Megan, I think our understanding of the word "feel" may be different, and that might be why we're not on the same page yet. What does "feel" actually mean to you? To me, "feel" is very abstract:Originally Posted by Megan G
- It can mean my "inner" feeling, e.g. feel happy, feel sad, feel frustrated, feel excited, feel lucky, feel bad, feel neutral.
- At the same time, it could also mean my "exterior" feeling, specifically five senses e.g. feel pain, feel cold, feel hurt, feel relaxed, feel smelly, feel dark/bright, feel loud, feel quiet.
And so that's why "I feel like a woman" can mean "I look like a woman", implicitly for some of us, but apparently not clear to others.
In the Tom example, yes I agree Tom would probably not "feel" any differently when wearing green shirt. But, we're not talking about his "inner" feeling. When one says "I feel like Tom when I wear green shirt", one just refers to the "look feeling", aka "I look like Tom".
So, I completely agree with you that there's no way people who's never lived full time as a woman will ever know how woman life feels like. Let me emphasize again, I completely and totally agree with the point that people who's never lived full time as a woman will ever know or feel what it's like to be a woman.
But again, "feel like a woman" doesn't really mean one has the "inner" feeling of being a woman. Let's not jump to that conclusion. I mean, yes, it can mean that way, but not 100% of the time when people say it. As you may already see from the other thread, some people use "feel like a woman" as a meaning to say "I look like a woman".
My point is, assuming one says "feel like a woman" and intend to mean "I have an inner feeling of a woman", I agree that that's not valid for a male to say that.
However, assuming one says "feel like a woman" and intend to mean "I look like a woman", then it should be fine, at least that's what I think.
Now, the question is, assuming "feel like a woman" means "I look like a woman", would this still imply reducing woman to exterior thing still in your opinion? IMO, I don't see the reasoning to imply that, at least not yet. I really don't know how woman perspective thinks of this and I'm curious to know the reasoning behind it.
Thanks for the easy version of the explanation of "lived gender identities", Megan. I can see how I can relate to the "age" example. So according to this logic, if a male were to be magically transformed to female suddenly, that person would not be a woman, but still a man, am I correct? That makes sense. But I think there's more perspective to this.
First, I agree that in this case, that person would still identify himself to still be a man (in female body). I have watched some anime that's like this before, like the main guy got transformed into a girl and would still act normally like how he's used to be male. However, what about how other people see that person? I think, IMO, that other people will see that person as a woman, because of the image perceived by public eyes. However "manly" that person might act, other people would still see him as a woman. Conversely, let's say if there's a female magically transformed into a male, she would still think she is a woman (in male body). But other people will see her as a man as that's her image, regardless of how "girly" she might act.
So, what exactly is "woman" or "man" then? I find this very interesting because when you view it from yourself, you would say it depends on lived experience. But from other people who look at you, it rather depends on your image, again, in my opinion.
Now, I'm wondering what others may be thinking of this new perspective of "woman" and "man" from public eyes. Can we still apply the "lived experience" to the person to say if he/she is a man/woman? This is very confusing, and interesting
- Bonnie
