Womanhood

[Lisbeth]

Somebody here wanted to talk about the essence of womanhood.  It seems from my perspective that womanhood is often about struggling for power under patriarchy.  This was brought home to me over the last couple of weeks.

Incident leaving Chicago to go to Michigan.  I drag my suitcases onto a city bus and ask the driver, "Do you go by the Grayhound Depot?"  Mild condescention: "I sure do, maam.  Are you running away from home?"

At the bus depot.  Assertive people were struggling to get help.  For a woman to get help from males it works best to show deferences and a little bit of helplessness.  "Excuse me, sir.  Can you, please, tell me where I'm supposed to be?"  I got my answer right away.

At a rest stop somewhere in Wisconsin.  I pay for my yogurt and drink, and am given my change.  "Here you go, darlin'."  I felt like kicking him in the shin for calling me "darling."

There's nothing like being treated as an inferior and having to play up to it to get what you want.  Now that's the essence of womanhood.  Grrrrrrrr...

[cindianna_jones]

I don't mind getting called darlin or hon.  Sweetcakes is pushing a bit.



Cindi

[Sheila]

I like all those names, except the nasty ones. As big as I am, I will take whatever I can.
Sheila

[Pica Pica]

The combine are after us all.

[AmyDanielleTG]

I am kinda confused here.  You were going from Chicago to Michigan yet are stopping in a Wisconsin rest stop? Something does not make sense here!

[Lisbeth]

I am kinda confused here.  You were going from Chicago to Michigan yet are stopping in a Wisconsin rest stop? Something does not make sense here!

Upper peninsula.

[AmyDanielleTG]

That clears things up and makes perfect sense now. 
Never thought of that and I lived in Michigan my entire life.  I live in the lower peninsula so was thinking from that aspect. 

[Suzy]

I think what we are talking about here is also related to external validation.  For instance, yesterday I felt so great when I spent the afternoon at a mall where guys opened doors for me, all the sales girls called me ma'am, an old lady wanted to see what kind of bra I had chosen and talk girl talk, and a guy stooped to pick up a quarter that fell when I was handed change.  It feels good to be validated.

But I think it also feels good to the male validator.  Perhaps he thinks he is being kind to a "helpless" woman.   I have little sympathy for that kind of guy.   However, maybe he has been taught by society to show respect for women by being as helpful as possible.  This is not insulting to me at all, and is likely more common culturally in the south.  For someone being raised on the other side of this equation, I always valued women to the extent that I was very respectful.  Words like "hon" and "shoog" and "sweetie" sound funny to some, but are part of common vocabulary here.  To hear them lets me know I am accepted as female. 

However, words like "darlin'" cross the line for me.  We have a common saying after a night out to inquire whether someone behaved.  The correct response:  "I didn't call anyone darlin'."  So to my ears, a kick in the balls would have been in order.

Gina's comment about being oppressors is right on target.  Some men are culturally degrading to women.  Some are culturally polite and courteous.  To me, the motive is everything.  It's usually not hard to tell what is intended. 

Lisbeth, I am afraid you are right, though.  Sometimes we do have to play the games to get what we want or need.  Women have been doing that for many thousands of years.  Hopefully it will change in our lifetime, but it is a long journey indeed with a lot of social imprinting to overcome.

Kristi

[Nero]

I think what we are talking about here is also related to external validation.  For instance, yesterday I felt so great when I spent the afternoon at a mall where guys opened doors for me, all the sales girls called me ma'am, an old lady wanted to see what kind of bra I had chosen and talk girl talk, and a guy stooped to pick up a quarter that fell when I was handed change.  It feels good to be validated.

But I think it also feels good to the male validator.  Perhaps he thinks he is being kind to a "helpless" woman.   I have little sympathy for that kind of guy.   However, maybe he has been taught by society to show respect for women by being as helpful as possible.  This is not insulting to me at all, and is likely more common culturally in the south.  For someone being raised on the other side of this equation, I always valued women to the extent that I was very respectful.  Words like "hon" and "shoog" and "sweetie" sound funny to some, but are part of common vocabulary here.  To hear them lets me know I am accepted as female. 

However, words like "darlin'" cross the line for me.  We have a common saying after a night out to inquire whether someone behaved.  The correct response:  "I didn't call anyone darlin'."  So to my ears, a kick in the balls would have been in order.

Gina's comment about being oppressors is right on target.  Some men are culturally degrading to women.  Some are culturally polite and courteous.  To me, the motive is everything.  It's usually not hard to tell what is intended. 

Lisbeth, I am afraid you are right, though.  Sometimes we do have to play the games to get what we want or need.  Women have been doing that for many thousands of years.  Hopefully it will change in our lifetime, but it is a long journey indeed with a lot of social imprinting to overcome.

Kristi

I doubt for many males it's some validation/helpless damsel thing.  Many of these things - holding doors, standing up when a woman (especially a mature woman) stands, helping others (such as your change incident), offering your seat to another etc, were things I was taught by my folks and elders as a girl. (well, not taught exactly, more by observation) Not as male thing, just as a respect thing. Maybe some only do these kinds of things for women, I don't know. Although now that I think of it, I am much more likely to treat women this way.

[Suzy]

That's interesting Nero.  For us the boys were taught from day one that there were certain acceptable ways to treat girls.  The boys could punch and hit each other, no problem.  But no boy could harm a girl.  Oooh, I remember some mean girls who could bite and pull hair.

[Lianne]

Personally I can think of worse things to be called then darling and sweetcakes, Since I trasitioned so young, I never dealt with anything else but cute names from men. So I could not compare since I've never truly lived as a man. Better then being called ->-bleeped-<-got and Queer. Perhaps some cannot leave the manly world and power behind them. Being called Darling may have made some realize, they are no longer in what many call, a mans world.

Women hold a different kind of strength. It comes with time and experience. You can always reply with Buddy and Brute. If they can give it, they better be able to take it.

[Lisbeth]

Lisbeth, I am afraid you are right, though.  Sometimes we do have to play the games to get what we want or need.  Women have been doing that for many thousands of years.  Hopefully it will change in our lifetime, but it is a long journey indeed with a lot of social imprinting to overcome.

I don't think I'm going to hold my breath waiting for it to change.  I think I would turn blue first.

[melissa90299]

It makes no difference if you're rich or poor or if you're smart or dumb
A woman's place in this old world is under some man's thumb
And if you're born a woman you're born to be hurt
You're born to be stepped on lied to cheated on and treated like dirt
Oh if you're born a woman you're born to be hurt

A woman's lot is to give and give and go on giving
A woman's got to love and lose and go on living
Well I was born a woman I didn't have no say
And when my man fin'lly comes home he makes me glad it happened that way
Because to be his woman no price is too great to pay
Yes I was born a woman I'm glad it happened that way
Oh I was born a woman I'm glad it happened that way


Lyrics by Jan Hownard

[Suzy]

Lisbeth, I am afraid you are right, though.  Sometimes we do have to play the games to get what we want or need.  Women have been doing that for many thousands of years.  Hopefully it will change in our lifetime, but it is a long journey indeed with a lot of social imprinting to overcome.

I don't think I'm going to hold my breath waiting for it to change.  I think I would turn blue first.

I think you would turn blue, then green, then brown, then to dust.  But I also hope I'm wrong.

Kristi

[Lisbeth]

Well I was born a woman I didn't have no say
And when my man fin'lly comes home he makes me glad it happened that way
Because to be his woman no price is too great to pay
Yes I was born a woman I'm glad it happened that way

Gag me with a spoon.  http://www.scroom.com/humor/cuc_men.html

[cindybc]

Well, let me see, I believe that I probably been called everything under the sun including late for supper during the years in my other gender. Well I drank a lot and hung around the wrong places. But the one that could come out with every cuss words in the dictionary of cuss words my ex would have rated at the top of the list for coming out with such labels. See back then I had the misfortune of being the tiniest in what ever group of males I hung out with. Doing certain stunts with a my 1975 GMC four wheel drive truck a  backyard  home built hot rod,  to speed boats and snow machines. Some of these stunts could have ended my life with disastrous results. Just to prove I was just as much a macho a man as they were.

Well now I do have one of those half way voice where on a telephone I sound like a woman and was often more then not addressed as miss or hon or  some salesman saying, "with whom might I be speaking to here, is this the lady of the house?, When I transitioned and had the door open for me by a gent or asked if they could help me Carry the bags, or being called ma'am, honey, dear, or lady, sweets it was music to my ears and I thanked God for being just a runt enabled me to look more the part. 8years later it is just a common occurrence, a nice one. I have become to think of myself as just me, I am me. Was there really any other? Most of my life outside of the macho stuff I did was mostly just showing off. In reality I have been the type of person is timid and quiet and oh so sensitive, to sensitive  that even my sister told me once told me.

Looking back at my life from childhood I can easily see that I had more of the female characteristics then I did a man. So looking back on my life isn't hard to remember and see myself as in the female gender and never was the male gender to start with, the characteristics were all wrong for male gender.

Cindy 

[Wing Walker]

It makes no difference if you're rich or poor or if you're smart or dumb
A woman's place in this old world is under some man's thumb
And if you're born a woman you're born to be hurt
You're born to be stepped on lied to cheated on and treated like dirt
Oh if you're born a woman you're born to be hurt

A woman's lot is to give and give and go on giving
A woman's got to love and lose and go on living
Well I was born a woman I didn't have no say
And when my man fin'lly comes home he makes me glad it happened that way
Because to be his woman no price is too great to pay
Yes I was born a woman I'm glad it happened that way
Oh I was born a woman I'm glad it happened that way


Lyrics by Jan Hownard

I thought that I was the only one left who remembers Sandy Posey.  Lisbeth, that song is about 40 years old and I gagged on a spoon back then.  It's a sad commentary that you met the horse's patoots you did on your way to Escanaba, or thereabouts.

I have had a lot of time to consider the subject of womanhood and it is infinitely more complex than one post can deal with.

When I was very young I looked-up to girls and was nice to them because that was what I felt right to do.  I preferred their company and conversation over the boys, ugly little creatures that they were. 

As we grew older the girls had to distance themselves from me because of my appearance and, for me, my errant gender, so I learned to love from afar and admire as I watched the girls change in body and manners from about age 11.  I placed them upon their own pedestals because if I could not be one with them I wanted to be as close as I could be, and keeping them up there made it easy for me to associate with them.

I was hoping for a steady date when I was 14 and I would have married at 16 if I could have done so legally.  I mention this because I don't know of any guy who felt that way.

When dating I could feel what the girl felt inside of her and I was a good Friday night date.  I knew what girls were made of and I sometimes validated that.  When my hand might be pushed away I apologized sincerely and asked my date how she would have felt if I didn't try it at least once.  I got a smile when I met them in the halls at school on Monday.

I have a trail of exs who showed me what womanhood isn't:  selfishness, greed, lying, forging my signature, keeping their religious convictions hidden until after the wedding, manipulation, and coldness to the one closest to you.

For me, I believe that womanhood came when I found out who I really am and then decided to be her to the greatest of my abilities.

Carol King's "Tapestry" album has a song on it that might be appropriate for listening:  "You're As Beautiful As You Feel."

Call me romantic, but so it goes.

In the workplace, however, and in the public eye, that's an entirely different battleground from the private life and has its own rules of engagement.  I have yet to take my claws to another woman but I sure have "scratched" some males (different from men in my book) who have tried to demean my gender.  I snap hard and fast and take no prisoners.

It's so much more fun with another woman because of what can be said without a single word.

I found out who I am and I am thankful to be the best me that I can be.  I am proud of my gender and I wear it like a small tiara.  Crowns are for someone else.  Maybe for bitch queens.

Thank you for hearing me out.

Wing Walker

[Lisbeth]

Wing Walker, I can so relate to everything you said!

It's so much more fun with another woman because of what can be said without a single word.

This reminded me of an experience I had in some airport in a city I can't remember a few years ago.  I had bought my lunch and was sitting at a little table.  A man and a woman sat down at a nearby table.  It was pretty obvious they were travelling on business and not married or involved.  He was going on and on about one of those topics that males bore women with.  Heck, even I was bored by him.  The woman's and my eyes met and we both shrugged in his direction at the same time.  He was totally oblivious to the volumes we had spoken to each other about him in just a glance.

[deviousxen]

That's interesting Nero.  For us the boys were taught from day one that there were certain acceptable ways to treat girls.  The boys could punch and hit each other, no problem.  But no boy could harm a girl.  Oooh, I remember some mean girls who could bite and pull hair.

Thats hilarious...IN public school, elementary, back in the day in middle of nowhere Southparkville (where I used to live in CT)

There was a group of girls who bullied me non-stop...They didn't follow their stereotype. I guess...In my ADHD back in the day...I didn't absorb...Or CARE about what Mom had taught me about girls...I think it was the latter....

More likely the latter cause I "loved" a girl in Second grade and was polite as anything.

So basically...I was tripped...So one day I ran up to the girl and kicked her in her bony ass. One of the only incidents of utter retaliation in violence I had in my life where I think I won.

She was alright, but she was incredulous, and her friends viewed me as detestable from that point on. I didn't really grasp why. Point is...I don't think they did either. They kicked my ass MANY times...