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SilkySifaka
Lemur
Joined: Apr 23, 2012
Age: 27
Posts: 1396
Location: UK
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 Posted: Sun May 27, 2012 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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| To me feminism should be about recognising that there are lots of different ways to be female, and that every woman should have the right to make decisions about her body. You aren't a bad feminist at all. I've noticed an undercurrent of misogyny in some feminist discourse, where it seems that if you don't 'tow the line' it is because you are too brainwashed to see the truth - I find it very frustrating. Your body, your reproductive choices and the choices you make about what you wear and how you view yourself gender-wise are personal to you and they are nobody's business but yours. You have the right to define yourself as you choose as well, don't feel pressured to define yourself using other people's categories. |
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SpiritBlooms
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 15, 2009
Posts: 1024
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| Posted: Sun May 27, 2012 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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| mv wrote: | | technical_cat wrote: | | I'm a feminist, I have equal rights to men. Stand your ground, resist the pressure, don't read or watch the adverts, don't surround yourself with anyone who'll judge you for not conforming or pressurise you. |
This. Feminism is about having a choice, and a voice. f**k all that conformist crap, if it's not your thing.  |
Exactly. You are an individual, not a cog in the wheels of any movement, whatever it promotes. It's too easy to be unhappy with yourself when you're listening to others go on about how you should behave, dress, live. Listening to yourself will bring a deeper joy in life, long-term. I wish I'd started listening to myself a lot sooner! 
Last edited by SpiritBlooms on Sun May 27, 2012 5:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Tuttle
Not a bird, a turtle.
Joined: Mar 27, 2006
Age: 24
Posts: 2593
Location: Massachusetts
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| Posted: Sun May 27, 2012 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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It might be worth telling some of the people pressuring you that the female body wasn't designed to have periods every month anyways. It was designed for large numbers of pregnancies and breastfeeding suppressing periods. This is part of why it can be so much better for people to suppress periods even if they're not having 12 children.
However, I will say that most feminists I've met are actually very supportive of people being genderqueer (and actually supportive if they find out that I'm genderqueer (beyond not agreeing with social norms), not just claiming they're supportive.) |
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puddingmouse
exclamation mark!
Joined: Apr 25, 2010
Age: 26
Posts: 7080
Location: Mega City 3
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| Posted: Sun May 27, 2012 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Tuttle wrote: | It might be worth telling some of the people pressuring you that the female body wasn't designed to have periods every month anyways. It was designed for large numbers of pregnancies and breastfeeding suppressing periods. This is part of why it can be so much better for people to suppress periods even if they're not having 12 children.
However, I will say that most feminists I've met are actually very supportive of people being genderqueer (and actually supportive if they find out that I'm genderqueer (beyond not agreeing with social norms), not just claiming they're supportive.) |
I've only met one person like that irl. Even she thinks it's ultimately my decision, but I just feel this way due to my social conditioning. My reaction is more to things I've read on the 'net. It's not really a conversation I have much offline. I don't often tell people I sometimes hate being female.
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Tuttle
Not a bird, a turtle.
Joined: Mar 27, 2006
Age: 24
Posts: 2593
Location: Massachusetts
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| Posted: Sun May 27, 2012 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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| puddingmouse wrote: |
I've only met one person like that irl. Even she thinks it's ultimately my decision, but I just feel this way due to my social conditioning. My reaction is more to things I've read on the 'net. It's not really a conversation I have much offline. I don't often tell people I sometimes hate being female. |
IRL, I've met more than one, online I've met quite a few, and don't hide that I'm genderqueer (I don't hate being female, I'm entirely female sexed and have bits I dislike, but its who I am, and I do want children eventually. I'm just female sexed and not female gendered. I've yet to find any word that describes my "gender identity", but figured out eventually that it'd fit into genderqueer. I don't identify with any gender, not just 'gender-neutral' or 'agender', but "gender doesn't exist to me".)
Actually the only people I've found have issues with this are transgendered. |
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puddingmouse
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Joined: Apr 25, 2010
Age: 26
Posts: 7080
Location: Mega City 3
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| Posted: Sun May 27, 2012 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Tuttle wrote: | | puddingmouse wrote: |
I've only met one person like that irl. Even she thinks it's ultimately my decision, but I just feel this way due to my social conditioning. My reaction is more to things I've read on the 'net. It's not really a conversation I have much offline. I don't often tell people I sometimes hate being female. |
IRL, I've met more than one, online I've met quite a few, and don't hide that I'm genderqueer (I don't hate being female, I'm entirely female sexed and have bits I dislike, but its who I am, and I do want children eventually. I'm just female sexed and not female gendered. I've yet to find any word that describes my "gender identity", but figured out eventually that it'd fit into genderqueer. I don't identify with any gender, not just 'gender-neutral' or 'agender', but "gender doesn't exist to me".)
Actually the only people I've found have issues with this are transgendered. |
Issues with periods, or issues with people not wanting to have them?
I actually hate female the physical reality as well as female the gender, sometimes. I'm not unnatural. I've always been this way. 
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Tuttle
Not a bird, a turtle.
Joined: Mar 27, 2006
Age: 24
Posts: 2593
Location: Massachusetts
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| Posted: Sun May 27, 2012 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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| puddingmouse wrote: |
| Tuttle wrote: |
Actually the only people I've found have issues with this are transgendered. |
Issues with periods, or issues with people not wanting to have them?
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Issues with people being against things that fit with their sex/gender (though not necessarily the gender norms) without being transgendered.
Personally, I could understand why someone has issues with the physical body of being female, with gender norms for being female, but am not female-gendered because that requires having a gender, just as I'm not agendered because agendered is also a gender and thus also requires having a gender, rather than because of disliking being female. They're both types of genderqueer, but very different types. |
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Senath
Deinonychus
Joined: May 17, 2012
Posts: 357
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| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 10:34 am Post subject: |
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| Tuttle wrote: | It might be worth telling some of the people pressuring you that the female body wasn't designed to have periods every month anyways. It was designed for large numbers of pregnancies and breastfeeding suppressing periods. This is part of why it can be so much better for people to suppress periods even if they're not having 12 children.
However, I will say that most feminists I've met are actually very supportive of people being genderqueer (and actually supportive if they find out that I'm genderqueer (beyond not agreeing with social norms), not just claiming they're supportive.) |
That's how both sides of my grandparents did it- 7 children each. Once the youngest was born my mom's grandma (the one I get my awful periods from) had a hysterectomy because she was bleeding too profusely every month. Same thing happened to my mom- she had 4 and stopped but eventually had to get a hysterectomy (she had no desire to do so) because the profuse menstrual bleeding was making her anemic and she had uterine fibroids that were bleeding most of the time, too. |
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hanyo
Phoenix
Joined: Oct 01, 2011
Posts: 3458
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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I can't see how not wanting a period is because of "social conditioning", at least not for me.
I'd love to stop mine. I don't want to have cramps and have to constantly worry about changing pads and tampons and whether or not they'll leak. I also hate wearing underwear and have to when I have my period lately because my tampons leak.
I'm scared of using hormone birth control and find it to be unnecessary because I don't have sex but if a doctor offered to give me a hysterectomy I'd gladly have it.
My grandmother had 8 kids and after the eighth they gave her a hysterectomy. |
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ValentineWiggin
Yup.
Joined: May 16, 2011
Posts: 4879
Location: Beneath my cat's paw
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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You're indicting liberal feminism.
Radical feminism is actually perfectly in keeping with some of your sentiments.
_________________
"Such is the Frailty
of the human Heart, that very few Men, who have no Property, have any Judgment of their own.
They talk and vote as they are directed by Some Man of Property, who has attached their Minds
to his Interest." |
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puddingmouse
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Age: 26
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Location: Mega City 3
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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| ValentineWiggin wrote: | You're indicting liberal feminism.
Radical feminism is actually perfectly in keeping with some of your sentiments. |
I know. There are some second-wave types who are into this stuff, but they're not radical feminists, normally.
I don't really see how this is compatible with liberal feminist thought (which I thought was all about 'choice'), but you're right that they're usually the ones coming from a 'period acceptance' angle.
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mechanicalgirl39
Phoenix
Joined: Apr 07, 2009
Posts: 2338
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 4:08 pm Post subject: Re: Feminist criticism of menstrual suppression |
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| puddingmouse wrote: | I made my own thread for this, because I didn't want to derail another one.
I want to whine about how I feel pressure from both mainstream society and from the feminist movement to live with a body I'm not comfortable with. Mainstream society wants me to remove all my body hair and wear shoes that are really painful to me. I cba. The feminist movement wants be to embrace my periods and overcome a lifetime of gender dysphoria just like that.
I don't know. I often feel like a 'bad feminist' for not wanting periods or babies, but it's my prerogative. I really don't like having a female body, and I think I would still feel this way even if I didn't live in a misogynistic culture. Some women do just have horrible periods because nature sort of sucks like that. It really does. If you stop worshipping nature for a minute and hold it to same moral standards that atheists (like me) hold God to, then the idol of nature also comes tumbling down. Childbirth is painful no matter what you do about it. I hate the fact that I hate being a woman. I don't get to have mainstream society's cred, or feminist cred. FML.
I'm not going to lie about how I feel because it's politically convenient to do so. Maybe I'm trans. Maybe I should go down that route and get a hysterectomy. I don't want to be a man, take T, or have a penis. I just think there are so many downsides naturally to being a woman, even if you take away society's conditioning. I get the feeling there are a lot more 'women' who feel like I do than will admit it. I get told by other feminists to 'grin and bear it' effectively, which is the same thing I get told by mainstream society (but about different things that they regard as 'feminine'). |
I agree with you.
I hate - HATE - 'difference feminism'. It's no feminism at all. No matter how much empowering language you couch it in, some aspects of female physiology still involve pain, health problems and other negative stuff. Childbirth is the same - you can describe it in the nicest most empowering terms you want but it still involves pain and trauma.
I dislike a lot of things about being a woman too. I'm also tired of being told that my body is 'who I am'. My uterus and boobs are not part of my nature, they are organs I did not have a say in being born with.
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Lay your hands on me, one last time' (Breaking Benjamin) |
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puddingmouse
exclamation mark!
Joined: Apr 25, 2010
Age: 26
Posts: 7080
Location: Mega City 3
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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^ Essentialist statements about 'women's nature' are what we've had to put up with misogynists for so long, let alone feminists.
Also, YES, I know how horrible it is to be told 'your body is your nature'.
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Agemaki
Snowy Owl
Joined: Oct 12, 2011
Posts: 151
Location: In a grove of oak trees, having a tea party with squirrels.
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| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:17 am Post subject: |
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My periods usually aren't that unpleasant though I'm still intending to get a hormonal IUD. I grew up in a rather conservative town where many of the ideas of feminism hadn't quite penetrated. Instead I had to deal with sentiments related to sex-negativity and traditional male/female gender roles.
I used to really hate being female a few years back and as a teenager I intentionally starved myself to stop menstruating. I saw my female body as this source of weakness. I saw the loss of control that I had over my body during puberty as related to a larger view of female bodies as victims. It was horrifying to me, I wanted desperately to regain control, to assert myself over this body that sought to take away my agency and kill me. So in my mind being female was a sort of death sentence. This was also coupled with romantic failures that left me feeling that my body was disgusting for being female (my first relationship ended as my boyfriend realized he wasn't attracted to me because I was female).
I think I finally came to accept myself when I realized that female biology does not equal female gender and that I am not female in the social sense. I had thought earlier that having a hysterectomy would help me to be free of femaleness but I don't really see it as an issue anymore. I didn't realize that I wasn't socially female when I was younger, partially because I have always had feminine tastes (oftentimes more so than my peers). I loved silk flowers and ribbons and dresses as a little girl; no one would have ever called me a tomboy. And yet I wasn't socialized in the female gender and it has become more apparent as I've gotten older and identify less and less with female behavior (though I still have a quaint love for parasols and ribbons and dresses). I think I feel like my body is a part of me, but that my body has very little to do with the social expectations of being female. I wish I had a word for my actual gender, though I don't know what it would be. I'm sort of androgynous (and in many ways I'm attracted to androgyny) but there is also a lot in both genders that I don't identify with at all. |
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