This is the start of some topics about femininity. I'll start with Hair.

Submitted by louiseds on April 18, 2010 - 12:53am
Body: 

What do you think about femininity? What an enormous topic. I have always been a bit of a tomboy, so discovering prolapse suddenly made me sit up and take notice of my female bits. DH and others have told me me that having babies humanised me. I think POP feminised me (weird, I know!).

I think it suddenly gave me a reason for carrying myself in a way that showed that I was definitely female, and the reason was that to maintain my bodily integrity I wanted to retain my uterus and leave my sexual organs unaltered. To do that I had to avoid surgical repairs.

I found that I enjoyed celebrating this new found femininity. I started to enjoy wearing skirts, loving the feeling of swaying fabric, and wearing stretchy, clingy tops. I started to embrace the erotic me. Funny thing to do in my late forties, but there you are! I started bellydance classes as a form of feminine expression.

Then there was the hair. I suddenly wanted long hair again. Lots of it! so here I am, just past menopause, with natural hair with a few grey strands, flowing around my shoulders and down my back, when everyone else is cutting theirs in sensible, short, easycare styles and colouring it to hide the grey! I want long waves, when everybody else wants 'tidy'.

Being a bit 'different' has always been my path, so this is really nothing new. Just wondering whether others have experienced similar self-awareness changes as a result of POP (or maybe it wasn't because of POP?). Maybe they haven't been so positive? Maybe you don't want to speak about your hidden fears and uncertainties. No pressure.

Or maybe it's just same old, same old?

Louise

Aussie Mum

April 19, 2010 - 2:44am

I found pregnancy made me feel the most feminine I ever have! And I have been wanting to wear skirts and dresses - not that I have gone and purchased any yet! I have an urge to dress more feminine in general. I used to be a jeans and t-shirt girl, or tight gym clothing. When I was younger I did a lot of exercise and the focus was to be slim and toned and super fit, and even up till the early stages of pregnancy I was working out a couple of times per week. Now I can hardly do any physical activity so that has changed my focus too. I know in the future I will be able to do more but for now, just the WW when I can fit it in!

Interesting topic Louise, when you have to really think about parts of your femaleness which are not quite right, and then doing the WW posture and exercise which is all about enhancing your feminine shape so you can't help but have more awareness about it. I actually am loving not tucking my butt under anymore - I have lost so much weight I don't actually have much of a butt, and am actually wishing it was a bit bigger!!! So not sure if POP has influenced me much (other than wishing it would go away) , but pregancy and being a mother certainly has.

I am curious how many women on here were full on exercise freaks before their POP...

bad_mirror

April 23, 2010 - 10:03pm

Isn't that what they say about a woman's hair? I've always been a girly-girl on the outside, and a bit of what my DH refers to as "alpha-female" on the inside. I have always described myself as feminine, chosen very typical female jobs, dressed as such. And yet this femininity has indeed experienced a change. How do I explain?

There's an R&B song called Grown Woman. That is what I think has happened to my femininity since having a baby and having POP. It's grown up. I would say that now that the panic, the sadness, the fear has left, that I do feel more in touch with how I am a woman. I feel very in tune with my body, very appreciative of it, and very sexy.

I'm 32. Like you, I want to have long hair again. I want crowning glory, damn it! I want to turn 40 with long, shiny, healthy hair. At 90, I want to be a little old lady with a bun. :-)

louiseds

April 24, 2010 - 10:24am

Yeah, little old ladies with a bun rock! My Mum just turned 98, and now has difficulty on some days getting her now thinning hair into its little french roll, because she forgets how to do it. Sad.

She started growing her hair probably after my Dad died in 1968. Maybe growing your hair is something women do in response to a loss, like it is putting yourself on the map again. Maybe my Mum finally gave up the battle of the perm because it was all too hard. No, I think not. She went from curly perm to concrete beehive, and still needed a perm, and had it washed and set every week by the hairdresser, so it probably wasn't any easier long than shorter.

But it might have been an outward sign of her new start. She was about my age, come to think of it.

Anyway, the carers at her Home periodically suggest that she have it cut short, but I think it would be hard for her to adapt to a new style. I think a woman having to have her hair cut because it is easier for those looking after her is pretty tough. Now she is becoming incontinent, and losing her memory and her ability to converse intelligently, her hair is an important part of her dignity. What do you do to a woman to demoralise her and take away any power she has? You cut her hair, that's what! Not my Mum. She has precious little left of herself now, except her soft, fine, grey, wispy crowning glory. It is like fairy hair, but old. Why should she lose more of herself than old age takes away? I hope I still have long hair at her age.

Louise

Christine

April 24, 2010 - 11:17pm

I have the skinniest braids in the world, but I want to grow them all the way down to the floor....

aza

April 24, 2010 - 11:48pm

I was at the shops today and passed a coffeeshop and was totally struck by a much older woman sitting at a table (pushing 80 I would guess), laughing gaily with her friends, absolutely stunning in her physical and energetic forms in the bright, fresh sunlight. Her hair was shining sliver and curly down her back. She was utterly regal. She was captivating and I was very curious about what they were all finding so funny. I thought of this thread immediately (which is mildly disturbing in and of itself, I find it bizarre when cyberworld and the real world blend!).
I decided I wanted to have hair like hers when I get old.
Then for the next few hours of running errands, I saw many other older women with various shades and style of the same sort of gorgeous hair. No one was even near her age yet none of them were even remotely mesmerising either, not even half the energy as she had. Eyes downcast, tired and sloppy gait, dull skin, sad energy. Don't they know they are royalty? They've lived, they are THERE now. This must be such an incredible time of life, so freeing in so many ways compared to most of us who feel like we are chasing our own tails.
That incredible lightness of being in the curly headed woman...now THAT is what I want, and if I get silver curly hair too, that would be great. But I want that magnetism at being a matriarch at 80 that draws the attention of maiden 34 yr olds when you are simply having coffee on a lazy Sunday morning.
Sorta off topic but had to share :)

bad_mirror

April 25, 2010 - 1:23am

Oh Louise, your Mum sounds precious, not sad. A french roll will be my alternate hairstyle :-). As a nursing student, I have spent many hours working with residents of Homes such as your Mum. I am sorry to hear that her carers suggest a haircut! I have been honored to have been trained by some such workers who realize that dignity is found in such things as hair. A real "moment" for me was watching one of these staff members immaculately braid the hair of a woman who was both blind and stuporous, and probably unaware of anything. Seeing that small but important aspect of dignity preserved was amazing. Not sure where this tangent is going, but you inspired me to share . . . and the thought of having fairy hair is lovely. May we all be so lucky to live to 98 with fairy hair.

Oceanblue

April 25, 2010 - 10:25am

As a child, my Mother always was after me with the scissors, and kept my hair short, much to my dismay.

To this day, I have long hair, keep it trimmed, but now it's longer than ever, because I live in the country. Sometimes my hair is up in a bun, other times, in braids, other times to one side in a long twist, and the very odd time (only inside my housey) it's free and I startle my other half to such an extent, that he suggests that I go to the city to get a proper haircut. Do I comply? No way!

I am grateful that I have hair, and happily style it as I please :)

Ribbit

April 25, 2010 - 10:41am

The same thing has happened to me. I was quite the tomboy growing up with two older brothers, and you'd rarely find me in anything other than the rattiest t-shirt and jeans I could find. After all, I was always in the woods or in the garden, so why look nice? Even at school it was a challenge for me to dress well and keep my hair done.

Since the prolapse, I have had to become more feminine in my dress. I've been looking for longer, flowing, softer fabrics. I still haven't figured out how to make hiking boots work with a skirt, but I'll keep thinkin' on it. ;)

I have a new goal. Instead of having people think of me as "strong" or "hard-working", I now prefer to have them think of me as "lovely". Here's to long hair. :)

kiwigirl

April 26, 2010 - 5:51am

Thanks Louise for this insight .You inspired me to at last log on to this new site......we shared a few comments via email while the site was down.think we must be similar age and likeminded lol I too have longhair and its better than when I was younger.So hooray to us !!!and all the other lovely ladies here. PS don't have long waves tho just straight blondey gray lol

kiwigirl

April 26, 2010 - 6:06am

I was a full on exercise freak before POP.Had partial prolapse after my 3rd baby , 3 days after his birth and didn't realise I mght be aggravating the problem when I started aerobics some time later for 5 years, in between front and backpacking him for over 2years- up and down our hills.That is only a portion of my life of exercise, having done ballet for 10years growing up.And now do 2 other types of dancing.....oh dear.... I shall just have to persevere with WW exercises.

louiseds

April 26, 2010 - 8:56am

Hi Kiwigirl.

So glad you decided to join us. Dance has become very important to me as well. I finally coopted DH to come and learn latin and ballroom for a couple of years. Then we stopped for some reason, my work I think, and haven't gotten back to it.

... Until last night, when we attended a wedding and got out on the floor for a foxtrot, and some jive and cha-cha and samba. Abba is such dreadful dancing music, but you just gotta roll with the punches when the host picks the DJ! I also do bellydance, which is my woman's dance. But it was just fantastic to get the old man up there with me for the other dance!!!

Kiwigirl, as a trained ballet dancer, how do you find the Wholewoman Workout?

Thanks to all you other wonderful contributions to this thread. It is giving me such a thrill to think there are others out there who are reassessing their femininity and starting to really enjoy their bodies.

Woo-hoo!!

Louise