I know numerous, numerous women, especially, who just get bad feelings about people, based on body language, tone inflection, eye contact, any number of things; this may be connected to our sharper attention to body language, due to child care. I remember having to watch a film in high school about how women have sharper reads on people's facial expressions and feelings due to the need to interpret the needs of babies and small children.
Exactly....and that's the difference. It's based on something "concrete". They have physical evidence to refer to as a basis, so it's not "just knowing". Rather, there's a perceiving of facts, and then a judgment of what they mean.
It's a downside of iNtuition to arrive at a whole perception without knowing what exactly led there in a "real" way, mainly when you have to explain yourself to someone else. Growing up in an SF household, I got a lot of flack for this. I was cut off mid-sentence if I launched any hypothesis on why something is what. It's not their fault. It just wasn't "real" to them.
Of course Ns still use Sensing, which is why I can strain my mind and recall some details. I do this better in an introverted manner (Si), where I reflect or write, and memory triggers help. It used to be worse. I'd have a feeling and have some intuitive ideas which supported this, a sort of theory which validated my feeling, but no one else found it valid because they wanted facts, experience & logic to back it up. A metaphor was not going to cut it. For me, I'd see something external, say a tree, and it would explain to me how something else was/is/would be, even if that had nothing to do with a tree. So then I knew how a person, situation, whatever worked and I could extrapolate the unknown from that. But sometimes, I didn't even make a connection with the trigger. I had the idea & it rang true and what I was doing at the moment seemed so unrelated. I thought I was doing good when I started making use of metaphor.
Se sister: How do you know that?
Me: Because people are like trees, and so...
Se sister: No, people aren't trees! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! How could people be trees? They are entirely different. I know what I'm talking about!
Me: Okay, but just imagine that people are like trees...
Se sister: NOOO! That's not REAL! That's pointless & irrelevant.
Me: But if...
Se sister: NO "IF"! Something either is or it isn't.
Me: Okay fine. Nevermind.
Later...
Se sister: Why do you say that will happen?
Me: Because if a person...
Se sister: What person?
Me: No person...I'm just saying if someone in general...
Se sister: That's not REAL then! How can you say that if it hasn't happened? You just make stuff up. It means nothing.
Then it happens..
Me: I told you!!!!!
Se sister: What are you talking about. I don't remember that.
Me: The other day...
Se sister: No, you were talking about trees. That's not the same thing.
Me: Okay, but if trees are like people in the sense that...
Se sister: NO. Stop it! Trees are not like people.
Me: But didn't you see what happened? I was right! I also told you that if a person...
Se sister: No. This is totally different. You said nothing about this. I don't know who these imaginary people are, but this & that have nothing to do with each other.
Instead, I had to work out WHY these things were related, instead of just knowing. For me, a Si library really helped. I could begin using more illustration over metaphor, something more acceptable to my Ni-phobe sister.
THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS BEING AN MBTI N!!!
However, if you "just know" entire theories about something, that probably is an NF matter.
Yes, it's not the same as being an N. As you mention "women's intuition" is more of a Feeling thing because it's really an evaluation based off a grasp of how people work. The sensing feeler will rely on the stuff you mentioned as signals, and those perceptions have no meaning on their own (neither do intuitions; they're just "seeing" also, not interpreting).
Anyhow, a lot of laymen's terms mean something very different from Jungian terms. A lot of stuff associated with Feeling in laymen's terms might be called Sensing in Jungian terms. And of course, it's all thinking, not just Thinking.
For me, I don't form quick impressions of people, and I think this is both lack of Je & SeNi. I'm not surprised that types which prefer these are quicker to sum up based on first impressions. Perhaps, this is where the INFP rep for giving the benefit of the doubt or being naive comes in. I just don't pick up on "concrete" signals from people, and I don't get whole immediate perceptions like a Ni type.
Instead I have many ideas, which grow as I have more exposure & more contexts to explore them in, and then in one moment, something kind of merges them, and a whole pattern or theory results, but I don't consciously arrange it. It just occurs as a whole, as if my mind put a puzzle together in the background. And this is led by Fi as far as what it means & what its worth. Fi is the interpreter or classifier, and it rules the conclusion, but I'm much more confident in that. What I question is if the pattern/theory exists.
So anyway, what I end up with can be a deeper understanding of the whole psychology of a person across contexts, rather than a vibe about what they may specifically do/want in a moment. But it's still something of a hunch, because I don't easily pull up the factual support. So when I "read them", it's more like "a possible & likely next step in a pattern". If I were not Te inferior, perhaps I'd consider the next logical step, but for understanding people (largely emotional) I think Fi is better anyway. I don't bother connecting the bits logically, and some of my failure to explain it lies there. Ne makes a lot of leaps, and whatever Si details there are more like little dots which give a vague indication of its formation, not a clear line. This is why I always hesitate to offer my own hunches as a judgement, even though I'm right a lot of the time. I tend to offer them as ideas, interpretations, possibilites etc.
This is interesting! I've read it 3 times and new stuff comes out each time.
How did you learn to get better at straining your brain?
Practice I guess? If we're talking development, then it's probably just my tertiary Si being more reliable, instead of murky and distorted. I mentioned writing as being a help. It's kind of like when you lose your keys, and you backtrack your steps, you may still not recall the moment where you last set them down, but you've narrowed the possibilities for where they could be, so that you have a clearer idea of what likely happened. For me, this is FiSi narrowing down & making sense of Ne possibility.
I think someone mentioned "working backwards". That's something I do with Fi anyways. I kind of have a whole conclusion and then work backwards to reason it out. I suppose you could call that rationalizing, but if I cannot find good reason, then my feeling can & will change. I basically reinterpret it. Maybe I'm just sorting how to apply a feeling then...sometimes I think that's it. It's just finding the right context for it, so that it makes sense.
With Ne, it's my experience of reality, but focused on the invisible under-workings of it, so that reality is always sort of a concept or theory. I used to say I doubted my own "feelings" & had to learn to trust them. I realize now, those were not feelings, not in a Jungian sense. My feelings were just me - I never mistrusted my idea of what was significant, meaningful, etc. I was resisting my E function, Ne, thinking the connections I saw were perhaps delusions, and I so I didn't even know how to judge them. I was fully aware of how unreliable my Si was; it was all exaggeration and black-outs. But with Ne, I knew what was going on & what that meant for the future. I just got invalidated a lot and had to regain confidence & learn how to better articulate myself. I feel less blind-sided by life this way, because reality could be very confusing for me before. Using my personal theories & concepts helps me navigate a lot better.
You seem to be referring to Ni though, which is different of course, and why I've noted I'm coming from the Ne standpoint.