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Old 01-23-2018, 11:57 PM   #1
ardentfemme
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Default What does womanhood mean to you?

I've been thinking about the concept of womanhood a lot lately. The term "woman" has always resonated deeply with me - as a femme, womanhood has come naturally to me. But, certainly, my femness is as related to femininity as it is to womanhood.

I'm interested in this distinction in particular because I have seen butches and masc-of-center women being denigrated for expressing their womanhood outside of the confines of traditional femininity. Surely, their womanhood is no less valid than mine.

Of course, there are masculine folks out there who have little to no relationship with womanhood or for whom the label "woman" feels restrictive instead of expansive. Their experiences are just as valid.

So, I would love to hear from folks all across the gender spectrum:

How would you define womanhood? Do you have a relationship to womanhood? If so, how do you navigate that relationship?

I want to be trans-inclusive, so that would mean definitions that aren’t purely anatomical, i.e. “having a uterus.”

I also want to delve deeper than “womanhood means doing girly things/stereotypical femininity.”
Is there a difference between femininity and womanhood at all, for that matter?

Can the locus of womanhood be identified? Do you think it’s largely culturally conditioned? Is it just political – a category intended to Otherize and oppress? Or is it an inherent, intrinsic quality?

i love that about us
how capable we are of feeling
how unafraid we are of breaking
and tend to our wounds with grace
just being a woman
calling myself
a woman
makes me utterly whole
- Rupi Kaur
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Old 01-24-2018, 01:26 AM   #2
Esme nha Maire
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Hmmn... for myself, being a woman is simply a descriptor that comes with the territory of being female. Now I come to think about it, I tend to use the term woman as a more informal/less clinical substitute for the word female.

I think perhaps that the issue you're addressing here has to do with a combination of societal attitudes and occasional sloppiness of thinking that most humans tend to engage in at times.

That is to say, that western society around the time I was born clearly had notions as to what men and women were capable of and what their place and function in society was - and because 'society' is made up of people, that's indicative of what a lot of people thought was the natural order of things, despite the fact that a not inconsiderable number were kicking against those confines on a daily basis!

However, society has moved on somewhat - it is better accepted nowadays (though not entirely yet) that the old societal expectations and values of men and women were overly limiting and harmful, and that women - and indeed men - should be free to be however they durned well please, so long as they are not behaving sociopathically.

Which is nice. And yet - in general, men and women are not the same whether one looks at biological or social aspects - and be it noted that the biological underpins the social, although not in as simplistic a way as many like to presume. There have been many times when I have craved the company of other women, not because I am lesbian and may fancy some of them, but simply because they are women, they are 'similar to me' whilst men are 'other', and thus there is more likely to be some commonality of experience, of attitude, of ways of thinking about the world around us with other women than is the case when I only have men to talk to.

The tricky bit is that underlying biology. Some folk would like it to be as simple as what sort of genitalia one is born with, but vast quantities of evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, say otherwise. Some think that chromosomes are sufficient to determine whether one is male or female, but there have been cases which show that to not be so, too (I am minded of the case of a UK woman who had a bit of a shock when she found that the reason she was infertile had to do with her being chromosomally XY - evidently as a foetus she was insensitive to testosterone, and thus did not develop as a male physically).

Biology is fantastically complicated, far more so than most people seem to realise. I've just had my mind somewhat blown by coming across details of how it is that DNA (an insanely long and complex class of molecules) gets to be bundled into chromosomes. DNA itself consists of a helix, but that is then wrapped around itself, the result wrapped around itself again and so on for two more levels before proteins called condensin 1 and 2 finish the job of packaging. It all makes folk expert at origami look like rank amateurs that can barely fold a sheet of paper in half!

The DNA can be thought of as a huge set of switches determining this or that aspect of our bodies functioning - and yet it isnt a simple case of one switch, one thing affected either/or - many of the switches have to work in concert for things to proceed normally, and if they do not, well, the results may vary from an imperceptible difference in an individual to quite dramatically obvious differences, depending on what it is that;s affected.

During foetal development, timing is critical. Washes of hormones sweep over the foetus and activate different bits of development at different times. If the timing is off even slightly, it has consequences. If the foetus is insensitive to one or other hormone, it has consequences. And those consequences may be not just physical, but mental, because the brain is a physical thing, and its wiring/programming, so to speak, is affected by how it develops, and part of that is whether it has received instructions to create a male type brain or a female type brain - and those instructions are complex and may not be implemented 100% one way or the other. Despite the failsafes built into our genetics, things can and do go awry to greater or lesser degree.

There is still a great deal to learn about all of this. The stuff about condensin was only found out by scientists fairly recently. Work continues on discovering how the brain develops and works, but it isn't all guesswork these days. Things have moved on enormously from the level of knowledge that existed back in the early to mid twentieth century, and some of that knowledge has important ramifications both for society as a whole and for feminisim in particular.

But getting back to the more mundane - personally, based on what I currently know, I think I would stick with woman being simply a colloquial term for a female human. If you invoke the notion of some kind of societal concept of womanhood, then you are immediately (a) allowing an excuse for yobs to chastise those women who do not fit that societal construct for simply being themselves, and (b) by the same token, unless the societal concept explicitly specifies gender identity, then you may include some males that fit the criteria. Which would be odd. Correction - I would find that kinda odd.*

Put simply, society is lazy and doesnt define social roles well - a lot of handwaving and "y'know!"'s are involved. But if you want to nail down what a woman is, hard and fast, then you have no option but to go into a welter of complexity that few would be willing to do, fewer would be willing to do objectively, and even fewer would be capable of doing so objectively. Specifying genitalia at birth or chromosomes simply does not cut it.

The pragmatic option, of course, is that a woman is a person that self-identifies as a woman. That neatly does away with any concerns about what genitalia someone was born with, what they are chromosomally, or fretting over whether that medication that Mum took during pregnancy may have affected ones development, etc. Frankly, a woman is a person that identifies as a woman and she can be whatever she damned well pleases and has the ability to be. In my opinion.

Esme

* But see my comment in another thread about how maybe Butch and Femme might be more fundamental socially than masculinity/femininity - that is to say, people can be Butch or Femme irrespective of their gender identity, and in some general social situations that may be more important than gender/gender identity (although gender is most definitely important when it comes to getting up close and personal in bed, of course!)
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Old 01-24-2018, 02:07 AM   #3
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((((( esme )))) your such a scientist ~ ** curtsey **
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Old 02-27-2018, 01:53 AM   #4
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Default An Actual, Literal Conversation I Just Had

Esme, love the science tidbits! Can't wait to read the other post you mentioned.

So, I just had this interaction and I have to share it...

person: Why do some lesbians pretend to be men? I hate that. Like… you have a who-hah. Act like it!

my pedantic ass: Actually, they’re not pretending to be men. Gender is much more complex than that. The thing is, one’s gender isn’t tied to one’s biological sex. That view is called biological determinism and has been definitively debunked. This perspective gave rise to the gender binary that we have today, which posits that Man and Woman are the only discrete genders in existence. Unfortunately, this binary, which is enforced culturally, politically, and economically, leaves out many people.

The truth is, gender is a social construct. “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman,” wrote Simone de Beauvoir in the seminal feminist text, The Second Sex. Or, as Judith Butler argues, one doesn’t merely have a gender; one does gender – a person’s gender is a result of the interaction between repeated expression and feedback from society. Moreover, an individual is judged in terms of their failure or success to meet gendered societal expectations. Using the traditional Hegelian dialectic as a guide, we find that to have one gender presupposes the existence of the other; that is, the category of Man is contrasted with that of Woman. Each is separate from the other, but simultaneously inseparable. To have one is to have the other. This “unity of opposites” has been used by many materialists to describe contradictory relationships such as worker and capitalist. The terms “worker” and “boss” have no meaning without the other’s existence. Form and content are inseparable. Historically, Woman has been defined against Man, which is symptomatic of deep-seated androcentrism. But that’s a story for another day.

All this doesn’t mean that gender is fake – on the contrary, gender has very real implications. Just like money. Humans have attributed certain values to little slips of paper and we have collectively agreed to uphold this man-made value of the paper and the distinctions between denominations, for example. Again, this analogy does not mean that one’s gender is false, pretend, or insignificant. Rather, it offers the liberating possibility of gender diversity – each individual expressing and engaging with their gender on their own terms.

However, some people, principally second wave radical feminists, want to abolish gender altogether, claiming that it is merely a political tool of oppression. Personally, I’m of the opinion that it is patriarchy, not gender that’s the culprit. Instead of abolishing gender outright, I envision a future in which all people within and outside the gender spectrum can be themselves – trans, two spirit, agender, and gender non-conforming folks across the board. This goes back to the idea of engaging with gender in a meaningful and affirming way. For example, I am deeply connected to my femininity, but I feel unsafe on a day-to-day basis as a stereotypically feminine woman presenting as such, since we live in a profoundly misogynistic, heteropatriarchal society. That means that when I’m groped on the bus, I’m asked why I was wearing a skirt and if I wasn’t inviting sexual attention with my clothing choice, instead of asking why a man felt entitled to access my body without my consent. In an ideal world, I could present the way I wanted and enjoy inhabiting my gender without threats to my physical safety.

As to your question about “lesbians pretending to be men,” now that the concept of gender has been pretty well delineated, we can delve into this particular caveat. I believe you are referring to butches (or perhaps masculine-of-center/gender non-conforming folks more broadly). While gender non-conforming people have existed since the dawn of time, the term “butch” originated in 1940s/1950s bar culture in primarily working-class areas of American cities. To put it simply, butches were more stereotypically masculine-presenting women and fems were stereotypically feminine-presenting. Fems subverted this femininity by performing it/engaging with it explicitly for other women, not for the purpose of catering to the male gaze. There’s a ton of nuance and historical details that I’m leaving out here, but butch and fem identities essentially lent themselves directly to courtship rituals – thereby facilitating romantic relationships.

Furthermore, butches and fems have a long history of resistance and resilience. In the pre-Stonewall days, they fought alongside drag queens, trans folk, and other gender outlaws against violent homophobes and during police raids. They fought for their space at the bar, for their lovers, and for their lives. Then, they stood their ground during the Stonewall uprising. In fact, some claim that a proud butch performer and activist, Stormé DeLarverie, even threw the first punch on that momentous occasion (and a trans woman of color, Marsha P. Johnson, the first brick), thereby paving the way for the LGBT rights movement in the United States.

The terms “butch” and “fem” are historically rooted, and, as such, some people today claim that they are archaic or that they ape heterosexual roles. These people want to move beyond labels altogether. Personally, I find (re)claiming “butch” and “fem” extremely powerful. The word “fem” (alternatively spelled “femme”) best resonates with my gender and sexual identity. Moreover, the claim that butches and fems are mimicking straight people or perpetuating heteronormative roles is untenable because gendered activities become depoliticized in the context of a relationship between two women. However, on another note, there are plenty of lesbians who don’t identify with either “butch” or “fem” and they are just as valid and worthy of support.

So what I’m saying is “butch” is a completely authentic and distinct gender. To suggest any less would be ahistorical and would reflect a misinterpretation or lack of understanding of gender.

person: Wait a minute… You’re a… dyke?!?
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