-
I looked like a 10 year old girl the entire time I was in school and didn't attract any boys. My breasts only started growing after I graduated from high school and they're still small. I still look underage and still don't attract any men my age. I have never known a man to call me beautiful or hold the door for me, I don't know how to flirt and I can't imagine myself doing it.
-
My mother always did all the work for me. Even when I was going to wash the dishes myself, shed snatch the plate out of my hands and wash it herself. Yes, I was the problem too, I wasn't persistent enough, but I was a lazy and apathetic child, and if someone did something for me, I never minded. Especially when my mother did it, it seemed natural to me. I didn't know that many girls my age already knew how to cook. Now I have to learn all of it myself and I feel incredibly pathetic as a woman.
-
This close bond between mother and daughter is alien to me. I've never been close to my mother, I almost never shared my feelings with her. Partly this is because of my school years, when I had problems with other kids, and I didn't say anything to her so as not to upset her. And also, we are just very different people. She is very sociable, likes to talk for hours without expressing a single complete thought. I feel like a terrible daughter, but I just have a hard time to tolerate it, I tried, but I can't. I communicate much better with my father.
-
I dont know how to look good. When all the girls in my school wore makeup, I didn't have any. When I was finally able to buy it myself, I looked really ridiculous. So much time has passed, and I still can't put makeup on well on this face. When I buy clothes for myself, they look stupid, it seems like I have no idea what suits me and what doesn't, and I don't know how to combine them well. I even watched video tutorials on this, but it doesn't help. I'm always amazed by schoolgirls with good makeup and stylish clothes. It's as if other girls have some kind of innate talent for it, but I don't.
There's a lot more I could say, but that's the gist of it. I don't know what to do, and I'd like to hear what other women with similar experiences think, but I wouldn't mind hearing what men think, too.
Your ability to get sexualized/ male attention does not make you more or less of a woman, more or less beautiful, or more or less worthy. Simply put, take them out of the equation of your self-worth. Small or big, you’ve got what you’ve got. And a lot of us struggle with feelings about this.
Your ability to engage in domestic chores does not make your more or less of a woman. I can understand from the perspective of wanting to help out with chores but household tasks are not “women jobs” by default although a lot of people are raised to think this way. I honestly don’t trust anyone with my happiness if they pretend like they can’t do domestic work.
This one is so hard. Mother/daughter relationships have the same issues a lot of our relationships have except many of us always want our mothers no matter how they may make us feel or whether what they want for us is objectively good. Don’t feel like this being hard is a reflection of you, a lot of people genuinely struggle with this one.
Make-up is another one of those things that doesn’t make you a woman. A lot of what your see online is super high maintenance stuff. Most people were minimal makeup. Many of us don’t wear it every day. If you’re chasing beauty standards of people you see online you will probably always be knocking yourself. Between filters and heavy makeup and most of this stuff is fake.
I tried to go point by point of your thoughts here. But my main takeaway is I hope you can come to a point where you realize external things don’t make you a woman. You are a woman. Lack of third party validation doesn’t change that. Being sexualized doesn’t change that. Being a good homemaker doesn’t change that. Personally I would fail 3/4 of your points here.
I admit that I am a bit gender non-conforming and my relationship with gender is mostly ehh.
That said I also “fail” three out of four points on a good day and society/the world has no problem fairly consistently treating me as a woman.