Food for thought

[dreamer_easy]

I said: Discussing the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival recently, which has long excluded transwomen who don't "share the experience of growing up under patriarchy", I wondered if I'd qualify as a woman by that definition, lacking so many female experiences: never been raped, never experienced intimate violence, never been pregnant. For that matter, I've only worn makeup a handful of times.

Multiple commenters remarked that rape was not "part of being female" and one disputed that "most women have been raped". Now the confusion is partly my fault for being unclear, so I've clarified what I meant in the comments - that rape is an experience of a large proportion of women "under patriarchy". But think about this: why were the only objections to the mention of rape? Why didn't anyone argue pregnancy is not an automatic part of being female, or dispute that "most women have been bashed by a boyfriend or husband"?

Comments

[lordshiva.livejournal.com]

Having experienced all of those, I still can't count any of them as being part of being female. They are possible experiences if one is female, and pregnancy/childbirth is (so far) only possible for a female (the man who gave birth did so with an actual womb and working vagina. he can call himself a man, but he couldn't give birth as one.) Anyway, those experiences aren't part of my sense of myself as a woman. Neither is shaving my legs, wearing lingerie, and putting on make-up, which I sometimes like to do but don't feel obligated to do. My transgendered friend likes all the frou frou stuff best of all.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to ask why it is I've always had a settled sense of myself as female, while having no interest in so many "feminine" things. It does lend credence to the idea that we're born with a gender identity which is unrelated to our cultural conditioning.