Living as a woman

[MissScarletInTheBallroom]

This is a thread for people to give examples of experiences which constitute "living as a woman".

I'll go first.

Peeing on a pregnant test and waiting anxiously to see whether a second line appears.

Standing in a queue, trying not to look too desperately in need of a toilet cubicle.
Then running into one and realising that not only is the seat wet but there's no tp!

Encouraging my daughters to feel able to stand up for themselves and assert their boundaries with predatory, entitled men, but also wanting to warn them not to be too assertive and provoke those men to anger...

This happened to a woman who asked why they were calling her when her husband was the main contact as she was due in court imminently.

"Oh, I'm sure the judge will understand."

"I am the judge."

I hope you eventually got your BFP!

During my TTC years I hated the feeling of hoping a negative test was 'just too early' I also had a couple of very early losses, so I stopped using home tests.
Proper test with the clinic after IVF I'm wandering round the shops, the clinic phoned - just confirming its positive 😀 - WHAT? REALLY? The girl on the other end of the phone was fully expecting I'd have done a home test. I don't think she'd actually broken the news to anyone before!

In April being beaten to a top job for which I was the best candidate by a white middle-aged man when they had said they didn't want another white middle-aged man.
Interviewed by four middle-aged men, including the outgoing postholder, who told the senior woman interviewer, who was on holiday with her kids, she didn't have a veto over their decision.

Interview for my first ever job 35 years ago and being asked if I w a s going to have children. It was an illegal question even then.

And the job was shit. So if you get asked, refuse to answer and leave the interview, because they're going to be shit to work for.

Nothing changes.

Love this..reminds me of many moons ago some dickhead kicking off on the phone asking to speak to my manager. Sorry the manager is not available right now. "WHEN WILL HE BE AVAILABLE"
"SHE will be available after her lunch" and she will wipe the floor with you

Sticking a thermometer in my vagina every morning to check whether I'd ovulated yet.

Fanny shot after three 10ib natural births and two sneezes in rapid succession equal doom

Postpartum piles 😱

I did, thank you! Three and a half years later. I walked through with the pregnancy test, showed my husband and just said 'does that say what I think it does' and we just stared at each other in shock. Took a while to sink in for both of us I think.

Love your story about the clinic person phoning - I bet they loved being the one to tell you, once the surprise at your reaction wore off!

At age 4, having a tiny pink spade for the garden sandpit while my brother had a much bigger blue one.

While hammering a nail into a piece of furniture I had designed, being told by a man "I don't like to see you doing that."

Being told by an abusive, lying ex that women are supposed to be forgiving.

@DustyWindowsills I was a feminist by about age 5! I had a brother and it was obvious to me we were treated differently - some of this was inconsquential stuff, but sibling rivalry being what it is, I wanted what he had. That wasn't the only reason, mind you, as I only had to look around me to see that men and boys were treated better, and many of them saw women and girls as inferior.

Peri-menopausal flooding on the passenger seat of a colleague’s car.

Never felt so womanly as the time the Registrar was getting frustrated with me because my legs kept falling off the stirrups when he was trying to stop a vaginal haemorrhage caused by forceps. I'd had an epidural and couldn't actually feel my legs. It was awesome when I looked around at just the right time to see a midwife walk off with a large bowl of my own blood. It was so affirming to dizzily limp to the bathroom to enjoy my daily shower including trying to catch giant clots before they splattered on the bathroom floor (didn't always suceed). I revelled in the allergic reaction to maternity pads, which attracted a crowd of healthcare professionals one morning. It was so great that they insisted I kept curtains open at all times, so that I could maintain the fear of walkers-by seeing my adjust my allergic pads every time I moved. Never felt so womanly and feminine in my life!

Being sexually abused as a toddler and trafficked not long after. Having a cop call me a slag when I was 3 and he found a group of teens assaulting me in the loo. Being told that bc I was a girl, I was only good for sex and I wasn't much good at that either. Not being believed by adults but also told that I shouldn't say anything or they would throw me in prison and that I shouldn't ruin good men by telling. IOW, them assaulting me wasn't the problem, me talking about it was. And they were still good men while I was now a slag, who had no value and shouldn't be believed.

I was very young when I learned just how much men hate women and girls and that many women go along with it. I see rape culture almost everywhere.

I was told not to bother w uni bc education was wasted on women.

I also relate to many of the posts about child and familial care. Like some PP, I told my DC's school to call my husband instead of me. He told them that, too but they still always called me.

My experience of living as a woman
Projectile vomiting due to period pain
Passing out every month due to perimenopause
Paying a luxury tax for tampons
Taking the pill so my partner doesn't have to wear condoms
Being unable to open a jar of jam and having to take it to work so a man could open it for me.
Smears and soon to be mammograms
Being paid less than stupid men- because they have "a family to support"
My male friend being spoken to when I am asking questions about something I am going to pay for.
Waiting until 2025 for abortion to be decimalised

What is "not living as a woman"
Enjoying having shaved legs
Enjoying painting your nails/toenails
Wearing tights/Stockings/heels/skirts/dresses.
Having long hair
Referring to yourself or any other person as a "doll"
Bubble baths
Botox/Filler
Having a fun party in the public toilets
Having sex with men
Thinking a woman is something that is something that you "feel" rather than objectively experience.
Waving at women after they have had gynae surgery while being on a female only ward

Being told by a random man "if you don't give me your bag, I'll plant my knife in your belly. Ooh' that will hurt the baby" while 5 month pregnant with twins.

Getting called "my little girl" at work when you have the audacity to tell facts which contradict a man's opinion

Having my third baby all to myself for 10 minutes after he was born (could not spend this time with the others after an emergency C section). The purest joy ever after the agony of giving birth without anesthetics

Using the French expression "I had the balls to do this and that", only with ovaries. Delightful.

Being able to counsel and support many friends and almost unknown women my beloved midwife had sent my way on breastfeeding (and especially BFing twins, which I would never have even attempted if I had not been strongly encouraged by my lovely aunt).

Feeling like a hero for giving liters and liters of mother's milk to help feed little premature babies, and hoping I helped them thrive.

This thread is beautiful and devastating and everything in between.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom I feel like we're reclaiming the phrase "live as a woman" from the people who took it without asking. The people who attempted to reduce our status in the group "woman" to that of mere objects.

Huge love to all the women posting here.

Finding out in my mid 30s, when my fourth was just a baby that I had Stage 3B breast cancer and that I only had four days to wean him off breastfeeding before I had to have both my breasts amputated then go on to have months and months of treatment that would not only hopefully save/prolong my life, but that would leave me infertile and with lifelong physical and mental complications.

Being raped at 15yo by a 28yo male who was in a position of power over me and whom I trusted.

Being verbally harassed and then chased off a train by a group of 20ish year old guys, at 11pm on the way home, which was witnessed, and ignored by several other passengers. They stopped when they saw I was running towards a taxi rank, but I tripped and fell and took skin off my hands and face and tore the knees out my jeans. The first taxi driver didn’t want to take me because he “didn’t want me getting blood all over his car”. When I got home my husband thought I’d been in a car accident.

Being ignored in favour of my male partner as an emergency services worker, even though I was the senior officer.

I could go on…

That must have been terrifying.

So much love to you.