I appreciate that we can all be made to feel "less than", but there is a reason why there is no phrase like "... she was effeminated." That word does not exist because our experiences are not analogous.
There is no analogous experience that men have that compares to giving birth.
This is why it is important to accept and appreciate 'the other' for what they are.
The reason no word exists is not because the experience does not exist. That women can be stripped of their feminine role and therefore feminine value does not mean that being emasculated is lesser.
Giving birth is a physical experience. You are creating another human life with your body, and subsequently, a child is leaving your body through your vaginal canal. Of course men cannot experience that.
Not living up to gendered and sexual expectations can be and in fact is a shared experience.
"That women can be stripped of their feminine role and therefore feminine value does not mean that being emasculated is lesser."
People can be "stripped" of all sorts of things that make them feel all sorts of ways, but our experiences are not analogous.
"Giving birth is a physical experience. You are creating another human life with your body, and subsequently, a child is leaving your body through your vaginal canal. Of course men cannot experience that."
Almost everything that a woman experiences and all of the emotional and psychic impacts that come from pregnancy and childbirth is something that a man will never, truly, be able to appreciate. And that is OK. We are different. Our differences, by and large, make us more attractive to, and complement, one another.
I'll say it again, our experiences are not analogous.
I'm not arguing that men and women are carbon copies. What I'm saying is that both gender roles come with expectations, and failing to meet those expectations carries unique burdens for both sexes. It's not worse for men.
Yes, men cannot give birth - that's a physical reality, not an emotional experience. You don't create life with your body. But women can profoundly fail to meet society's idea of womanhood, and it's unbelievably painful and causes immense existential angst.
The notion that women don't have an equivalent to emasculation is simply false. The difference is that it's often invisible or dismissed by society at large, especially in the last decade. I don't know where right-wing men got the idea that being a woman who fails at a still fairly narrow idea of womanhood is "easy." That's not the reality. And to the extent the berth of possible identities has widened - it's widened for both sexes.
I'm saying this partly for the benefit of those reading along, because I know that no matter what I say or how I explain it, some will remain set in their ways. For some reason, in popular imagination, it's always "Women live on easy street and every woman has sexual power." Feminist overreach exists - that doesn't make being a woman easy or every woman desirable or every woman powerful.
>There is no Female version of being Emasculated, which is that word only exists for men
there is, and it is to be made to feel like you are somehow less than a woman
I appreciate that we can all be made to feel "less than", but there is a reason why there is no phrase like "... she was effeminated." That word does not exist because our experiences are not analogous.
There is no analogous experience that men have that compares to giving birth.
This is why it is important to accept and appreciate 'the other' for what they are.
Vive la différence.
This reminds me of women who claimed that they have a prostate too ...
The reason no word exists is not because the experience does not exist. That women can be stripped of their feminine role and therefore feminine value does not mean that being emasculated is lesser.
Giving birth is a physical experience. You are creating another human life with your body, and subsequently, a child is leaving your body through your vaginal canal. Of course men cannot experience that.
Not living up to gendered and sexual expectations can be and in fact is a shared experience.
"That women can be stripped of their feminine role and therefore feminine value does not mean that being emasculated is lesser."
People can be "stripped" of all sorts of things that make them feel all sorts of ways, but our experiences are not analogous.
"Giving birth is a physical experience. You are creating another human life with your body, and subsequently, a child is leaving your body through your vaginal canal. Of course men cannot experience that."
Almost everything that a woman experiences and all of the emotional and psychic impacts that come from pregnancy and childbirth is something that a man will never, truly, be able to appreciate. And that is OK. We are different. Our differences, by and large, make us more attractive to, and complement, one another.
I'll say it again, our experiences are not analogous.
I'm not arguing that men and women are carbon copies. What I'm saying is that both gender roles come with expectations, and failing to meet those expectations carries unique burdens for both sexes. It's not worse for men.
Yes, men cannot give birth - that's a physical reality, not an emotional experience. You don't create life with your body. But women can profoundly fail to meet society's idea of womanhood, and it's unbelievably painful and causes immense existential angst.
The notion that women don't have an equivalent to emasculation is simply false. The difference is that it's often invisible or dismissed by society at large, especially in the last decade. I don't know where right-wing men got the idea that being a woman who fails at a still fairly narrow idea of womanhood is "easy." That's not the reality. And to the extent the berth of possible identities has widened - it's widened for both sexes.
I'm saying this partly for the benefit of those reading along, because I know that no matter what I say or how I explain it, some will remain set in their ways. For some reason, in popular imagination, it's always "Women live on easy street and every woman has sexual power." Feminist overreach exists - that doesn't make being a woman easy or every woman desirable or every woman powerful.