How different do you think it'd be psychologically to be the other gender? (men, woman)

[Trimac20]

Most of the people asking what it'd like to be a women focus on things like sex and childbirth, but I want to focus on the psychological aspect of it. Many transexuals claim that from a young age they 'felt they were born in the wrong body' or the wrong body, and cite things like playing with dolls or being a tomboy as reasons. Although impossible to quantify, how different do you think your conscious experience of the world would be if you were a man vs a woman or vice versa? Do you think individual/personal differences are greater, or all women or all men sort of share more similar experiences?

In real terms, the biggest difference I think would be how society treated you. Since I'm not trans and I don't plan to go out in drag trying to pass as a woman, the closest I can do is do experiments in online chat rooms or random chat clients pretending to be a female character. Or writing as a female character in a novel. The only thing I get really gain from this is how annoying it is being hit on by males. To an extent where you become bitchy and begin to look down on them!

I guess what I'm trying to say is, what specifically speaking makes you feel male, or have a male brain? Good spatial capabilities? Would the female experience be just the same as the male one except you're more emotional or whatever? Some men are emotional and into 'female' things like baking cakes or growing flowers or something. I wonder if it's ALL conditioned, and transexuals were maybe SOCIALISED to be the other gender, somehow?

But yeah this question is wider than just transexuals, but the question of gender experience or 'identity' as a whole.

[Billy_J]

I got dressed up as a woman for Halloween once... I'll NEVER do that again!

It took me FOUR HOURS to put all the makeup on and so forth on - do the nails, etc. (I did the whole bit).

Then I thought the eyelashes were self-adhesive - did not know you need glue or whatever to make them stick, so had to run to the store to get that - but had 3 guys at the store volunteering to help me! (I kept my mustache on, hairy legs, and chest hair, so they knew I was really a guy.)

Then I am 6 ft. and have size 12 feet. Finding high heals that size was almost impossible! Then they only lasted 2 hours before the heals broke off! Man were my feet sore! (I spent the rest of the night walking around barefoot.)

Anyway once I was dressed up, it was really weird having guys whistle at me and so forth. Feel my "balloon" boobs. (Normally they ignore me.) But I could see where that could get old fast.

And the prices on woman's clothes are MUCH higher than men's. Note the lady at the dress shop said she liked it when men came in to buy dresses for Halloween. She said we quickly buy something whereas women can take forever to make up their minds and may buy nothing after being there a long time and trying everything on.

Anyway I'm much happier to go back to being a guy - buying $5 T-shirts, getting fully dressed in 2 minutes, and wearing shoes which last 6 months or longer! Also I prefer to have men mostly ignore me. Probably because I am used to that? But I wouldn't like it if I needed to run to the store quickly and had things to do, but was stopped several times by guys wanting to chat or whatever. It is nice to be able to run in to the store and get out quickly!

[Gudra]

Billy, you should have shaved and then you would know how it is REALLY like being female. MANY MAN,even the nice ones, usually think women are exaggerating and illogical (being men they don't get patronised, etc so can't or won't relate) plus most of them were brought up by their traditional mums who never taught them about women ,were illogical themselves and who couldn't get anything done from their men except thru manipulation and sex.So somehow these men also pick women like their mums thus ''CONFIRMING' the truth about women!

[dub dub II]

I think I'm more ok with being perceived of as wrong. So many women will complain about so and so thinking such and such and I'm usually not sure why they're upset as much as they are.

That and when I say 'Lets leave' I'm expecting you to be walking out the door. I can't tell you how many times I've been told 'we're leaving' only to find myself alone in the car wondering where the hell she is..

So I think that socially it'd be different, and also time wise. I think I'd have a larger network, as they seem to do, and that time wouldn't just be a->b.

[mordant]

I think that the stew of hormones you sit in all your life influences a great deal of how you perceive and sense things. Then the culture treats you different and widens the gap.

dub dub, I have also consistently experienced the phenomenon that "we're leaving" means something very different to a woman, but I think that's mostly because society (especially other women) judge women so harshly about superficialities of appearance and so they never quite feel fully read to go out and face the firing squad, so to speak. I am not only a dude, but a geek (software developer) and I get SUCH a free pass, it's not even funny. I try to keep that in mind when I'm cooling my heels in the foyer ...

[GINGERSNAP1963]

Originally Posted by Gudra

Billy, you should have shaved and then you would know how it is REALLY like being female. MANY MAN,even the nice ones, usually think women are exaggerating and illogical (being men they don't get patronised, etc so can't or won't relate) plus most of them were brought up by their traditional mums who never taught them about women ,were illogical themselves and who couldn't get anything done from their men except thru manipulation and sex.So somehow these men also pick women like their mums thus ''CONFIRMING' the truth about women!

Oh Gudra, you hit the nail on the head. I agree with everything you said.

All I was going to say was that I'd miss my emotions if I became a man. But I'd love to be able focus without a zillion things zipping through my mind - as it does with most women. I think its been proven that a woman does not think in a literal line, her thoughts zig zag from one side to the other while the man's just goes straight. Yet, now that I think about it, how can you come up with a valid answer if you haven't included all the variables into the equation? If your mind doesn't leap across the valley to check out the other side when making a decision, your summation is neither perfect nor correct. (Now this does not include math, some sciences, or a question that does not require any emotion.)

Ok nuff said, I'll go with my original statement of missing my emotions, but for another reason now. Plus what Gudra said.

I'm not bashing men, they're great and there are reasons why we're so different, frustating as it is, it needs to be this way.

[Trimac20]

Men lack emotions? Men never get patronised? That's news to me, and makes me wonder how women really think of men, based on the few men they know. Also the idea that women are totally irrational beings - I've met men who are just as irrational. I'm beginning to think individual differences far outweigh general gender differences.

[MikeNigh]

I think plainly the physical differences in the sexes are the root of all the differences. Women have children so at some point in their lives they MUST be taken of. Because of this no matter what they are predisposition at least a little bit to expect from men. However how much they "need to depend" and how much men "need to give" can go out of control. The dependency is what causes women to have better skills socially and men to have better skills vs nature.

Once all that barrel-rolls there sets off different culture for the two sexes. Once any wedge, no matter how small is driven at the root, there becomes a significant difference when it grows outwards. Three things evolve in human nature, genes, an individual over time, and cultural. Culture is as much of who we are as our physical self, but it is the part that is transient.

[GINGERSNAP1963]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

Men lack emotions? Men never get patronised? That's news to me

HA HA HA HA, you have no idea what it's like to be patronized! No idea what so ever. That was just a little sample deary. Men are only now beginning to feel the backlash of their own evils from thousands of years of oppressing females. It's rather frustating and painful when you're on the receiving end of it, isn't it? Too bad it is modern man, who are generally more compassionate towards women, that are the ones taking the brunt of punishment for what your forefather's did to us. But it is also how we teach you to be more considerate, obviously talking to you never changed your thinking. Maybe that's because men rarely, if ever, still truly listen to women. Ask any married woman if this is true or not.

And we all know men have had to squish their emotions down so that they can survive in this world - as a man. I think it comes from eons worth of doing this that it is now apart of a man's inherited brain structure. Men can't help it, it was women who pushed them into slaying the big saber tooth tiger for us so we must reap what we've sown.

As in the one poster who said women are more likely to desire both monetary support and physical protection from a man. You men sowed those seeds into us for thousands of years to keep us oppressed, now reap your crops, sweeties.

In other words, the very traits we dislike most in each other are ones we initially sewed into each other's nature. So basically, no one can point the finger at the other sex.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by GINGERSNAP1963

HA HA HA HA, you have no idea what it's like to be patronized! No idea what so ever. That was just a little sample deary. Men are only now beginning to feel the backlash of their own evils from thousands of years of oppressing females. It's rather frustating and painful when you're on the receiving end of it, isn't it? Too bad it is modern man, who are generally more compassionate towards women, that are the ones taking the brunt of punishment for what your forefather's did to us. But it is also how we teach you to be more considerate, obviously talking to you never changed your thinking. Maybe that's because men rarely, if ever, still truly listen to women. Ask any married woman if this is true or not.

And we all know men have had to squish their emotions down so that they can survive in this world - as a man. I think it comes from eons worth of doing this that it is now apart of a man's inherited brain structure. Men can't help it, it was women who pushed them into slaying the big saber tooth tiger for us so we must reap what we've sown.

As in the one poster who said women are more likely to desire both monetary support and physical protection from a man. You men sowed those seeds into us for thousands of years to keep us oppressed, now reap your crops, sweeties.

In other words, the very traits we dislike most in each other are ones we initially sewed into each other's nature. So basically, no one can point the finger at the other sex.

You sound like you've got a huge chip on your back and see all men as the enemy. I no more represent all men than Hitler represents all humans. It seems you have an extremely simplistic view of the world. Getting revenge for what my forefathers did to you? As if I should feel guilty for things outside of my control? Let me ask you, are you Native American? When was the last time you went to your local chief and grovelled at his feet for forgiveness?

Spouting ignorance to get back at what you see as oppressed just shows you're childish. Of course men have emotions, and you know it. And honestly, I have no idea what it's like to be patronized? Have you realised that women are not the sole unique group in the history of the world to be spoken down to and in fact, people get spoken down to all the time for all kinds of things? You know nothing about me or what I've experienced. Having a vagina doesn't automatically give you a monopoly on victimhood honey, or give you free reign to be a jerk to people.