They point fingers at women. Accused of all mortal sins. They condemn. They make you doubt yourself. It can be assumed that the pronoun “they” refers to men, but no. It’s about women who become the worst enemies for each other.
In discussions about women’s rights, feminism and discrimination, one and the same argument is very often found: «I have never been offended by men, all the criticism and hatred in my life was broadcast by women and only by women.» This argument often drives the discussion into a dead end, because it is very difficult to challenge. And that’s why.
Most of us do have similar experiences: it was other women who told us that we were “to blame” for sexual abuse, it was other women who harshly criticized and shamed us for our appearance, sexual behavior, “unsatisfactory” parenting, and the like.
This argument seems to undermine the very foundation of the feminist platform. If women themselves oppress each other, why talk so much about patriarchy and discrimination? What is it about men in general?
However, everything is not so simple, and there is a way out of this vicious circle. Yes, women do criticize and “drown” each other fiercely, often more ruthlessly than men ever could. The problem is that the roots of this phenomenon lie not at all in the «natural» quarrelsome nature of the female sex, not in the «women’s envy» and the inability to cooperate and support each other.
Second floor
Women’s competition is a complex phenomenon, and it is rooted in all the same patriarchal structures that feminists talk about so much. Let’s try to figure out why it is women who most severely criticize the activities, behavior and appearance of other women.
Let’s start from the very beginning. Whether we like it or not, we all grew up in a society steeped in patriarchal structures and values. What are patriarchal values? No, this is not only the idea that the basis of society is a strong family unit, consisting of a beautiful mother, a smart father and three rosy-cheeked babies.
The key idea of the patriarchal system is a clear division of society into two categories, «men» and «women», where each of the categories is assigned a certain set of qualities. These two categories are not equivalent, but hierarchically ranked. This means that one of them has been assigned a higher status, and thanks to this, she owns more resources.
In this structure, a man is a “normal version of a person”, while a woman is constructed from the contrary — as the exact opposite of a man.
If a man is logical and rational, a woman is illogical and emotional. If a man is decisive, active and courageous, a woman is impulsive, passive and weak. If a man can be a little more beautiful than a monkey, a woman is obliged to “beautify the world with herself” in any situation. We are all familiar with these stereotypes. This scheme also works in the opposite direction: as soon as a certain quality or type of activity begins to be associated with the “feminine” sphere, it sharply loses its value.
Thus, motherhood and caring for the weak have a lower status than «real work» in society and for money. So, female friendship is stupid twittering and intrigues, while male friendship is a real and deep connection, blood brotherhood. Thus, “sensitivity and emotionality” is perceived as something pathetic and superfluous, while “rationality and logic” are perceived as laudable and desirable qualities.
Invisible misogyny
Already from these stereotypes, it becomes clear that the patriarchal society is saturated with contempt and even hatred for women (misogyny), and this hatred is rarely verbalized into direct messages, for example, “a woman is not a person”, “it’s bad to be a woman”, “a woman is worse than a man” .
The danger of misogyny is that it is almost invisible. From birth, it surrounds us like a fog that cannot be grasped or touched, but which nonetheless influences us. Our entire information environment, from products of mass culture to everyday wisdom and features of the language itself, is saturated with an unambiguous message: “a woman is a second-class person”, being a woman is unprofitable and undesirable. Be like a man.
All this is aggravated by the fact that society also explains to us that certain qualities are given to us “by birth” and cannot be changed. For example, the notorious male mind and rationality are considered to be something natural and natural, directly tied to the configuration of the genitals. Simply: no penis — no mind or, for example, a penchant for the exact sciences.
This is how we women learn that we cannot compete with men, if only because in this rivalry we are doomed to lose from the start.
The only thing we can do to somehow raise our status and improve our starting conditions is to internalize, appropriate this structural hatred and contempt, hate ourselves and our sisters and start competing with them for a place in the sun.
Internalized misogyny—appropriated hatred of other women and of ourselves—can come out in a variety of ways. It can be expressed through quite innocent statements like “I am not like other women” (read: I am rational, smart and trying with all my might to break out of the gender role imposed on me by climbing on the heads of other women) and “I am friends only with men” ( read: communication with men in a positive way differs from communication with women, it is more valuable), and through direct criticism and enmity.
In addition, very often criticism and hatred directed at other women have a taste of «revenge» and «women»: to take out on the weak all those insults that were caused by the strong. So a woman who has already raised her own children willingly “repays” all her grievances on the “rookies”, who do not yet have enough experience and resources to resist.
Fight for men
In the post-Soviet space, this problem is further aggravated by the imposed idea of a constant shortage of men, combined with the notion that a woman cannot be happy outside of a heterosexual partnership. It’s the XNUMXst century, but the idea that “there are nine guys out of ten girls” still sits firmly in the collective unconscious and gives even more weight to male approval.
The value of a man in the conditions of a scarcity, albeit fictional, is unreasonably high, and women live in a constant atmosphere of intense competition for male attention and approval. And competition for a limited resource, unfortunately, does not encourage mutual support and sisterhood.
Why internal misogyny doesn’t help?
So, female competition is an attempt to wrest from the male world a little more approval, resources and status than we are supposed to be “by birth”. But does this strategy really work for women? Unfortunately, no, if only because there is one deep internal contradiction in it.
By criticizing other women, we, on the one hand, are trying to break out of the gender restrictions imposed on us and prove our non-belonging to the category of women, empty and stupid creatures, because we are not like that! On the other hand, climbing over our heads, we are simultaneously trying to prove that we are just good and correct women, not like some. We are quite beautiful (thin, well-groomed), we are good mothers (wives, daughters-in-law), we know how to play by the rules — we are the best of women. Take us to your club.
But, unfortunately, the male world is in no hurry to accept either «ordinary women» or «Schrödinger women» into their club, who assert their simultaneous belonging and non-belonging to a certain category. Men’s world is good without us. That is why the only strategy for survival and success that works for women is to carefully weed out the weeds of internalized misogyny and support a sisterhood, a female community free from criticism and competition.