I don’t expect that this will be particularly reassuring, but I’m a cis woman who heavily relates to many of the bad feels you describe wrt your self image: I often feel like I’m crushed by the pressure of gendered expectations, and that I am failing at being a woman. Of course, I know the sensible thing would be to break free of the misogynistic standards that I will never fit neatly into, and to present in a way that’s most authentic to who I feel I am. Alas, doing that is harder than it sounds, because any self image I may try to build for myself will be inevitably tainted by my knowledge of how the world sees me.
Some days I feel better about myself, but there are many more where I am reminded of how internalised misogyny and queerphobia I need to unpack. Part of why I love being in community with trans folk (especially trans women) is that I feel more free to explore how I want to present myself to the world, rather than feeling like I’m failing at being a woman.
Your relationship with your body will be quite different than my own, but in one of your comments on this post, you acknowledged that you probably don’t look as bad as you feel (but you still feel bad tho). That was really relatable to me, and why I wrote this comment. I hope the solidarity helps somewhat.
I don’t expect that this will be particularly reassuring, but I’m a cis woman who heavily relates to many of the bad feels you describe wrt your self image: I often feel like I’m crushed by the pressure of gendered expectations, and that I am failing at being a woman. Of course, I know the sensible thing would be to break free of the misogynistic standards that I will never fit neatly into, and to present in a way that’s most authentic to who I feel I am. Alas, doing that is harder than it sounds, because any self image I may try to build for myself will be inevitably tainted by my knowledge of how the world sees me.
Some days I feel better about myself, but there are many more where I am reminded of how internalised misogyny and queerphobia I need to unpack. Part of why I love being in community with trans folk (especially trans women) is that I feel more free to explore how I want to present myself to the world, rather than feeling like I’m failing at being a woman.
Your relationship with your body will be quite different than my own, but in one of your comments on this post, you acknowledged that you probably don’t look as bad as you feel (but you still feel bad tho). That was really relatable to me, and why I wrote this comment. I hope the solidarity helps somewhat.