I admit that I don’t know if what I feel is right or accurate for any gender I present as. If I am in male mode (essentially presenting as masculine) I just feel like myself, I suppose. I try to be polite and respectful and mind my own business and offer help if I can. Being as tall as I am I think I am an asset to at the grocery store in helping retrieve items from the top shelf for those who are shorter than I am.
But do I FEEL like a man? I have no idea. What is a man “supposed” to feel like?
I often think of the song “Real Men” by Joe Jackson:
What’s a man now? What’s a man mean?
Is he rough or is he rugged?
Is he cultural and clean?
Unless you see me after a few days of feeling too lazy to shave my face, you would hardly call me rugged. I don’t feel I have many characteristics that men in movies are usually portrayed as having. And I know that movies are just meant to be entertainment and are not meant to be the authority when it comes to how a certain gender is “supposed” to be, but I can’t deny the influence they have.
Just as some movies portray girls pining away for a man or obsessed with their looks, movies also reinforce that men are usually strong and stoic or goofy and clueless. Both of these gender portrayals are lazy and if you see them enough I would argue that they can become dangerous, in a way. As someone who borrowed my sister’s clothes whenever I could as I grew up, it didn’t take long for me to think that I was “wrong” in doing so after seeing “boys wearing girl clothes” portrayed as comedic in movies.
I didn’t really care for sports and I didn’t really think flatulence was that funny when I was younger so I didn’t really think I fit in with the other boys who played football and found fart jokes hilarious.
On the opposite end, I didn’t really identify with the way girls were often portrayed in movies, either. I had no interest in finding a man and playing with dolls just seemed kind of boring.
All things considered, I didn’t really have interests that were necessarily “for boys” or “for girls”. I liked to read, I liked art. I still do. You could argue that either of these things, or perhaps both of these things, were “for girls” or “for boys”.
Because of my interests, and because of not really feeling I fit into the typical portrayal of men or women in movies, I felt more or less adrift in what I was “supposed” to feel or want or like. I was untethered, in a way. But I felt free. I didn’t “have” to be anything or anyone. Although society and movies did their best to tell me that although the doctors and my parents said I was a boy I didn’t feel that this silly little detail meant that I couldn’t wear a dress if I wanted to. My perspective was, and still is, that clothes are clothes and the only “rules” about who is “allowed” to wear them are written by humans. There is nothing biological that says that a boy can’t wear a skirt. If it fits, then you can wear it.
I hate the genderification of clothes and anything else, but goodness it feels like most of the world loves this. I suppose there’s comfort in being able to classify things. Something has to be this or that but not something else. Almost everything, whether it’s gender or something else, it is almost always binary. People have to be something. A piece of clothing HAS to be for a boy OR a girl. A person HAS to be a boy or a girl. A person HAS to be straight OR gay. Many people have a challenging time comprehending someone who is bisexual. The idea that something or someone is, well, a third thing, whether it’s a gender identity or a sexual identity, is strange to some.
Which is all very silly.
When I present as feminine, I feel amazing. I feel strong, I feel brave, I feel beautiful. I feel taller than normal (four inch stilettos will do this to a girl). My hair is longer, my lips are a bright red, my heels click on the pavement, the wind reminds me I am wearing a skirt.
When I present as feminine, I feel amazing.
But do I feel like a woman?
I don’t know.
Which might be a little hard to believe. Yes, I am wearing a dress, yes I am wearing eyeshadow, yes my corset and thigh pads are giving me a shapelier figure, but these are not attributes that someone who identifies as a woman has to have. High heels do not a woman make.
When I am en femme, most of the world interacts with me as a woman. I am addressed as “ma’am”, some men hold the door open for me, small gestures like that (although these small gestures are enormously affirming). I feel like a lady.
I am blessed to know so many amazing women in my life. My wife, my mom, my sisters, my colleagues… Beautiful, strong, insightful women. They may experience the world in heels or flats, leggings or a dress. The point is that their wardrobe isn’t necessarily tied to how they identify. My wife doesn’t need to wear stilettos or a minskirt to feel like a woman. But like many women, she is often reminded of her gender identity in different, more subtle ways.
And these are not usually very fun or pleasant or fair or deserved. If she and I have a plumber over to, well, look at the plumbing, they will usually direct most questions and information to me. I barely understand how water magically appears when the faucet is turned on, but my wife knows everything about our home. Similar interactions happen with mechanics and other “man topics”.
In almost all of these interactions I defer to my wife but they keep directing questions to me. It’s hard to say if they are doing this consciously or not. It might be habit, enforced by decades (and longer) of gender stereotypes. I am reminded of a line from the ‘Barbie’ movie: “We’re actually doing patriarchy very well, we’re just better at hiding it.”
This is frustrating and demeaning to my wife. She haaaaates it. I don’t blame her. These conversations are not limited to contractors or mechanics, and she is not alone. Every woman I know has relatable experiences. Sexism appears in other aspects whether it is equal salaries for the same jobs or promotion opportunities.
As someone who presents as male for most of my life, including my professional life, I can’t say that I know what it feels like to be passed over for a promotion or earn less than someone who identifies as a woman who has the same job title and experience as myself.
Of course, it’s hard to “prove” that a woman was denied a promotion because of her gender identity, but statistics offer some insight. According to a March 2024 report by CEO magazine, “Women CEOs remain unsurprisingly underrepresented, accounting for only 5.4 percent of all CEOs globally.”
With statistics like that, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t intentional or a conscious decision. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for a smart, qualified woman to be denied a promotion and wondering if her gender played a role in it. I have been denied opportunities but I have never wondered if my gender was a factor in the decision.
When I started to leave the house en femme, other girls like myself asked what it felt like to be a woman. I didn’t really like this question but I knew what they meant. I mean, I knew what it was like to walk through the mall in heels, I knew what it was like to try to exit a car gracefully in a miniskirt, I knew what it was like to feel the wind in my long hair.
But none of these things are required for a woman. Not every woman wears heels at the mall or has long hair. I know what it’s like to wear heels and a skirt, items typically associated with people who identify as women, but not every woman has these experiences. Thinking that being a woman, feeling like a woman, means stilettos at the mall, trivializes women and what a woman usually experiences.
I don’t present as a woman in my professional life. I don’t know what it feels like to be a woman in a professional career. Ergo, I don’t know how frustrating it must be interrupted by my male colleagues or to be underpaid. These are things many women experience.
In my male life, I have never seen politicians argue about who has a say in my medical decisions. I have never seen a proposed law that impacted by reproductivity rights. Here in the United States this is a topic that is headline news almost every single day. I can’t imagine how pissed off many women are when men on a committee are deciding what she can and can do with her body.
Men in power have a history when it comes to how women are treated and it’s not fair. I imagine that feeling like a woman must also include frustration, anger, humiliation, and embarrassment.
And yes, I know, “not all men”, but I think there’s enough men that have created and have maintained an imbalance of gender equality.