Sometimes I wonder

[amberwaves]

It often occurs to me that I dislike most women.  I don't like the passive aggressive behavior displayed by many.  I will ask myself, "Why do I want to become one of them, again?". I'm not looking for an answer. It is undeniable that I feel incredibly better on Estrogen.  Mostly, I think I'm just looking to see if anyone else has had a similar thought.

To go into greater detail about this it is important to consider my history.  I am the youngest of three with 2 older sisters.  I was consistently treated differently, because I was a boy.  My sisters were ruthless to me and constantly ostracized me for being a boy, while claiming I was spoiled by our parents for the same reason.  The tale of my sister's is significantly longer and terrible, but that's a different tale.  My mother has always favored girls.  I was just told to go out and play, or punished for what is typical male child behavior, such as being rambunctious.  However, any remotely feminine behaviors and traits were strongly discouraged.  She has Borderline Personality Disorder, so it is difficult to analyze her intentions.  My father pushed me to be the son he wanted, playing sports and the like, despite my obvious lack of talent or athleticism.

Once I was in school I was shunned by most of the girls.  I was shunned by the boys too, but that is not as pertinent to this tale.  I learned to become incredibly shy and akward around girls.  I was ridiculed daily by them.  By the time high school rolled around I had less than a handful of female friends.  These were, coincidentally, the ones who had a least mounts of typically feminine social traits.  Things never really changed from that point onward.

I am constantly excluded from social circles and interaction because I am not a member of the girls club.  They gossip and discuss their lives with each other.  I get met with condescension and curtness when I do interact with them.  Aside from a few occasions during my adult life my bosses have been women.  I get to watch as I get passed up for promotion by women.  Meanwhile, I'm repeatedly told by society that I have some profound male priveledge. The only male that I recall getting promoted was quite effeminate and turned out to be gay.

Due to all the emotional abuse suffered. Through my life I developed BPD myself.  one aspect of that is hyper sensitivity to rejection.   I know that the reality may not match my perception regarding exclusion.  For most of my life I've felt that women have been responsible for much of the misery I've endured.  I understand that I'm envious of them.  I'm jealous because deep down I feel that I wouldn't be a trainwreck if I had been born a girl.  It does make me question my own intentions in transition sometimes. Am I just trying to escape being oppressed by become the oppressor?  Ultimately, it's irrelevant, I like my current path.  It seems so different than the experience of others that I read.  It is generally, I always had girl friend and was more comfortable with them, etc.

I still can't stand the behavior of most women.  I know I don't have to be like them.  To thine own self be true, etc.  It does make me wonder though, if I don't like women, why am I trying so desperately to become one.

[KarynMcD]

A lot of women can't stand dealing with other women just for the reasons you mentioned.

[LiliFee]

You're becoming yourself, there's more to that than 'just' becoming a woman...

As for your sisters, did things get better after time progressed, are you out to them?

Oh and one more thing: the fact that you've got to work like crazy to express yourself as a woman doesn't make you any less of one, on the contrary! Just focus on being the person you wanna be to the world, and please be nice, at least that way there's one more thoughtful and empathic girl running around.

[Kylo]

It does make me wonder though, if I don't like women, why am I trying so desperately to become one.

Cis folk don't get to choose their sex, and some of them don't particularly like members of their sex either, or people in general. I think wanting to have a body and be treated in a way that does not cause dysphoric stress is a different thing from disappointment with how other people behave. I'm more of a misanthrope because people in general can act like jerks and be disappointing, but it doesn't have much bearing on my desire to transition. I don't care for male posturing either, I just go about my business and if people want to act like idiots, they can do it on their own time.

Maybe you're just over-thinking it. There must be women out there who do not act that way, and using the people you've met as a template for all people means you're writing off the ones who are genuinely good people.

I guess womens' behavior never really registered to me. Perhaps because those who acted annoyingly I just walked away from. But I did find great female friends who didn't act annoying when everyone thought I was female. They're out there.

[LiliFee]

I guess womens' behavior never really registered to me. Perhaps because those who acted annoyingly I just walked away from. But I did find great female friends who didn't act annoying when everyone thought I was female. They're out there.

There's that... I guess waking away from annoying people is a skill that can be acquired. This certainly happened for me, as I was younger ther was this major need of getting approval from others, to the point of seeking it in people who would never give it. It's part of being a teenager as well. The older I got, the more I started to realize some people were unfit of MY approval, and also that some others would simply never give theirs because they were, as you so aptly put it, jerks.

So, this brought me to the point that I started to seek this approval in myself. To learn to love myself, and to be emotionally independant. This is a long road, and it's certainly not a skill that can be acquired in a year or so, it's part of growing up. But it can be done!

[SadieBlake]

Let me try to put the shoe on the other foot. I abhor many, perhaps most stereotypically masculine expressions and while I'm certainly aware of stereotypically negative feminine modes of interaction (and goodness knows my cis-female therapist is often quick to remind me that transition is not a panacea for dysfunctional behavior).

Certainly women do not have a lock on passive-aggression, Cluster B personality disorders etc.

As someone raised as male you may already know this but I wonder if you've internalized it: Male privilege, like all privilege tends to be invisible to those who have it, likewise it's the experience of many trans women that they have trouble being accepted by cis-gender women when they may retain characteristically male way of interacting so they may pass physically and yet stand out like a sore thumb socially.

My experience of women in engineering workplaces has certainly been that I've seen them quickly advance to management positions. However this came after a decade of not seeing a single woman in any technical capacity for my first 10 years working in industry followed by nearly another decade before I encountered a female engineer. My observation was that women were promoted because (stereotypically) they're better at building consensus and disinclined to engage in dominance games. Personally I welcomed this, my experience has been that teams run by women are more comfortable for me and as I absolutely abhor doing management styles of work and long ago decided that being the best possible technical contributor was the role I'd rather play.

Granted I've also been fortunate enough to at least sometimes work for organizations that realized that making management track the most / only lucrative career path was costing them technical excellence as well as gaining them less competent managers.

I simply try to communicate more clearly and I've found that women especially respond well to that. I'm a firm believer in changing the things I have most control over - i.e. myself.

Be a better person first and you'll be a better woman as a result, and recognize that addressing dysphoria may be completely orthogonal to addressing one's past and living in the present, unhindered by that past.

[Virginia Hall]

It often occurs to me that I dislike most women.  I don't like the passive aggressive behavior displayed by many.  I will ask myself, "Why do I want to become one of them, again?". I'm not looking for an answer. It is undeniable that I feel incredibly better on Estrogen.  Mostly, I think I'm just looking to see if anyone else has had a similar thought.

. . .

I still can't stand the behavior of most women.  I know I don't have to be like them.  To thine own self be true, etc.  It does make me wonder though, if I don't like women, why am I trying so desperately to become one.

What I did in my personal life was to learn to separate my own feelings (including the feminine ones) from the feelings expressed and behavior of other women (including those in my family). It seemed "natural" that the females around whom I grew up were my yardsticks, and they did not disabuse me of the fact I was treating them like the gold standards of womanhood. It was a way they gained power by emphasizing their differentness.

It was only recently that a therapist who was helping me come to terms with my family issues (all these decades later!?) suggested that the women in my family may have felt jealous and competitive with me. "What? With me? I was being raised as a boy!" But as we went over the details, it became clearer that there was some truth in her suggestion. The assertion "you are not one of us" is a way some people try to put down others who they might find threatening, even if no threat was made.

I had to separate who I was from who they were, something therapists call individuation--being separate from them, but that did not take away my womanhood any more than any other daughter who leaves the nest and is not longer under the sway of family in which we are born into. A girl can grow up and find her own path and femininity without a matriarch or someone else who wants to be the queen of the rodeo.

The women in our lives are not some vestal virgins who keep the flame of femaleness.

The passive aggressiveness we exhibit as women speaks to the imbalance of power women have in the world and the high value placed on being nice. Heaven forbid we get shouty and angry, even though that does happen. It's a way that the female half of the human race deals with the world. The women's pecking order is not based on who can beat up whom, which boys establish early in grade school. For us it is who is pretty and popular. Just as boys feel superior to girls--even the weakest boy can beat up the strongest girl, or so that boy tells himself, and therefore is "better" than half the human race--girls establish themselves in terms of how they fit in. Does the "weakest" cis girl feel prettier than the prettiest trans girl--and therefore she can kick down while sucking up? Is that why some cis girls feel they have to explain womanhood like we trans people just fell off the back of the potato truck?

There is male privilege, but there is also female privilege. When we take our places in that female world, watch out. Some girls play for keeps--but it is not information about us, it's information about them.

[Sephirah]

Sometimes it's hard to avoid seeing correlation as causation. Especially in how we're treated by other people. Whether the causation is there or not, it's all too easy to believe that if we're treated badly by a certain type of person, then all people who are like that must be the same.

In a lot of ways this is especially true when it comes to gender. Someone gets mistreated by men, women, or non-binary people then it's extremely easy to fall into the trap of "This is what they're like. They treat me like this because they're men/women/non-binary". And we stop seeing the person, and start seeing the gender identification instead. We stop thinking that someone is abusive/abrasive/mean/etc because it's part of them as a person, and start to see traits associated with being male/female/non-binary instead.

The last sentence of your post:

I still can't stand the behavior of most women.  I know I don't have to be like them.  To thine own self be true, etc.  It does make me wonder though, if I don't like women, why am I trying so desperately to become one.

Something to consider; separate the person from the gender identification and ask yourself, why do you have to be who you have to be? If other women in your life behaved completely differently, would that make them any more or any less women?

Sometimes it's helpful to think about the person being the painting. Their gender identification being the canvas they are painted on. You can paint anything you wish in life, but you need the right canvas. It's difficult to paint a portrait on a landscape canvas, it just doesn't look or feel right. Regardless of the picture.

[SadieBlake]

OP, following up it's hard not to see some of what you've got to say as misogynist - I don't intend this as pejorative, simply when you mark out a problem with half the population because of a supposed shared behavior think this deserves comment. The more so  when you're questioning the existence of (male) privilege or it's effect on women.

I have experienced no shortage of men acting passive aggressively, granted this is often in the context of work situations which correctly proscribe aggressive behaviors and so for similar reasons as women supposedly develop this as a coping strategy.

I would add that my observation  has been that the higher proportion of women entering the workforce, coupled with maybe slow but undeniable progress of women into higher paid professions has resulted in an inevitable drop in salaries overall. This is simple supply & demand economics. The trade-off has been an overall higher standard of living which has come along with an economy where fewer households can get by on a single individual's income.

Individuals experiences so not trump  these larger social trends and so while I believe your experiences are valid, I'm less comfortable with the conclusions you're drawing from those experiences.

[amberwaves]

I am going to respond to the comment, even though I know I shouldn't.  My instincts tell me this will not end favorably.

First, I agree there are distinct misogynistic within my original post.  It was not the intention, but as correctly pointed out, it happens when you over generalize.  In addition I did not question the effect of male privilege on women, merely pointed out that I get tired of being reminded of this priveledge I have never received.  Second, I never stated in my original post that men are not passive aggressive.  Third, don't describe economics to me, I majored in it.  There are a few problems with your economic analysis, such as the impact of globalization impacting cost and standard of living, plus stagnant wages since the late seventies, etc.  Too much to sort through, besides, that is a different topic. 

I seriously question why you felt the need to chime in on this thread.  The previous posters attempted to be constructive and add their insight.  You did not add anything to the discussion other than I am, possibly or probably, a misogynist.  You claim that it is my experiences and assert the validity of that, but then proceed to tear it down as wrong.  News flash, that is not validation.  I'm not saying you have to agree with it.  It's is my experience.  However, rather than pointing out that I may be drawing erroneous conclusions, or focusing on something that I irrelevant, or any other manner of constructive help, you came in to subtly state that I am wrong and therefore an a...h..le.

I understand that this is a forum where a very large percentage identify as a woman.  Therefore, what I said could quite easily be insulting.  However, this IS a support forum for all those going through this.  I was reaching out, one to vent, and two to just maybe hope that one other person had some experience similar to my own.  I would like to thank you for pissing all over that. (The irony being that it is in a truly curtailed passive aggressive fashion that you describe of males in your post).

I very rarely share any of my inner thoughts, feelings and experiences.  Thank you for reminding me why. (Haha I can be passive aggressive, too...twice even.).  I'll just go back to being a quiet observer of the forums. 

[SadieBlake]

@amberwaves I'm sorry that's how it felt and while I acknowledge it's easy to read my second post to this thread as a rebuke, I really meant it when I said no pejorative was intended, further I don't think at all you're an a.....e, if I did I wouldn't have ever bothered to comment in your thread.

In my first comment I noted some details  my own experiences; I believe those were relevant contributions (evidenced by earning me a +reputation). My experiences and observations have been different from yours which is why I offered them as contrasting, offering a different take on the questions you were positing, however  I can't tell whether you're responding to my second comment only or some elements of both.

As to economics qualifications what economics I've studied was at MIT Sloan. I agree there are much larger factors, I was commenting on just one element and my observation is reasonably well borne out for the US economy in dept of labor statistics.

Finally, I certainly hope you keep posting. I guess I should have said this explicitly: of course we come here to work through some difficult stuff and I appreciated your saying how it feels to you. If my two bits of comments offended you I can only apologise and try to speak better in the future.

[amberwaves]

Well at least one of us is rational and well mannered.  I admit, my post was an inflamed and inflammatory response.  Thank you for being the better person.  It proves the point that you weren't trying to make and I misread in the first place...I'm an a-hole. 

The truth is when I wrote the initial post I was in a foul mood.  More reflection has indicated the problem is not generalized to women, just particular traits.  I already knew this.  However, there is a strong disconnect between my rational and my emotional mind.  The problem truly is me.  Everyone can, apparently, read my emotions, but I never engage others.  I am mostly looking to externalize my perceived failures and cast blame as an emotional coping mechanism for incredibly low self esteem.

Once again, I set myself up for a no-win emotional scenario.