Part of my epiphany happened because I finally SAW that I related to the world in the way that the average female relates to the world. I intuitively followed female rules for communicating with and relating to others, much to the consternation of both men and women who I interacted with.
Often I would hear the advice, "Just shut up about it, it ain't important!" (but it still was, to me.) Or, "Geez, you're still worrying about that? I thought we put that behind us a long time ago!" (like, yesterday was when I was told 'not to worry' about it.)
I also realized that with all of my women-friends, the relationship was girlfriend-girlfriend, even though on the outside they saw (and I (wrongly) thought,) 'guy.'
Quote from: Simone de BeauvoirOne is not born, but becomes a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society: it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between, male and eunuch, which is described as feminine.
Quite a bit more than we've heard, eh? Nevermind the remark about
eunuch, I feel she was just using it to make a point.
Here's more background on that statement and the woman who authored it. While you're reading it, try mentally replacing woman/female, etc., with transsexual terms and see if it still makes sense.
Quote from: Wikipedia article on Simone de BeauvoirBeauvoir's The Second Sex, published in French in 1949, sets out a feminist existentialism which prescribes a moral revolution. As an existentialist, Beauvoir accepts the precept that existence precedes essence; hence one is not born a woman, but becomes one. Her analysis focuses on the concept of The Other. It is the (social) construction of Woman as the quintessential Other that Beauvoir identifies as fundamental to women's oppression.
Beauvoir argues that women have historically been considered deviant, abnormal. She submits that even Mary Wollstonecraft considered men to be the ideal toward which women should aspire. Beauvoir says that this attitude has limited women's success by maintaining the perception that they are a deviation from the normal, and are outsiders attempting to emulate "normality". For feminism to move forward, this assumption must be set aside.
Beauvoir asserted that women are as capable of choice as men, and thus can choose to elevate themselves, moving beyond the 'immanence' to which they were previously resigned and reaching 'transcendence', a position in which one takes responsibility for oneself and the world, where one chooses one's freedom.
Well, I still don't have an answer as to what makes me a woman (sorry, Julie.) I just know I'm behaving in a manner that's much more natural for me, nevermind that going through a male puberty left my body with male stigmata. Am I a 'woman'? As much as my behavior more closely matches that of the average genetic female than the average genetic male, nevermind the vessel in which my female spirit happens to be contained.
...now I'M confused
Karen
