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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Living as a woman

458 replies

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 18/06/2025 19:12

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.

OP posts:
RowsOfFlowers · 18/06/2025 20:59

Getting worried when a male labourer enters the home when my husband isn’t here.

Singlemum90 · 18/06/2025 21:01

Bannedontherun · 18/06/2025 19:45

Being raped at 13 years old

I am so sorry, you should never have had to deal with that.

RitaFromThePitCanteen · 18/06/2025 21:01

My period somehow knowing to arrive in time for every school trip in my teenage years, and for pretty much every holiday as an adult. It's uncanny. (I have PCOS, so period is unreliable, except where travelling is concerned, apparently).

eqpi4t2hbsnktd · 18/06/2025 21:04

Tits leaking milk while giving a presentation to a meeting room of people... mainly men. No one mentioning it.

eqpi4t2hbsnktd · 18/06/2025 21:06

Oh! moon cup popping out in a Centre Parcs pool and not being able to leave the kids unattended to get a towel to cover up!

ArabellaScott · 18/06/2025 21:06

LadyBracknellsHandbagg · 18/06/2025 20:27

What is wrong with you? Your malignant narcissism is out of control.

It's gobsmacking. I cannot fathom reading a thread filled with women's tender and often heartbreaking experiences and sneering at them for being 'mean girls' and somehow seeing it as making fun of someone. The disconnect is just impossible to understand.

KnickerlessParsons · 18/06/2025 21:07

Being ignored while the car salesman tells my husband all about the car I’m buying for me
Then being told by a colleague that I drive a large car for a woman.
Being doubled up with pain every 4 weeks or so at the start of each period
Not being able to wee anywhere because I have to remove all my lower clothes to go to the toilet

BernardBlacksMolluscs · 18/06/2025 21:07

ArabellaScott · 18/06/2025 21:06

It's gobsmacking. I cannot fathom reading a thread filled with women's tender and often heartbreaking experiences and sneering at them for being 'mean girls' and somehow seeing it as making fun of someone. The disconnect is just impossible to understand.

potatoes, the potatoes always think it's about them. even when it's just women talking to each other

It's not about you potatoes!

PuppiesProzacProsecco · 18/06/2025 21:08

Smelling your own cervix cooking from the heated loop thingy they use to remove/cauterize abnormal cells 🤢

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 18/06/2025 21:09

ArabellaScott · 18/06/2025 20:13

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

west end tour GIF by Mary Poppins

From what it felt like, I imagined that it looked like this to onlookers.

OP posts:
nutmeg7 · 18/06/2025 21:11

user1471453601 · 18/06/2025 19:44

Apparently it also means starting threads to make fun of others

Pathetic sniping

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 18/06/2025 21:11

user1471453601 · 18/06/2025 20:17

If the "mean girls" say so 😏. Are you saying this thread wasn't started and continued, by people who want/need to make fun of others?

If so, colour me suprised.

This is a thread for women to share what living as a woman has meant for them.

It's not making fun of anyone.

OP posts:
EnjoythemoneyJane · 18/06/2025 21:12

Being catcalled and wolf whistled by vanloads of middle aged men from the age of 11 whist walking home in school uniform.

Having a suited ‘respectable’-looking man in his 60s put his hand up my skirt and his fingers in my vagina on a packed tube train when I was 19.

Having a manager in his thirties do the same when I was working in a supermarket and had to pass him on a dark back stairway with no one else around. I was 16.

Having a man I barely knew (and wasn’t with) violently grab me by the throat and push me against a wall when I declined to watch him masturbate, and then having to wake a houseful of people in order to get a cab because I felt so panicked and unsafe.

Having a prospective supplier put his hand on my thigh and patronise me to an astonishing degree in front of a roomful of men during a business meeting.

Having to have an arse-clenchingly awful conversation about pay alignment and equity upon realising quite how much less I was being compensated than my male peers.

A hundred thousand moments of hypervigilance (and occasionally sweaty-palmed fear) just navigating a way through the world - empty streets, public transport, woodland walks, multi-storey car parks, hotel room locks when away on business (thanks to overfamiliar male staff with access keys), being alone in a lift at night, cab rides - the whole fucking shebang. I can’t imagine not having a permanently switched on sixth sense, and just obliviously doing what I want, when I want, without making automatic - almost subconscious - micro calculations of risk.

bestcatlife · 18/06/2025 21:13

Unbearable period pain.

ArabellaScott · 18/06/2025 21:13

It strikes me as odd that people say women are defined by our bodies and biology as if to suggest that is merely a diminishing or limiting thing. I can't think of many things that feel to me more expansive and deeply layered and profound than many of those embodied experiences.

I suspect it's another case of seeing women as being lesser, of discounting and diminishing our experiences.

(Plus obviously bodies are limited: all life is limited by nature).

DrEllie · 18/06/2025 21:13

Waitwhat23 · 18/06/2025 19:44

The School repeatedly phoning me first as an emergency contact despite it stating clearly on all forms that my husband is first contact as he has better access to his phone during the working day.

Oh God, this!

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 18/06/2025 21:14

greencartbluecart · 18/06/2025 20:24

Well this is tricky
me and DH live very similar lives
but I’m as a woman and he’s as a man
niot sure it’s telling us anything ?

Have you not experienced any of the things on this thread?

How many of them has your DH experienced?

OP posts:
ghostyslovesheets · 18/06/2025 21:16

user1471453601 · 18/06/2025 20:17

If the "mean girls" say so 😏. Are you saying this thread wasn't started and continued, by people who want/need to make fun of others?

If so, colour me suprised.

Talking about you lived experience as a woman is now ‘making fun of others’ colour me surprised 🙄

by others you mean men and their fragile feelings - oh well I couldn’t give a tiny rats wank about that - I’m so so so so so so so so sorry (to quote Father Jack).

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 18/06/2025 21:18

Minecraftisshit · 18/06/2025 20:44

Sorry: but a TW on this one.

Carrying a baby for 6 months, only to go into labour prematurely and then having to give birth naturally to a baby that was no longer alive.

💐

OP posts:
GabriellaMontez · 18/06/2025 21:18

Getting wee on your sandals (and toes) while trying to squat and do a wild wee in the park bushes having discovered the only toilets for miles are closed.

greencartbluecart · 18/06/2025 21:19

I was thinking of the day to day
living as a woman means absolutely nothing beyond the basic reproductive biology stuff or the sexism ( based on biology ) stuff - it’s just such a stupid meaningless phrase

ghostyslovesheets · 18/06/2025 21:19

DrEllie · 18/06/2025 21:13

Oh God, this!

Yup 💯

also, returning to work as a newly single parent of 3 including a under 1 year old - having to take time off when she was ill and being told by my manager I couldn’t have anymore time off for emergency leave - I sent her a copy of our policy on carers leave (unlimited) and reported to HR!

ghostyslovesheets · 18/06/2025 21:21

GabriellaMontez · 18/06/2025 21:18

Getting wee on your sandals (and toes) while trying to squat and do a wild wee in the park bushes having discovered the only toilets for miles are closed.

Or your mum doing that ‘holding you up by the legs in an odd sitting position while she tries to avoid her shoes’ manoeuvre as a child

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 18/06/2025 21:22

Forgetting about a tampon and then freaking out about toxic shock syndrome.

OP posts:
SpicedHerbalTea · 18/06/2025 21:23

Telling my immediate family that anyone can do any job in the house unless you need special qualifications or a female reproductive system to do it.