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.

Being in perimenopause and having no idea whether my next period will start today or in three weeks’ time.

Although given what so many women on this thread have been through, I’ve got off lightly.

Feeling excited and also scared and nervous about having an induction this weekend.

Being sexually assaulted as a child. I know that happens to men, bet, as the phrase goes, not all men.

One could read this thread and think about what men have told us about why they think they're somehow women and get a bit ragey.

I've been thinking about your question, OP, and the thing that is hovering for me is not just the experiences but how I've navigated them.

Apologising to midwives for swearing during contractions.
Being friendly to the man who raped me out of some confused mix of fear and denial.
The guilt at having PND.

It's the extra that womanhood layers on top of all the experiences - how we are expected to do it all backwards, in heels, while smiling.

Wishing you all the very best. Labour is hard work, but you can do it. ❤

Realising that so many men born in the same year that I was have died. And those who haven't are likely to have dementia. Long life is not always a blessing.

I felt as if a thousand hands were beside mine during those nights, sisterhood across centuries and millennia. 💐and 💪and 😢to everyone who has posted.
@SuperLemonCrush
Thanks for putting that into words. I have also felt that connection to the women who have gone before me. Not in such emotional times, but when I pick the meat off the leftover roast chicken bones. I think of all the women who went before me doing the same task, but with the urgent pressure of finding enough meat to feed their families.

Being told at a bathroom showroom that they would not talk to me about a bathroom renovation because my husband wasn't with me and the salesman didn't want to waste his time having to tell us everything twice. I walked out.

Buying a dark, patterned top for a rare night out when DS was tiny, not for any sense of style but for camouflage, because the sound/sight/thought of any baby, not even mine, produced a let-down reflex that could have your eye out.

Backing it up with those ever so sexy absorbent towelling circle things to stuff in a bra (having removed the chilled cabbage leaves first. I'm not a total style-free zone).

I had similar at a double glazing appointment - the guy said he should reschedule for when my husband was home. I said I didn't have a husband it was MY house.

Thank you. And love to you and everyone else on this thread who has experienced horrendous shit, just for “living as a woman”, or as it’s better known, being a woman ❤️

Realising in the second half of my 40’s that it’s now safe to smile at strangers, having spent all the years since being a teen cultivating a magnificent bitchy resting face to avoid any chat up attempts

I’m really smiley now I’m invisible!

Getting a biopsy without pain killers.

When I was 19, being attacked while swimming in a public pool by a man ( a stranger ) who dragged me under the water and tried to pull down my bikini bottoms.

The sports centre manager told me that he could call the police if I insisted but he would advise against it , as it would be very awkward for me, they would ask me all about my sexual history and let’s face it I was wearing a bikini . And was I sure it wasn’t in fact my boyfriend who was playing a prank on me?

Being at university on a male dominated course and realising that all the male students went to the pub with our ( all male ) lecturers on a Friday after classes. The men called the staff by their first name but we were expected to call them Dr/ Professor Smith.

I recently met a man I was at uni with and he was reminiscing “

” Andy / Dave / Ian (lecturers ) were such great guys, anytime we missed lectures they would give us notes, give us an extra tutorial ,help us with our essays , give us tips on exams questions. If our lab reports weren’t up to scratch, Dave would let us resubmit them. I don’t think I would have graduated without all that support, I was pissed half the time I was there.”

This was 30 years ago and none of the women students knew this was happening. We got NONE of that, it’s as if we were on different courses .

We had to write our names on the ( handwritten ) exams scripts that went to the external examiners . The women all wrote their initial plus surname ( J Smith ) as we were sure we were being down marked . The men all wrote their full name ( John Robert Smith ) so they could still tell our sex anyway.

One Lecturer told me that we were the first year that no woman had dropped out because she was pregnant, but that we would all probably get married and have a baby straight after graduation. It was clear that most of the academics staff thought they were wasting their time teaching us and we were taking places away from legitimate male students.

Good luck!

I never know quite what to say to women who are giving birth for the first time. (Assuming it is your first time, apologies if not.)

After I had my first baby (by unplanned C-section after a failed induction) I felt sad that it hadn't gone the way I had planned, and guilty for feeling sad when my long awaited baby was finally here.

I remember some of my friends who had already had babies coming out of the woodwork and telling me what went wrong in their own labours, and thinking, "Why didn't you warn me about all of this stuff before I gave birth?"

It's almost like a weird sisterhood where by tacit agreement you don't give women all the gory details before they give birth for the first time because you don't want to make them worry unnecessarily, but after they've given birth you want to reassure them that it rarely goes completely according to plan and they're not the only one to feel a little traumatised after the event.

My second birth ended up being an absolutely lovely calm VBAC with a perfectly dosed epidural in the last few hours which just took the edge off things. I felt on top of the world afterwards, except for the postpartum piles which I could have done without!

If I could give you two pieces of advice, they would be the following.

Research what happens during a C-section, including anything you might want to ask for if you end up having one, such as skin to skin in theatre or delayed cord clamping. Even if it's not how you hope to give birth, it might happen, and if it does you'll cope with it better if you know what to expect and are still able to exercise some choice about how it goes.

And try not to be ideological about pain relief. Don't feel pressured to accept pain relief you don't want or need. On the other hand, don't refuse pain relief purely based on the (in my view, misguided) idea that a drug free birth is better and that childbirth is supposed to be painful. A well-timed and appropriately dosed epidural can be a truly wonderful thing.

Oh, and pack some glycerine suppositories for that first postpartum poo. You'll be thankful for them whichever way your baby comes out.

Wishing you all the luck in the world and hoping you have a positive experience and are soon holding your gorgeous baby.

I wish I could do it one more time.

❤️

Nearly dying and nearly losing my baby at 32 weeks pregnant due to a partial placental abruption. In a state of delirium afterwards on a side ward in the maternity ward hearing other mothers with their newborns beside them and not knowing what was happening with my baby in the ICU.

Having a very dismissive male consultant come in and tell me I should have spotted the signs sooner (there were no signs) and that the instantaneous bleed and pain whilst I was driving home could not have been the start of it (it was). Midwife with him kindly pointed out I'd done the right thing coming straight to the hospital and he said yes, you and your baby were only half an hour from death. Gave me such bad anxiety I didn't sleep when we eventually got home with our baby for first 6 months. I'd just stare at him to see if he was breathing. The constant wires and beeps at the hospital had been a weird comfort to me.

Gosh, I'm feeling so much reading this thread , so many similar experiences. Mine are generally pregancy related!
-I started to bleed at work during my first pregnancy and STILL finished my shift as I didnt want to let my patients down.
-having my boobs "manhandled" without consent when attempting to BF
-horrific PND twice. Being told by a travel insurance helpline that this has to be disclosed when buying insurance for the rest of my life (?)
-having every single GP appointment from then on ,no matter what ailment, still being linked to my mental health.
-putting up with every single smear/mammogram without complaint because "its just part of being a woman". Realising when working in cancer care how many women avoid cancer screening tests because how painful/distressing/trauma they can find it. Being aware that ,solely by being a woman, the health service expects you to bear pain (during procedures such as hysteroscopy) or distressing circumstances without complaining or adequate pain relief; and that social care service expects you to care for older and /or disabled family members no matter your own family /health/job situation.
-realising that the NHS,despite it being kept afloat by generations of hard working women, still prioritises the wishes of men ( in their trans woman identities), over the safety and dignity of women.

I know this was said by a PP... but reading these makes you realise why women are pissed off at the notion that a man claiming to be 'living as a woman' because he has an interest in wearing skirts, having long hair/wigs, make-up, tittering behind a raised hand and a fondness for knitting? Femininity has nowt to do with 'living as a woman'.

Femininity is the sprinkles on top of a whole trifle of complex layers of beautiful, harrowing, amazing, painful, magical and frustrating experiences that women go through because of our biology. That woman trifle can still be a bloody fantastic trifle without the sprinkles too.

Getting told by my mother that if I slept with him more, he'd be more inclined to help with housework and childcare.

Being told to stay at home to have my miscarriage, no notion of what to expect, eventually getting an ambulance to come, paramedic asks how many towels I have used, “bath towels?” I replied. I was taken to A&E and left in a corridor for hours. Got taken to a room where a clinician scraped away at me to “get rid of the product”, she was smiling, it was torture. I was denied a D&C for several hours until I kicked up a stink and it was granted; they found 2 cysts, the size of oranges.

@GenderlessVoid
💐

…words fail me.

Being told by police text messages from ex admitting abuse and rape wasn’t enough to even arrest him

watching family court be used to continue abuse and not protect vulnerable children

Permanent yet preventable damage to our bodies because medical professionals dismiss real symptoms as anxiety or age