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During this crazy journey into femininity, I’m certain many of us have internally reflected on who we are as people. I know I ask myself a million questions every day.
But has anyone wondered, what would your life be like today had you been born a woman?
Would you be the same? Would you be doing the same work? Would you be more confident, less confident, have the same insecurities that you had growing up? The same problems in life? The same goals? The same status in life? The same interests and hobbies?
Would you be sitting here today thinking… I wish I was born a man?
I wonder these things regularly, as I continue this quest to just be a better person all the way around.
I think I’d be the same actually. I think I’d like the same things, especially because I’ve never been into machoism. I guess all my life I’ve just been softer. I like romantic movies. I cry. I like to be stylish. I like looking “put together”. I like playing music. I like musical instruments. I like to stare out at sunsets and sunrise. I’ve always worn jewelry, albeit unisex (necklaces, bracelets, rings). I’ve always taken care of my body, skin, etc. I’m a hopeless romantic. I’m an emotional decision maker. I’ve always been into long talks with my kids talking about random topics late into the evening (even when mom said “the girls need to go to bed!”). I’d set up blankets in the backyard and we’d lay out looking at the sky in the middle of the night in awe and wonder.
I’d probably be the same. I may have gone into beauty school though. I find a lot of joy learning about makeup and skin-care, hair and care. Maybe own Ulta by now. Or maybe a nurse.
I don’t know. It’s just really fun to think about for me. My mind goes a million miles a minute.
Interesting question. One that is impossible to answer.
My instinct is to say I’d be a butch lesbian, who occasionally likes to doll up.
I can’t imagine doing anything else that I have been doing.
Yes, I wonder that many times a day. I like to daydream and think about what I would look like, where I would work. I would be tallish, long blonde hair, semi-athletic. I might work as a therapist or some medical field.
Wow Carmen you keep our synapses snappin’
If we were born with it would we appreciate it as we do as we would have no knowledge of this being.
So if I were born in the same family with the same opportunities I would have to base my thoughts around what it was like those years ago. I did like pretty clothes and the norm was to go into an office or maybe nursing, although I had a pang to be an air hostess. I know I did apply and turn down an offer in the civil service. Due to my qualifications I was to go in at a higher level so I may have taken that job if I were a girl. So we’ll take that as a start.
It could be that I gained some promotion, although the glass ceiling was somewhat lower back then. I would think I find that ‘someone’, marriage, kids, and maybe I would have kept the job in some way but bought up the kids and left a fairly straightforward life.
Now the kids would be grown up it would be grand kids. I may live a comfortable life so able to afford nice clothes and keep myself looking good.
So how has it panned out in reality?
I liked pretty clothes at the start but I chose a different career and path to retirement. So now retired what is life like? I do live a comfortable life but without a partner,nor kids but nieces, nephews great nieces who like Aunty Angela. I have a little job, have coffee with the girls, afford nice clothes and like to look good.
Two different paths to the same end, who would have guessed!
There’s an awful lot of wriggle room in your proposition, Carmen. I’ll just state the case against pure binary. Or some would say I was just being contrary. No need to take it too seriously, it’s just a thought experiment.
Of course we have all grown up in our own unique social norms and environments. But assuming it was the same ‘me’ inside a female body, it would gradually dawn on me that I wasn’t totally comfortable being trapped in one sex and therefore assumed or expected (in those days) to dress and behave in an appropriate binary way. I’d possibly have wanted to express a male gender to some extent too, and maybe become a tomboy and get labelled as such ( bear in mind I’m talking 50s/ early 60s as a growing up age)
As a female I’d possibly get more frustrated as I grew up at the inequality of sexes in society. I’d start to get antsi about being treated as a de facto second class citizen by society in general. For example I might not, as a young woman, have been allowed to go to university (even though I was good at math), although I might have been encouraged to work in a bank (because I was good at math) until I got married and started dropping kids.
I’d possibly have become a feminist by this point.
I’d possibly have calmed down in time 😉
Marti xxx
I’ve wondered about this many times. I don’t think that I would have accomplished what I have, if I had been female from the start. Looking back, I think that I pushed myself into work to help diffused my anxiety over my wanting to CD. Certainly, having two daughters kept me busy too. Perhaps I wouldn’t have pushed so hard and taken more time for the softer things in life.
Who knows, It is what it is.
I can’t even answer the, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”questions in employment interviews. How the heck would I know what 58-year old Raquel would be, had I been born female. 😆
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I don’t think your question can be answered honestly because if I had been born a female then every one of my experiences and expectations would come from a females point of view physically and mentally which is the total opposite of being born a male. Apples and oranges.
I don’t think I can assume that I would have cross dressing desires as a female or really appreciate being a female as I do now. Would I have the same temperament? Would I have the same motivation? Would I want to be a homemaker or have a career? I can only guess.
Now thaaaaat’s an interesting question. I’d like to think I’d essentially be the same. Maybe have a similar personality and maybe have similar interests, though some of my interests might not have been encouraged if I had been a girl. I have a feeling my parents would have steered me towards more what was socially acceptable for girls in the 90s. I might not have had to hide some of the more feminine interests I have now, though.
I’d certainly have anxieties, probably different ones. I’m sure a lot of them would stem from having to compete with my younger sister, who would probably still be prettier and more outgoing than me. If I’d had a little brother, that would be competition of a completely different sort.
Hi Carmen,
Well, like others here, it’s sort of difficult to answer with any kind of decent degree of certainty, as entire expectations of me would have been vastly different. Instead of the middle of 3 boys, I would have probably been the original daughter my mother had sort of wanted and that might have impacted her desire to get pregnant again that resulted in another boy. (after our father died tragically, she remarried and had two daughters so she got her probable wish, and they both turned out quite decent although totally different lifestyles and dreams). And that might have seriously impacted the untimely death of my father. But assuming it didn’t and there was a younger brother and eventually 2 younger sisters this is how it might have played out.
First, our eventual stepfather would never have treated me the way he did (I mean, I was the whipping boy for any issues that arose). I suspect our mother would have wanted to be ‘friends’ with me and would have kept me reasonably dressed in current styles, confided in me, shared, encouraged me to help around the house. Either or both of my two sisters may never have arrived, although if one or both or another boy came along, I would have been the live-in babysitter and 2nd in caring for them, and maybe tried to help them experience their own girlness.
Of course, as my life did in fact turn out, I spent a lot of time caring for and helping care, not only my two younger sisters (I was 10 and 12 when they arrived), but also for my and my spouses’ infant children, being involved in significant parts of their lives. That easily would have continued with my own had I been a mother.
I had a good number of close-aged boys and girls to play with, in my early adolescent years, so I would have most likely gravitated to being good friends with the girls around us. That could easily have led to being accepted into one of the early ‘cliques’ that were so prevalent in the 50’s and 60’s (maybe even today, I have no current reference point). I say this because it was also quite obvious that in my home town there were at least 2 girls in my class (of about 200 total), who weren’t ever accepted and were treated very badly. I have no idea how I would have dealt with that.
I probably would have taken classes to be a teacher, maybe even used my ability to learn somewhat better than I did (things like that are always up for question), especially if I continued in college. Or I would have entered the workforce probably in some kind of clerical position.
I would have dated, and then married and had kids, two or 3 depending, possibly taken part time jobs, and now I’d be a grandmother trying to spoil my grandkids.
But this all does border on wish fulfillment. It’s really hard to have any kind of definite idea.
(p.s. above I alluded to a series of events that I’ve seldom if at all, elaborated on here, that depending on what the proclivities were of any therapist I might have ever confided in, one could possibly use that to argue for the nurture side of the our nurture vs. nature reason for us being the way we are. But that’s another story. I believe it to be nature intially, as nurture does affect things, but I realize it all is still up for differing opinions.)
Hugs, ChloeC
Hard question to answer. I think I’d be mostly the same. I still would’ve been an outsider in school, probably into the same geeky things I’m into as it is, likely would’ve taken similar ups and downs in my career and life path.
I only wish I’d known what gender fluid meant when I was younger. I’m coming around to accepting that as my identity, and perhaps I would’ve been happier accepting that earlier. Sometimes I wish I’d been born a woman.
Xoxo,
Dani
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