Monday, September 29, 2014

I am indeed a woman. Deal with it.

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Once again I have let close to two years fly by.....  I was listening to an interview on NPR on Fresh Air, and something that repeatedly annoys me came up again.  The topic is women and what women are like.  The interviewee, an intelligent funny women, asserted that women were a particular way.  In this case the subject was sex.  The assertions, women, particularly women who do not feel themselves to be attractive, will often do all kinds of things to try to please a man in bed, thinking that it is the only way to keep him.  A loose quote "You want to stick it in my ear? Sure stick it in my ear". In addition it usually takes a long time before women actually enjoy sex and they fake it a lot.  

OK  I am a woman and have no problems with that.  It is true that if I were to wake up tomorrow and discover that I had turned into a man overnight, I would have to make some changes, but it would not change me as a person.  I do not consider my gender as a deep fundamental characteristic.  Nonetheless I am perfectly ok as a woman.  I like a number of things associated with women.  I am straight.  I have long curly hair and do not cultivate a masculine look.  I wear makeup.  I like men.  Having said that….

I am strong and muscular and I like being strong and muscular.

I don’t change my mind much at all.

I am very literal.

I am not emotional.

I like math and science and being analytical.

I have no clue about how to play social games.

I cannot multitask.

I have no affinity for babies.

I do not like chick-flicks, or chick-lit.

I do not care how much money a guy makes.

I do not like to be pampered.

I am not scared of walking by myself at night.

I am not scared of being alone at night in a strange city.

I like to drive really long distances... 7 hours is comfortable for me... doing it by myself is just fine.

I am a slob.

I love science fiction, fantasy and horror.

I like hard rock.

I like the Blues.

When I was sexually active I LOVED sex, I enjoyed it the very first time, and was continually disappointed in how hard it was for me to get.  Plain vanilla sex, much appreciated. But it was so much trouble to get (and later as a trained virologist, clearly risky) that I eventually just gave up.

Generally the people I managed to get into bed were just that, people who I managed to get into bed, no emotional attachment.  I failed to get anywhere with people I was hung up on (though they often were good friends).  Divorcing sex from love was no problem for me.

Compliments make me uncomfortable more often than not.

Shopping is not generally a pleasure for me.

Shopping with some one is way worse than shopping alone for me.

I am more comfortable by myself than with people typically.

I have no children and I never will.  I have no husband and I assume I never will.

I am not terribly nurturing.

I don't worry.

I don't get nervous.

I have to concentrate not to sprawl when I sit in public, I sprawl at home, I still sprawl a little in public.

I have a good innate mechanical sense.  I am good with machines.

I do not mind getting dirty.

I love riding big fast roller coasters, ideally in the front seat.

I have no fear of insects, spiders, or snakes.

I am almost 57.  My feet don't hurt, my back doesn't hurt, my joints don't hurt.  I'm fine thankyou.

I sleep well.

I like the gray in my hair.

I almost never carry a purse and I totally do not get designer bags.

I drive a manual transmission.  It's what I prefer.

I think "intuition" is bogus.

I realize that my body is not what is considered beautiful and sexy but I like my body.  My body has been a good machine and I am in many ways a physical person.  Yeah I could use to be thinner, but you know what, if you don't like how I look, fine.  Now if you don't like or at least respect my brain THEN I have a problem.

I get so sick and tired of people, articles, interviews all saying women this, and women that, I can almost guarantee that whatever it is that “women” are like or do according to anyone, including other women, will not be true of me.  But I am a woman!  Why must we make all these boxes and try to cram people in them.  It is so alienating.

6 comments:

keppet said...

"if I were to wake up tomorrow and discover that I had turned into a man overnight, I would have to make some changes, but it would not change me as a person."

I'm a woman physically but it's no more than that. But it seems to be more for some people... I don't get it but there must be a reason why some people get gender reassignments. When they are reported as saying "I've always been a woman on the inside", I can't call them liars. But I can't find any part of myself that understands feeling like a particular gender. I feel the same as you: I'm me whether woman or man...

Jess said...

kep, have you ever looked into nonbinary/genderqueer resources? i get slight gender dysphoria occasionally and sometimes playing with labels, even just privately, is useful.

H said...

I have no gender dysphoria, that's why all the "women are" stuff annoys me. I am perfectly comfortable with being a woman. The "gendering" that in our society that attpts to claim that certain things are simply true for women while other things are true for men is what is wrong. What goes on now with little girls I find appalling. When I was a child toys were not all divided into pink things for girls and "manly" stuff for boys. I played with stuffed animals, and blocks and soldiers with my brother, I had an "easy bake" oven which was NOT [pink, and a "Creepy crawler" thing that made lizards and insects. I adored my red velvet dress, but I was not forced into everything pink and the consumer-driven Princess stuff that is expected of little girls now. We are people first.

H said...

And yeah, I'm with you Keppet. I cannot imagine being so unhappy with one's gender. Gender seems mostly irrelevant to me, except in regards to having sex, or reproducing, and a few other biological issues. I support transgender people, but I don't understand it.

keppet said...

Jess: "kep, have you ever looked into nonbinary/genderqueer resources?"

No, honestly it's not really come up in my life. I will remember your comment and if I want advice in the future, I'll drop you a line so you can remind me! But right now, it's pretty irrelevant to my life.

I've been thinking about gender a little recently because one of my dad's employees underwent gender reassignment and I read a news article on her. I was generally baffled at the ideas included in it. But I don't actually need to learn how to grasp them yet.

I guess I just wanted to point out to Heather that though she and I may not get "gendering" doesn't mean that it isn't important to other people.

I guess the frustration is that it is assumed to be important to *everyone*.

H said...

It is not so much gendering for me but by our society that I am talking about. Why must others say "women are like this" and "men are like that." It's clearly not true yet people rush to fit themselves in these artificial boxes. I find it alienating.