively" what gender they are, with no reference to learned stereotypes, so that a male could feel that his "authentic self" is female/a woman. I’ve always said I know I’m a woman because I’m an adult human female, but I just "feel like" a person.

But someone has said to me what about many women's instinctive longing for a baby of their own? I couldn't think of a good answer to that. I certainly longed for babies and felt very "maternal" when I had them. I know not all women feel that way, and I know some men really want children of their own, but there’s no denying that maternal urge. Could it be true that that (a hormonal thing?) counts as "feeling like a woman"?

Of course hormonal urges contribute, its a biological part of being a woman.

“Could it be true that that (a hormonal thing?) counts as "feeling like a woman"?”

No.

I’m a woman. I have a child. Nonetheless, I have never experienced a moment’s broodiness in my life. I think broodiness would be a deeply weird and exclusive basis on which to define ‘fee,ing like a woman’. Also, I don’t have to ‘feel like a woman’. I just am one. Similarly I don’t have to ‘feel’ how gravity affects me.

Yes indeed - since the day I was born I've longed to have a baby. /s

Most women aren't mooning about, hankering for a baby 24/7. We manage to function just fine in life with or without maternal urges. To me this is a lazy trope akin to "women are only good for one thing".

What makes a woman? DNA and genes.

A childless woman who has infertility is just as much a woman as a mother of ten babies and they are both just as much a woman as the woman who chose not to have kids or who is with an infertile partner or who is a lesbian.

I am a biological female. My sex is female. I had no hormonal urges for a child. I never, ever felt that maternal urge. I don't 'feel' like a woman, I don't know what that would 'feel like'. I just AM a woman.

Because the maternal urge bypassed me, despite being a biological adult human female, without any gender identity because IMO gender is made up bollocks does that mean I'm not a woman?

You either are a woman or you’re a man. Feelings don’t come into it, biology does. Of course there are differences between men and women but feelings don’t define your sex. Gender is a social construct that is irrelevant.

Plenty of things make me feel like a woman, personally. This’ll vary for women though. Mood swings and hormonal changes for example. Being broody yes. Feeling feminine.

So a man who wants a baby is a woman?

i suspect I feel like a man - as in we can’t show that I feel any differently to men - other than societal induced feelings of inadequacy

Unless you’re a woman, it’s impossible to know what it “feels like” to be a woman. I can’t know what it feels like to be a man. Plus other women’s view of what being a woman “feels like” will be very different to mine. You can only know what it feels like to be you.

That's biologically part of being a woman. Our hormones make us desire children and our bodies are built to bear them. That's not 'feeling like a woman', that's being a woman.
For myself, I feel like a person. I have no idea what it feels like to be a woman nor what 'normal' women do. I am me, I do me. I know I am a woman because I have the relevant biology - that's as far as that goes. I also know that I have been discriminated against all my life because I have that biology and not because of how I feel. I'd go so far to say I had no idea what was meant, many years ago, when reading a sci fi story (I think it is by Joanna Russ) where there are no men and reproduction is by parthenogenises. Then men arrive and ask 'where are all the people'? Wtaf? I thought, there are all the people, the women and their children. What does this writer mean? I went to an all girls school btw where I was never allowed to think that men/boys were in any way superior to women/girls (or inferior, of course).
I did notice in books that boys had all the adventures and this dispirited me rather. But that's another story entirely.

No, not really. I was a fairly non gender conforming child and was told the things I liked, the clothes I wore and their haircut I had were 'boys' things and I didn't feel much in common with girls, but was also happy to be a girl, and rather enjoyed being one but not being into things people would assume I was into.

I had no maternal urge, but I just thought being a parent would be very interesting. I don't think all women have it at all, and I think more men have an urge to be a father than is discussed openly.

I'm definitely naturally very feminine - this makes me feel like a women. Whether it's the clothes I wear, my posture, even something simple as wanting my hair/nails/makeup done. And when I don't have this I don't feel as put together. I "feel more of a woman" having taken time in this grooming sense.

As for maternal instinct, I had a baby young because I always had that broodiness. I think that is quite a natural hormonal thing because biologically that's what we're designed to do.

Men are by a long way more violent than women. Woman probably like babies more than men do. Neither of those things makes them a man or a woman — everyone is male or female from pre-birth to death.

What makes me feel like a woman is the knowledge that any man could rape me at any time and the only thing stopping him is social convention - and perhaps also the law. Don’t really care about any feels in their heads - it‘s their equipment that would do the damage.

but there’s no denying that maternal urge. Could it be true that that (a hormonal thing?) counts as "feeling like a woman"?

It’s a moot point. You are either biologically a man or women. A biological man that swears blind he feels like a woman is still a man.

What makes me feel like a woman?
Boobs growing on my chest as a teenager
Period pains and leaking blood from my vagina every month
Being pregnant
Giving birth
Breast feeding
Smear tests
Mammograms
All the crappy symptoms of menopause
Simultaneously sneezing and piddling
Pelvic floor problems
Vaginal atrophy

I don’t feel like a woman any more than I feel like I’m 5’3. I just am.

Agree. Lack of maternal urge is not a contraceptive.

We are who we are, why all the thinking about it? Who does that benefit?

I had kids because DH wanted them. I've never, ever felt broody. Not once. I wanted to get pregnant when we were trying, but not because I felt broody.

I feel like me, not specifically like a woman. I suppose stuff like period pain is 'feeling like a woman' as only women have it, but generally I just am, I think. Difficult to know without achieving the impossible and changing sex!

No I don't have an innate womanly feeling and I can put the bins out without feeling manly. I am me. Me is a woman, I have female hormones which affect me physically and emotionally - men don't have these and a man taking artifical hormones is a man taking female hormones. A post menopausal woman does not become a man. It's all in the xx xy. Don't know why that's confusing to grasp. Yes there can be anomalies as with everything but anomalies don't change fundamental fact.

Ugh, some of the responses on here are gross.

Not all women have maternal urges but some do. I did/do. Why do some of you need to look down on that, saying disparaging things like "mooning about"?

I hate the subset of feminists that seem to think looking down on mothers is somehow sticking it to the patriarchy. I wonder if you look down on your own mothers this much.

In answer to your question/hypothesis, op, I don't think anyone can ever say what it feels like to be a woman because you can never try out being the opposite.

I used to think it was a bollocks concept to ‘feel like a woman’, it was just something that I was. Never gave it any thought. But as I’ve got older (now in my mid-30s) I do actually have a sense of being a woman, not that I can possibly explain what it feels like. It could be hormones, but I also think it’s because I now date very masculine men and so the contrast is more obvious. I also think it has something to do with being much more comfortable with my sexuality than when I was younger.

I've never felt like a woman

I do know that I do "womaning" wrong, and struggle to fit in with groups of women for instance in the workplace and when my kids were at school - at the school gate for instance. Lucky for me I met a man who's into my non-womaning, plain faced, short haired, trouser and short wearing personage.

I used to be on that there twatter - where others opined about the non-womaning woman that I was

Basically I am a woman - but like many I am not into femininity and frills, however I do feel a bit inferior at times to what one would call "real" women.

I have never had a smidge of being broody.

Stereotypically I ‘identify’ more with males that I’ve come across than females (thank goodness the trans movement wasn’t around when I was young because I definitely felt like I should have been a boy).

I still believe I am a woman and have no desire to ever be a man.

The issue that I have with the trans movement is that I personally have always struggled with where I fit in because I’m not stereotypically very female or very male.

It’s only as I’ve gotten older that I’ve realised that I can be a feminine woman but with lots of masculine traits and that’s ok because we’re not designed to fit into a box.