What makes a woman

I feel really passionate about the need for good access to abortion services. I always have, but I've felt the need to speak out a bit more about it since I heard an anti-abortion argument (sorry, I can't remember where) saying "try telling a woman who has just had a miscarriage that what she lost wasn't a baby".  As a woman who had recently had a miscarriage at the time, I hated being used in this way.  (I know that the definition of "the beginning of life" is something that is inherently tied up in the abortion debate for many, but that is a post for another day).  That is why I jumped in feet first with my letter the other day.

I have realised that I didn't do nearly enough reading of other people's blogs before jumping in.  I was so passionate about adding my voice to the chorus, that I didn't even stop to think about whether or not it was a good idea.  Quiet Riot Girl made some good point against the letters (http://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/dear-nadine-dorries/).  On the whole, I think it was a good idea (I don't think any of the letters have descended into personal insults, and I certainly didn't write my letter expecting Nadine Dorries to even read it, let alone change her mind).  But what I really wanted to blog about today was Quiet Riot Girl's interpretation that the letters characterised the "identity of woman as ‘she who has a womb'".

What makes someone a woman is something I have though about a lot lately.  I don't profess to have any answers, and generally, I would prefer the thing(s) that defines someone as a woman is that someone ascribing that identity to themselves.  But as someone to does self-describe as a woman, even I'm not that sure.

I have always considered myself to be female.  I am unambiguously biologically female.  I have the sort of body that is associated with women: I have large breasts, large hips, a not quite as small as I'd like waist, etc. But I have spent a lot of my life partially wishing that I was a man.  As a teenager (17yo), I even toyed with the idea of trying to pass as a man.  I chose a gender ambiguous shortening of my name (which I still use), but by then I already had the sort of body that was never going to look masculine without surgery (no amount of binding is ever going to hide my boobs!).  You see, for the first time in my life, I was beginning to encounter sexism. I am incredibly lucky that my family is very supportive, and I was raised in an environment that was mostly gender neutral.  Which is in part why I didn't have second thoughts about choosing a career and a life as an engineer. 

And that was when the sexism became a part of my life.  I lived in a fairly small country town, so lots of people knew I'd be finishing school that year.  A taxi driver asked what I wanted to do when I finished school and  I told him I was going to study engineering. His response was "isn't that a bit hard for a girl?"  I curtly told him "no, it's not" and the rest of the journey was spent in uncomfortable silence.  At our final school assembly, each graduating student was presented in turn with their certificate, and something small was said about them.  While a few of the boys were going to be engineers, they said only that I wanted to be one. And I started to think, "if only I could be treated like a boy".

I'm still an engineer, and I still encounter levels of sexism that I think would shock most people.  But I mostly put my gender to the back of my mind and get on with life.  Between my work and my hobbies (I'm a big nerd), most of my life has been spent in hugely male dominated situations.  I suppose I had begun to think of myself as genderless and generally hating my body  (being both female and overweight).  My gender wasn't that important to me. I believe that gender should be irrelevant in almost all situations. I think of sexism as gender being brought into a situation where it doesn't belong.  Hence, I think of myself as feminist. I admit, I haven't done much reading bout or studying of feminism, and I know that I should.  I suppose I have always excused myself by telling myself that my continued career in a very male dominated (and far too often sexist) industry was me doing my part in the fight for gender equality.

But I digress. As I said, my gender wasn't that important to my identity, that is, until my husband and I decided that we wanted to have a child.  This was the first situation I've been in where being female had to matter.  In my mind, it is the first "womanly" thing I have tried to do.

I'm someone who likes to do my research.  I knew the statistics about conception.  I knew my family history.  I starting taking folic acid supplements 3 months before having my implanon removed.  It was 11 and a half months before I finally go a positive pregnancy test.  I knew this was still within the "normal range", but it was still disheartening.  I found the miscarriage to be devastating, but it was just one of those unlucky things.  Another year and a half (and another miscarriage) later and I'm not currently pregnant.  I still don't have any children.  I am apparently still just at the unlucky end of "normal".

I feel like a failure of as a woman. Childbearing was the one "female" thing I've wanted or tried to do.  And I'm failing at it (did I mention my perfectionist tendencies).  I've watched many friends and relatives fall pregnant and have children over these last two and a half years with varying degrees of ease. But for all my efforts and heartache, I can't seem to reproduce.

So am I only a woman because I have a functioning womb (and by corollary, if I can't spawn my own offspring, am I not a woman)?  Although I sometimes find myself wishing that, it clearly isn't true.  Am I a woman because I look like I should have a womb (of some functionality)? Maybe, certainly I am treated differently to my colleagues based on appearance.  Am I a woman because I want to be? Certainly not. I am not some sort of deity whose desires and whims can directly affect reality.  I did say at the start that I didn't have any answers.

Quiet Riot Girl is right, in that I did use "woman" as short-hand for "uterus owner" in my letter.  I do feel bad for potentially excluding male identifying uterus owners.  They have the right to access abortion services just as much as female identifying uterus owners.  I let my own messed up gender identity thoughts get in the way.  Sorry.  I hope the message (about access to abortion, rather than gender-pigeon-holing) was clear.

More letters to Nadine Dorries

Stavvers has created a masterlist of letters to Nadine Dorries:
https://stavvers.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/letters-to-nadine-dorries-masterlist/

I would highly recommend each and every one!

Inspired by Stavvers

Inspired by Stavvers (https://stavvers.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/dear-nadine-dorries/), here is my own letter to Nadine Dorries:

Dear Nadine,

By now I hope you have read a few of the letters people have been writing to you about their uteruses.  The ones I have seen have been by people generally happy with, if a little disinterested in their wombs, so I though I might liven up your day by telling you about mine; my uterus and I are currently in the midst of a long standing argument.

You see, I would love to have children.  Not some day in the future, right now.  But for the last two and a half years that I have been trying to conceive, my uterus has been refusing to cooperate.  It ovulates (maybe my ovaries are on my side), it mensturates with reasonable regularity (although we are aruging about that too), and it has even managed to become pregnant twice!  Unfortunately both pregnancies have ended in miscarriage.  Not that my uterus told me!  That's right, I continued along being pregnant, even though the embryo/fetus was no longer viable.

That is how I ended up in day surgery having a procedure that is remarkably similar to an early abortion (the primary difference being that there was no possibility of my pregnancy resulting in a live birth).  I remember lying in my bed, waiting for the surgeon, and thinking "at least I can access this service with the minumum of fuss.  How terrible it must be to be trying to access the same procedure for an abortion, and having all the bureaucracy against you".

During the process of losing my much wanted pregnancies, I never lost my conviction about a woman's right to choose, nor in our ability to make such decisions for ourselves.  I really don't understand why you think we can't.

My experiences have been quite traumatic.  There are a selection of counselling services that were available to me (NHS and private), however I have decided for myself not to use them.  I would hate to have had them forced upon me.  There is nothing fundamemtal about me (not even that I am a woman) that renders me unable to make rational decisions about my own physical and mental health.  I am sure that this is equally true of women seeking abortions.

Abortion is not easy.  Pregnancy is not easy.  Once women find themselves in the difficult situation of being pregnant in an unplanned manner, why would you want to make things harder for them by increasing the red tape?  If you were really concerned about women, shouldn't your focus be on providing better access to sex education and contraceptives, thereby reducing the likelilhood of women ending up unexpectedly pregnant in the first place?

While you ponder that, I'm going back to arguing with my uterus; it has just decided to menstruate again!

Your sincerly,
Emelyn

2/9/11 ETA : In response to Quiet Riot Girl's letter I have added another post.  My use of woman in this letter was not meant to be exclusive.  Please don't take it that way.