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.

Absolutely this

Being told by my own daughter, "No, Mummy, you're a NURSE. Boys are doctors." Not only was I a doctor, but my husband was a nurse. She was obviously getting sexist messages from outside the home that had more impact on her than we did.

Oh, the episiotomy...where the male SHO stomps in to stitch up your cut and second degree tear, without local anaesthetic or anything, gets seriously annoyed and vexed, saying loudly 'can't you just lie still?'
No. No I could not.

Omg 😲
It all starts at the toys store aisles. Still nowadays toys are cleqely defined in the shops by girls and boys. That's where the conditioning starts.

At 18, being asked if I had a boyfriend at a job interview. ( Government dept job)
Realising at the age of 12 that periods would be every month until you are 'old'. I thought you had one..🙈 and that the associated symptoms would be every month too.
Suffering menopausal brain fog and all other crap while being pushed out at a workplace that has 'menopausal support policy' posters on the walls in the canteen.
Being ignored by men while working in a shop selling hardware and asked if there's a man who knows about '......'.

Being asked, at an interview, in 2003/4ish if I was planning on having any more children.

Being followed by a wanking flasher in a park in Rome on my honeymoon. I’d had an argument with my new husband and had gone off on my own and this pervert started following me. My husband didn’t believe me.

It's trivial compared to many of your stories, but I remember as a teenager camping half way up a mountain with friends and getting my period in the night. I had no sanitary protection with me, why would I, my periods were every 6 weeks and it was 2 weeks since my last one! One of the girls had a spare sanitary towel or I suppose I'd have been stuffing a t-shirt in my knickers. And when we came down from the mountain it wasn't easy to get more, on a Sunday in Wales in the 80s.

A few years later, traveling round Asia, having to show a sanitary towel at roadside kiosks crowded with men, in order to ask for what I needed. I'm not easily embarrassed, but I could have done without all the spectators.

I had a handbag searched at the entry to the British Council in Greece - they found a (new) tampon and obviously had no idea what it was.

If I'd had a mooncup back then, it would have saved a lot of trouble, except maybe at the British Council...

Breastfeeding a sleepless baby in the middle of the night and lying there in the darkness thinking of all the other women elsewhere in the world who were also feeding their babies at the same time and sending my love to them. And then my baby would fall asleep and so would I, only to be woken half-an-hour, or an hour, or two hours later for more feeding, repeating the cycle again and again until dawn when I'd reach for a bottle to express more milk before I had to go to work.

Having my first bra pinged at secondary school for the lols.

Having whole conversations with men, but never making eye contact with them as they spent the whole time staring at my tits.

Being charged three times the actual cost of a part at a garage (Yes, Halfords, I’m looking at you!) because I’m a women and don’t understand such things.

Talking to my husband (and ignoring me) when I was buying a new car.

Having groups of students blatantly ignore anything I said, because I was their female teacher and they didn’t respect women.

This one is not me personally, but being slut shamed for who you date / sleep with, whilst he’s only ever a stud.

Being shut down as a Karen for having legitimate complaints or a different opinion. Why isn’t there a Colin or a Kevin equivalent?

Seeing your dead foetus on an ultrasound. Having a miscarriage whilst being talked down to at the Job Centre.

🌺🌺

Period diarrhoea

Why isn't there a Colin or a Kevin equivalent?

There's Brian, according to my daughter. "He probably lives in a cul-de-sac." 😂

On my bike in the cycle lane, stopped at the lights, male cyclist pulls along side next to me on the outside, just assuming that he is going to be faster than me and overtake when the lights turn green. Happens regularly, always men, never women.

Yeah well Fuck you! Your male entitlement is no match for my menopausal rage. I should really get one of those bike mirrors so I can see their disappointed faces behind me 😂

Discovering I was having a miscarriage in the toilet at work, then having to clean up as best I could and return to a classroom to teach. Also very female of me, was the fact I wasn't actually a teacher but a very overworked and underpaid TA who was - completely without preparation or experience - covering that day for the class teacher who had gone home sick first thing that morning, because the headteacher (male) didn't want to pay an agency teacher.

I was also very much "living as a woman" the times I was sexually assaulted as a teen.

It's trivial, but...

Remembering to pee on a pregnancy test in the morning before going to the doctor who might order some x-rays.

I had almost forgotten...

Arriving late for an antenatal appointment and with no urine sample because I had poured it over my overheating car engine.

Being groped for the first time at a school party age 11. Just felt really confused - why would anyone want to harm and scare a little girl like me?

Having severely painful & debilitating periods from early teens to the point of vomiting/fainting and having to deal with them at school or out & about. Being expected to carry on as usual because 'periods are natural, every other girl has them and you're not ill'. Felt guilty for making a fuss.

Routine harassment for which I was apparently to blame because 'it's the way you dress/wear makeup' etc. Felt guilty despite knowing this was nonsense.

Having to give myself fertility injections in the sick room at work.

Recovering from an emergency CS following pre-eclampsia, having to try to produce milk with a breast pump while my premature DS was fighting for his life in an incubator, knowing he might never need the milk (never did manage it - still feel guilty about it to this day).

I've been crying reading this thread but also smiling at the joyful stories. It angers me that all our experiences of womanhood (both positive and negative) and the reality of being female can be redefined and therefore minimised by men. We on this thread are all 'woman born, not man made'.

Sending love to everyone 💓 💐

Your male entitlement is no match for my menopausal rage.

Now, there's a T shirt slogan.

Running a small business with my husband and every time I gave an instruction to a male employee, they would “ Just run it by John first “.

When people asked socially what my job was and I explained, they would say
“ Oh that’s nice, do you help John out in the office, answering the phones and doing the admin ? “ ( no we owned both owned a technical company, 50:50).

When meeting new clients , they would always address me as Octavia and my husband as Dr Jones. Often they walked past me to greet him and shake his hand , then when he would say “ This is Octavia Smith, my fellow director” they would just say “ Hello “ or even nod at me, then look slightly shamefaced when I would go to shake their hand. ( This is in a white British culture BTW).

At industry and technical events, we were often introduced as “ This is Dr John Jones, the owner and founder of XYZ Company and his wife “. Often I didn’t even get a name. Never as “ Dr Octavia Smith and Dr John Jones, owners “.
I can’t imagine anyone saying “ This is Dr Octavia Smith, owner and founder of XYZ company and her husband “.

I usually interviewed for new staff with my HR Director ( female ) and one of our technical staff ( usually male ). Even though I was chairing the panel AND I’m on the company website as a director AND I introduced everyone with name and job title at the start, almost all candidates addressed their answers to the sole male interviewer, regardless of who asked the question.

These types of things happened almost every day at work.

As a 20 year old woman, I discovered that my job interview at a firm in the City would be one-to-one with the prospective manager. I'd done my homework and thought I'd got through it ok but then, right at the end, he hinted very obviously that the job was mine if I'd sleep with him.

Hearing, in 1975, when I (unmarried) went to open my first bank account, that married women would no longer have to get permission from their husbands to open an account in their own name.

As a now-retired woman, walking to our flats' hidden, communal bin stores late at night (because I'd forgotten to put the recycling out for the morning - again) with my keys arranged in my hand just in case. Texting my son beforehand to say I'd text him again when I got back indoors. This was last week, and happens a lot in different situations. I have to go to our storage unit out of hours some time over the weekend and the place will be almost deserted, so more keys (and texting). I hate this feeling.

As a woman reading this thread, finding myself getting some awful flashbacks and memories of so many other things I could be writing...

Thank you and 💓 to all the women telling fragments of their life-stories here.

I met a distinguished female surgeon who experienced exactly the same with patients addressing her newly qualified male doctors rather than her even when she began the assessment/asked the questions.