Wanting only the best parts of female 'privilege'

[phili]

I thank everyone for the storms of protest. It helped me see how I developed my theory of assigned male and female powers and privileges, coupled with dreadful requirements and repressions, as a social bargain.

I was raised in the 50s, in the postwar baby boom, and my family was very structured around there being 'no rights', only duties, and everything nice was a privilege to be 'earned/(conferred)' or , if assigned, maintained by compliant behavior. my theory has held very well over time, but it is theoretical, and obviously most people here have other ways to think about the subject of privilege.

I was very aware of the intense suppression of the humanity of females in all ways except emotional range. I saw that many, if not most, women suffered more, and more obviously, than men. I was glad that as they grew up many fortunately found ways to adapt and expand and feel successful in the social and personal spaces left open for them. The brutal formality was also reflected in women's right to order men around in certain ways.

Then, with the onset of birth control and middle class wealth, and with the urging of Mad Men style advertising, women tried to make a go of being vixens or cute nice girls. I think I felt like so many girls that somehow I had to be like the magazine and TV idealizations. I knew on one level that beauty is only skin deep, and I would never be beautiful, but I could at least be carefree for ...a few moments?

As a male I had many more freedoms [privileges- in my lexicon] than females- that was obvious- and to keep them I just had to keep proving I was a man. Other men threatened violence on interloping women, while I identified with girls as freer human beings in the emotional realm. They had the privilege of being able to feel, to cry, to be compassionate and talk honestly with each other- ..which were more important to me than the moisturizing and giggling and twirling. I couldn't ask for help to save me life. A psychologist in college once told me I was so bottled up I coudn't say s**t if I had a mouthful."

I am only now gradually seeing and understanding all these things as just normal human activity that I was denied. Yes, I am still holding on to my lifeline of crossdressing. my way to jump in and claim space on the [ok imaginary, perhaps] women's team, in the privacy of my own little world. Until the day i don't need to anymore, if that day comes.

Women's liberation in the 70s started the long march for women to claim their full range of personal freedom. The glass ceiling is crumbling, very slowly. Few women are wearing dresses now- and seem to feel they may have to explain if they do. I feel my desire waning- ... if no one's wearing dresses any more then it has no meaning beyond the pure physicality.

I know I dress to communicate a healthy feminine sexiness, and that is real. My femininity is innate, but I accept that it may not be different from the average human range. I am gradually morphing into a more well rounded human being and the learned gap I learned to maintain, and the accompanying high tension between my 'man' self and 'woman' self is weakening.

The mysteriousness of the magic of crossdressing is waning. I feel more like I am a woman who is wondering if I want to bother sewing another new outfit, or whether the people I will be with will understand and appreciate my clothing choices, or if it will cause static.

That is a testimony to the fact that I no longer feel I am on the outside and have to have the outfit to be on the inside. Now I am on the inside of 'womanhood'- defined as those things I felt I was denied as a human being. That is all good news.

I started the thread to suggest that any of my fellow crossdressers who, like me, idealize 'the world of women', might find it useful to take another look at that world as a holistic experience. The responses from GGs have admirably helped in that.