On Being a Real Woman

Recently on Facebook, I have been witnessing several discussions about transgender issues. The talk around gender dysphoria has had me thinking about my own perception of what it means to be a real woman. Not in the context of the transgender discussion, not like that.

But as I read, I wondered, how does it work, to say, 'I feel like a woman'. What does that mean to me?  Why have there been so many things about myself that have made me feel I wasn't a real / good / proper girl / woman? How can I have felt like that without ever considering what being a real woman meant to me? Why have I spent my life accepting, as real, negative judgments, not just from real, actual people, but from vague cultural suggestions, and then regurgitating them in self-flagellation? I realise that the first step in discovering what I think a real woman, a specific actual woman - me - is, is to look at past criticisms from others and from myself.

• I've been too skinny, too fat, wrong proportions, wrong shape to be a real girl / woman
• my hair is too brown, not black or red or blonde, too short, too straight, too fine, too long and tangled and now too grey
• my nose is too big for a girl / woman
• my breasts have been too small, too big, too lop-sided
• I'm too emotional, too angry, too sad, too happy, too loud
• too clumsy to dance
• don't suit frills or lace or pink or...
• teeth not even enough, not white enough
• can't play netball
• shouldn't want to play rugby
• bad taste (a teacher, of my tartan skirt "a woman should know that green and blue don't go together")
• don't get the jokes that other girls giggle about
• real girls don't even want to do woodwork and metalwork, girls like cooking and sewing
• a woman stays a virgin until she gets married / a woman should share sex liberally because, you know, 'make love, not war' (you can tell finished school in 1968, started university in 1969, when the hippy revolution was in full flow in NZ) 
• only sailors and prostitutes have pierced ears and tattoos
• a married woman should stay home / should make a success of a meaningful career
• a woman should be a mother otherwise she is selfish; a mother should be an expert in everything from housework, to health care, to education, to gardening, to sewing, knitting, to .... but .......
• a woman should always defer to experts - her parents, husband, doctor, dentist, school teachers, encyclopedia salesmen....
• a woman's children should be perfect and never make mistakes or get dirty or have autism or break a leg or like eating apple slices spread with marmite
• a woman shouldn't 'let herself go' but
• a woman shouldn't spend money on herself as long as her man, her children, her parents - anyone else, really, has needs or wants
• a woman should always be emotionally available to anyone who needs them but....
• a woman shouldn't burden others with her shit
• a woman should wear age-appropriate clothing - especially old woman who should dress in beige and cover up as much skin as possible (is there even such a thing as age-appropriate clothing for men?)
• an older woman should always wear a bra even if she finds them uncomfortable, especially when she has saggy breasts because basically, a woman should have large, perky breasts all her life, but if she fails at that, she should cover them well, so other people don't suffer revulsion
• a woman should have a nice singing voice
• a woman shouldn't speak or laugh loudly
• a woman should be elegant or sexy or both but not slutty (what the fuck is slutty anyway?)
• a woman should have head hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, maybe public hair if neatly trimmed, but otherwise be baby-smooth
• Post-menopausal women should be especially careful to get rid of all those bristles that appear in random places
• white / greying hair is not distinguished or attractive on a woman, it is aging and shows declining womanhood - but dying it unreal colours is absurd
• a woman should support other women as long as they aren't (insert anything here.) 
• a woman shouldn't be uppity enough to put her writing / art / music / thoughts / self out in front of others unless it is as good as the best man's
• a million other little and large shoulds and shouldn't - there's no order here, just a stream of things that poured out
• a woman should feel guilty about everything she says or does or wants or is.....

And still, I identify as a woman. In spite of all my 'failures'.

I think my biggest failing is that I took on so many other people's stupid judgments and failed to do so so many things I wanted to, and to be out loud the woman I am.

I still don't know what I can do to be a real woman - other than just be.