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.

Almost dying from preeclampsia and having to spend a month in hospital having my blood pressure measured every half hour day and night. Having to be injected with a drug to develop my baby’s lungs so that when she would have to be birthed prematurely she’d have a fighting chance. Having two failed inductions and having to beg for a c-section. Finding out after the birth that my lungs had filled with fluid and if I had gone into labour I wouldn’t have been able to breathe or push.

Luckily she survived and thrived. She has been an absolute joy to raise, and has just very successfully completed her first year at university 🥰

Having permanent back pain after having 3 babies- still suffering and the youngest is 25 - it's not going to get better now!

Seeing younger colleagues leap frog me on the career ladder because I had children and worked part time.

30 years of periods culminating in the joys of menopause.

Trying to think up something to cook for tea every night.

Growing a whole new person inside you, and being a mother.

Being called a slut, slag, whore etc because of how you look, what you say, what you wear, where you go, turning men down, not turning men down.

being asked ‘what I did, what I was wearing’ etc when reporting sexual violence

Being scared of walking home alone after a night out.

Understanding that your body and what it looks like is public property when it comes to men commenting on it.

Realising that your beautiful 12 year old DD has all this shit to come and feeling unbelievably sad about it.

And on the plus side, looking at your new born baby in wonder that your body grew a whole new person.

this thread lol

Being the main breadwinner whilst simultaneously looking after an elderly mother with Cancer and being a single parent. And no-one once ever praised me ‘for helping’ with the care for my own relatives - or ‘helping’ with the household chores.

The baby moving inside your womb, oh yes, best thing ever. I loved having the constant company of each of my babies and missed them after they were born. Not all women will be able to or want to experience that, but ONLY a woman can.

And on the flip side ...
Being told from an early age to "be ladylike" or "don't do that, it isn't ladylike" and having to figure out for yourself exactly what "ladylike" means, getting it "wrong" and being told off time after time.
Being told you can't do certain activities or jobs and knowing that it's solely because of the sex you were born.
Having your clothes judged, and it never being enough that they're clean, decent, and fit you.
Having your figure judged, and it never being good enough. Being taught from an early age to judge it yourself and never find it good enough.
The utter, relentless unglamorousness of dealing with periods, contraception, childbirth and breastfeeding, and the upheaval of the menopause.
Going to work and still having to deal with all the never-ending domestic tedium.

Having a surgeon rummage about in your abdomen like you’re a big handbag so they can lift a baby out.

Pre-eclampsia and post partum haemorrhage requiring a transfusion to create a baby. Not quite the same as providing a sperm cell is it?

Never, ever telling anyone why you don't have children.

Having an internal scan which was so painful I cried and at no point was offered any painkillers.

The expectation that women must 'be kind' even if it's to their own detriment.

Vaginal atrophy at 50 onwards..

imagine if a man’s nuts fell off at 50, just shrivelled up and his penis too, into a little dried worm that’s itchy and dry everywhere and he had to put cream on it every day just to feel normal again. And he could never have sex again without fear of pain and tearing.

Doesn’t happen to men, does it? Nope, didn’t think so.

Great thread.
1 - wondering how my body is going to cope with the next ‘big event’ - will my periods be heavy/regular/painful? When will I start? Will it be easy or a struggle to get pregnant? Stay pregnant? Will I have easy pregnancies ? Birth gets its own chapter. And now of course, will I feel the menopause and what will my best options be to handle it?f
2 did anyone notice that I peed a bit when I coughed?

They have been updated yes, but the risk to pregnancy was always known, and it's always been advisable to use birth control if pregnancy could occur.

However even in the updated version you don't actually have to be on birth control to be on Topirimate.

"If you and your healthcare professional agree that there are compelling reasons that you are not at risk of becoming pregnant then you may not need to use contraception".

I was reading this bio earlier, of one of the founders of Press for Change. It struck me how many things Rees was forbidden from or unable to do because of her sex.

https://markrees.muchloved.com/

'In the late 1950s girls were expected to wear a bra, petticoat, suspenders and stockings....The WRENS medically discharged him when he admitted he might be a homosexual ...in 1978 the Archbishop Of Canterbury, Dr Donald Coggan, refused him permission to train for ordination because the
“Church of England did not at that time ordain women and because, in the eyes of the law, (he) was a woman."'

And so much has now changed.

Most social pressures are so much looser. Being gender non conforming is much more common. Laws now protect same-sex attracted people from discrimination. The CofE ordains women.

Were Rees alive now, most of the things that pushed her towards 'being trans' would no longer be an issue.

The things that remain that are 'living as a woman' are now virtually all biological.

Women oppressed on the basis of their biological sex, had gender imposed upon them, and genderism countered that by suggesting people attempt the impossible (changing biological sex) instead of changing gender norms.

'Fight gender normativity by conforming to it as strenuously as one possibly can'.

Laws can be changed, social norms can be changed. Biological sex can not be changed.

Flooding blood all over the restaurant floor as I tried to rush to the women's loo while keeping my thighs together.

Then nearly passing out on the floor with my teen ds looking after me when Dh brought the car round.

Wearing jeans and looking like someone had shot me up the arse on a dog walk for similar reason.

You know the really fun parts of being a woman that everyone wants to enjoy while living as a woman.

During covid, while walking with my husband, one of our neighbours (a man) stopped for a casual chat. He asked me how did I find the home schooling. (Where we lived the restrictions closed the schools and parents had to homeschool for months on end).
He asked my husband how did he find WFH.

We both WFH Full time (now hybrid). Edit to add my neighbour knew this.
We both did the homeschooling- we took turns.

That's being a female still today.

They described the feeling as 'someone doing the washing up in your tummy'. Which was fairly accurate, ime.

Great thread BTW, and yet for a GRC you just have to change your name on bills and documents to be classed as living like a woman.

Funny that.

40 hour labour.

Losing a quarter of my month for years due to pmdd and heavy periods

Being in a meeting at work and being repeatedly ignored, left out, ideas passed off by other people and interrupted. and no one bats an eyelid.