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.

Childbirth cramps. Coil insertion no anaesthetic-cramps. Smear test yowch. Thrush.BV. UTIs from hell. Mammogram, boob crusher.

So much solidarity for all the women on the thread.

Being on holiday abroad as a teenager and being overcome with shame about having a 10 day period that was just soaking through pads within half an hour and drenching the bed every night.

We are mighty, aren’t we? I’ve cried at many of the posts on this thread. Sending so much love to you all ❤️

Sitting with her sisters, holding my best friend’s hand as she died.

She had a husband, a brother and close male friends. I don’t know why, but it was the women in her life who stayed with her to the end

The expectation to mother like you don’t work and to work like you are not a mother.

A positive one: wild how we get to choose to make humans.
Like... if women like me don’t say yes to this whole “creating life” thing, humanity just stops. No pressure, right?
Also love that I get to pick who to do this with — like a walking, talking filter for evolution. Sorry not sorry, but selfish, arrogant, patronising guys? Yeah, you're not getting past the gene pool bouncer.
Honestly, it’s kind of amazing to know that choosing love, kindness, and decency in a partner is part of shaping the future.

Mammogram. Only had it twice but it hurts so much! I've got B/small C cup boobs. If they were any smaller I literally don't know how they would have managed it? You'd end up with your whole body wedged in the machine!!
I asked the technician if she'd ever done it and she said no because I'm too young. I laughed and thought, yeah, so am I love!

@GenderlessVoid I'm so sorry that happened to you.

My husband's colleague thanking him for the lift when I drove him home. Being told to "Smile it might never happen". Being congratulated on the birth of my first baby, a boy followed by "You can have as many girls as you like now".

@MissScarletInTheBallroom just thank you for opening this thread (and coming back to check on all of us).

It's true and it's lovely, but it's pretty new in the history of mankind. And not even across the globe.

Agree completely and part of the reason why I feel its so special to have these abilities. Should have probably said this is a UK-based sentiment, as very aware that women don't have these powers in all countries and even Western countries like US seem to be going backwards.

Being told you are crazy and/or copying your best friend (because otherwise you would not suggest something so stupid) when you suggest smoke alarms in the house and work out the best route out at night, (including cat - best way out was through bathroom window onto flat roof, drop into garden, cat slept in the bath).

@BoeotianNightmare I feel with you. It is 60 years ago but I still remember the shame and misery of my period starting when on holiday with my mum, aunt and small brothers in a small caravan. I hid the 'playsuit' that had caked blood all over it, and the only thing I fancied doing, swimming, I could not do as I had to used pads - could not for the life of me get a tampon in (they didn't make them mini in those days and I didn't realise how I could have done it, and no lubricants available either). Misery. I could not wait to go home - it was as hot as today (about 24C) all week as well and there wasn't a decent shower.

Having Endometriosis for 22 years, having your pain passed off as 'just cramps,' by a male doctor and finally seeing a kind Practise Nurse who took me seriously. Then to find out it's stage 4 Endo, i can't conceive and have to undergo a 5 hour surgery to remove it from my pelvis, ovaries and bowel.

3 years and a miscarriage later i finally have my DD, who I've been waiting for so long. This is my experience as a woman.

Or i could put on a dress and call myself Dylan

Doing my finals at university while in a panic because my period hadn't come and there was a strong possibility that I might be pregnant.

In my later years, female biology has loomed large - miscarriages, childbirth, approaching menopause. All mostly routine so my sympathies to those who've had it much worse.

I remember that feeling like a girl as a 12yo, then teenager was burning anger at the injustice of women's treatment. I had read a lot of 18th and 19th Century fiction and the treatment of women, the restrictions, the overlooking of achievements - I was mad! My favourite authors were the Bronte sisters - who wrote under pen names because sexism.

I read "What Society does to Girls" at 17 in the school library (!) And nearly exploded! Then did a course on Feminist Literature in uni. Then met a boy, fell in love, abandoned my principles and wasted my gifts - just like so many women 😞

PS husband claimed to be a Feminist initially but said my (women's?) Problem is refusing to take responsibility 🙄 (yep, sorry for not beating 2000 years of patriarchy!)

Finding out that you are not "just fat", you have a disease called lipoedema that only women get and your fat cannot be dieted away. It will also keep on growing to deform you more.

Not being able to swim because a man who had been following me all along the seafront while I looked for my friend (how I spotted him) was now leaning on the edge of the promenade and leering at me. He showed no sign of moving, just waiting for me to change. So I walked home, unfollowed, and took my bike down to the beach, and down the steps to the shingle (a bike would be something to throw) and blow me, if he didn't appear again. So I didn't change, hauled my bike up the steps (he didn't offer to help, thus revealing himself as a wrong 'un) and went home. I didn't think of reporting it to the police, as he would look all innocent and blame me for accusing him. I was in my twenties then. I remember how I felt. Afraid.
As for the rest of living as a woman, I've been spared most of it, reading this thread. Trying to find a woman dr to look at my lumpy breast, three days of pain following mammography (not connected), that's about it.
Writing to the Halifax to explain that my father (a chartered accountant, so he knew the law) would not be a guarantor for my mortgage, because the law had changed the previous year, and a guarantor was not required.

Wanting to go for solitary runs in lovely, quiet rural areas to experience the joy and beauty of nature, but either not going because you're afraid of being attacked, or conquering your fear and going anyway, but not enjoying it as you really want to because you're constantly on the alert.

I'll add to that, trying to explain to a bloke at running club that the reason I didn't get out for lovely solitary runs in the dark wasn't because I "just needed to get a decent pair of gloves and a head torch".

Being groped by a porter on a quiet staircase in the department store when I was working on my Saturday job.
Being grabbed by a bloke at a tube station entrance late at night.
On a tube train with a load of football supporters who demanded kisses.
Only allowed HRT for 5 years resulting in vaginal atrophy and collapsing pelvic floor.
Huge hugs to us all for surviving all this crap!

Because my mother was too mentally ill with schizophrenia to care for me I grew up in a male household. Dad, two brothers. About the age of 10 my body started changing and one of my dad's women friends gave me a packet of sanitary towels. That was the only help I ever had and from then on I panicked about having enough pocket money left to buy them myself, this while my brothers were using their pocket money on records and the like. It was horribly stressful but I was too frightened, and felt too humiliated, to ask for help and none was ever offered.

I buried the anguish of that experience for decades until it came out again in my 50s when talking to a friend about our early life experiences. She was so horrified that it all came boiling up into my mind and it felt like someone had sprayed acid over my entire being. I had a breakdown and then all the other stuff came to the surface too, one ugly issue after another. The church warden who groomed me when I was 13, the hotel porter who sexually assaulted me when I was six, all the times I had to get away from predatory men and no one ever said a bloody word or asked if I was okay.

They will never understand the depth and breadth of our restriction or the freedoms and privileges conferred on them by their sex.

I'm so sorry that you were made to keep quiet for so long.

I hope you have continuing support.