Does this experience speak to anyone?
Posted this to r/TwoXChromosomes, but I'd enjoy having the perspective of both people who identify as women and people who don't, thus my presence in this sub. I do use gendered terms because i do include myself in the "women" demographic and mention stereotypes because they're still... in my brain despite everything, so be warned about that.
I copy pasted the text below, hope it's allowed.
>I was born a "girl" and raised in a relatively progressive household, where our gender didn't really make a difference in terms of expected activities or things my parents would expect from us, at least explicitely. Me and my brother played with both barbies and cars, with both the pretend kitchen and swords, just to take a few stereotypes. I wore frilly skirts because I liked how they turned, and played lord of the rings in the dirt with the boys. In short, gender didn't really matter.
>However from my teenage years on I never really felt secure or at home in my body. I looked at other girls and wondered how they looked so "pretty" and "right", but no matter what I did, it looked "wrong." When I put makeup and dresses on to be "prettier" it felt like a farce and not really like me.
>After hating said body passionately, I tried becoming more neutral towards it and just ended up avoiding thinking about it alltogether.
>I cut my hair shorter and shorter, and now it's always too long for my liking. I don't shave. I wear jewlery that makes me feel good, that I often buy in the men's section. Not always.
>Clothingwise, I went through multiple phases and feelings, some when I even felt at ease with skirts and dresses that fit my body shape, especially in summer. Right now I don't feel at ease in skirts and dresses at all, and mostly dress like a teenage boy I am not anymore.
>I don't really seem to hate my body itself, just its existence in society.
>What constitutes womanhood seems to be a pretty intersectional issue, with gendered expectations of "shaving" and "looking pretty" and "soft" or "feminine" requiring a lot of maintenance and performance, and being often nothing but unattainable expectations designed to get you to feel bad about yourself and buy products. With added mental load if you have any characteristic that may make adhering to those standards even harder.
>And that's just about physique, not even brushing up on the expectations in terms of character or life trajectory and so on and so on.
>So I thought that maybe my feelings were common and that a lot of women may feel like they are not "woman enough", but I don't really have the data to confirm or infirm that statement.
>Furthermore, being a "masculine woman" or just existing and idk not shaving for example + being a woman doesn't make one less of a woman. Just existing, as a woman makes you a woman and includes you in the definition.
>I know and fully accept this.
>So I just don't understand why the question of who I am is so prevalent in my mind and why I can't just be. I would like the way I am to be able to be part of womanhood, because if it really was just that cardboard cutout of an always well-groomed gentle woman with flowing hair wearing dresses, that'd be way to restrictive wouldn't it? But at the same time I just don't feel like it is.
>I still look at other women and wonder how they do it, but there is no envy there.
Does this experience speak to anyone who identifies as non-binary? Just looking for perspectives.