Not my experience

[firecat]

http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/05/masculinity-a-delicate-flower/ (emphasis mine)

...manhood is a social status, something a guy earned historically, through brutal tests of physical endurance or other risky demonstrations of toughness that mark the transition from boyhood to manhood. But while that masculinity is hard-won, it can be easily lost.

Once earned, men have to continue proving their worth through manly action....

The phenomenon helps explain why men are so touchy about their masculinity. Women don't have the same problem, of course. Womanhood is largely seen as something innate, immutable: girls become women through puberty; once achieved, womanhood sticks.

This is not my experience. Is it yours?

Comments

[staranise]

Uh, no.

[meloukhia]

Not being a woman I can't speak to this specifically but I am often read as one and I interact with a lot of women, and I feel like femininity is very often challenged and questioned ('you're not a woman if you haven't...' 'you're not feminine enough...').

In other words, what in fresh hell is this pile of dooky?

[deakat]

What planet are they from?

[sasha_feather]

Nope!

[sqbr]

Well, I don't know that I've felt like my womanhood is in question, but my femininity feels like it is sometimes.

And I imagine it isn't most trans women's experience!

[cereta]

I was going to say, I think there's a difference between womanhood as femininity and womanhood as adulthood that's conflated in that quote. Not that I think menarche actually conveys adulthood anymore, but it is true that cis women have a concrete, relatively unambiguous marker of physical maturity that men do not.

Which isn't to say the quote isn't bunk. It is, in no small part because it conflates femininity with physical maturity (and for other reasons that my head hurts too much to unpack right now).

[boxofdelights]

I've heard the notion that wet dreams are the concrete, relatively unambiguous marker of physical maturity for young men. And then I've heard all too many men go on to explain that reproductive capacity is not enough to turn a boy into a man, even though it does of course turn a girl into a woman.

[trouble]

In terms of Womanhood, yes, I feel pretty much that it's a Thing That I Am the way I'm tall, but in terms of femininity, wifeliness, being Good Enough, being allowed to occupy space, being pretty enough.... Well, there's a reason why so many of the women I know experience Imposter Syndrome.

:(

[jesse_the_k]

Since I've recently experienced surgical menopause, I've been sipping info from various fora for menopausal women. It seems that for many many many of us, separating "able to have children" from "living and breathing" involves forcibly reconstructing "womanhood" and "femininity."

[kaigou]

First, no.

Second, puberty was the worst weekend of my life. If that wasn't a trial by fire and a brutal test of physical (and emotional and psychological) endurance AND a risky demonstration of toughness all rolled into one, I don't know what is.

Also, in case I wasn't clear: so very totally no.

[serene]

It is my experience, yes, but I'm aware that I happened into a gender expression in which my internal reality closely matches external expectations of what a woman is.

Also, I think the reason men are so touchy about their masculinity is entrenched societal sexism that sees the feminine as less-than, but then I would think that. ;-)

[amadi]

If womanhood were something innate I'm pretty sure we wouldn't see the exhortations that "real women" do X, Y and Z or that life as a woman doesn't "begin" until you do something, typically related to being married or more frequently, and very frequently, having children.

I fall back on the idea from the book "The World According To Garp" wherein, like Jenny Fields, I am a Sexual Suspect, not inhabiting the world of "regular" women by virtue of my queerness, my size, my race, my barrenness. It's probably in response to that Suspectness that I'm moving into a realm of uberfemmeness, in an effort to assert who I feel to be inside no matter how society tries to erase me from it.

[laughingrat]

I keep doing the equivalent of opening my mouth to say something, then just shutting it again. I think it's one of those cases of "Good lord, where do I even begin?"

[boxofdelights]

Totally my experience that womanhood is largely seen that way. By men. Fucking Paul Goodman, whom I would admire entirely if he'd only kept his stupid mouth shut about topics on which he was ignorant. Fucking Stephen Fry. Fucking Robert Bly.

[firecat]

Good point.

[aquaeri]

Yes!!! This exactly!!! Believing being a woman is "just natural" is one of those Universal Truths promoted by men who haven't paid much attention to women. And who may utterly freak out if/when they encounter a (biological female) who doesn't follow the rules of femininity/womanliness/whatever.

(Not to mention that while an easy way in our culture to demean a man is to call him a girl, gaining acceptance as a transwoman is a lot of work, as far as I can tell).

[boxofdelights]

This is the most perfect expression I have ever seen of what I feel about my hold on womanhood:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html

[chaos_by_design]

I've had this problem all my life of not feeling woman enough, mainly because I've never been particularly sexually attractive (though I'm not ugly).

I've always considered it a very personal thing with me though; I'm not sure most women feel that way. I do think there's a difference between how it is for men and how it is for women, but I can't quite articulate what it is. I do think it's fairly common for women to feel insecure about things related to femininity and womanhood, though it doesn't seem to quite have the same vibe that anxious masculinity does.

[firecat]

I've had this problem all my life of not feeling woman enough, mainly because I've never been particularly sexually attractive

The question of perceived sexual attractiveness is also part of why womanhood feels like a social status to me, just the way manhood apparently does to the person writing the article I quoted from.

[aquaeri]

This is exactly why the closest I can come to expressing my gender identity is "not a real woman". I am biologically female, comfortable with that, but I don't like femininity or masculinity or people being challenged on their gender (or biological sex). So whenever anyone tries to pull the "real women do/don't X" line, I'm happy to retort "well, I'm not a real woman then".

[azurelunatic]

This is similar to my experience. I will also, when people are making "real women" claims that are offensively prescriptive, go on the offensive and say "You. Out of my gender."

[aquaeri]

I like that :-).

[vito_excalibur]

Well yeah. Like herpes. Good luck trying to get rid of that one...

[azurelunatic]

I am pretty sure, from primary and secondary sex-linked characteristics, that my geneset is XX. This includes me in a class of people subject to a suite of particular forms of sex-based discrimination and harassment; I will bond with my cohort based on this.

By gender, I'm still "geek", though.

I like presenting as low-effort femme, I like having sex with gynosexual-identified men (as well as gynosexual-identified women, and others), I have a laissez-faire/active-tutoring/pastoral-counselor parenting style and am not suited for pregnancy or early childhood care, I am a poor housekeeper outside of a very few narrow situations, I am an indifferent cook, Christian-specific standards for womanhood are irrelevant to me as I am not Christian and have no desire to be, I have sworn to never marry di catenas, I would prefer to support myself by working within a place I could call home (either from my full-time home, or in a workplace that I feel sufficiently at home in), my self-perception is threatened when I cannot perform feats of physical strength that I feel should be within my capabilities...

So many components that various people carelessly lump into "womanhood", and so few people actually fit naturally.

[snippy]

I'm not sure how to construct my response.

When I was a child I knew I was a woman and never questioned it, but I was misled into behaving like a man because I thought that would give me the same privileges men have.

Other people question my womanhood (both femininity and adulthood) all the time on the internets. And sometimes I think they're right, because I don't feel womanly by the definitions of my culture (because the culture is wrong, but it is still there). And I struggled mightily with not feeling like an adult any longer when I had to sell my house, because that is the strongest marker of adulthood I held important and yet have lost (still have my job--that would be another strong marker). (Raising kids doesn't make you an adult. I know this from personal experience: my mother was not an adult until long after I was.)

[snippy]

Somebody recently tried, rather gently, to explain to me how awful it was for liberals under Reagan, that zie could remember it and it was horrible. I tartly responded that I doubted they were so much older than me as I voted in Reagan's first election. No apology, just a response that they'd bet wrong, as I was older than LJ's usual population. !!!

[flarenut]

Not really my experience either, albeit I love showtunes and don't own a gun, so I must have given up on being a man ages ago.

Seriously, there's a whole mythos about the kind of men who are so manly -- and so sure of their manliness -- that they can cry openly or do other "unmanly" things. They apparently don't get tested and retested, but rather redefine manliness according to their style as they go. (Other than John Wayne, I can't think of anyone reputed to actually belong to that group...)

[eggcrack]

For me, leaving childhood behind meant becoming traumatized, anxious and depressed so no, I have no idea what this womanhood they're talking about is even supposed to be. I'll probably be thinking of this for the whole week, but I think my answer will still be no.

[bitterlawngnome]

I find thinking about this confusing, because it's not actually one's gender that's being questioned.

[(Anonymous)]

I think a pat philosopher's heaven has no shades of grey. Too irritated by these summary prejudicial stereotypes to deign to respond to them... I'd rather turn some speakers and blast some loud punk music at such folks. Sigh. I just won't take such oversimplification seriously.