Why women hate women

the best thing for misogyny since...eh, I don't need the trolls

Years ago I was invited to a regular event, a kind of soiree, where Silicon Valley folks would regularly get together. It was oriented towards women as a rare opportunity to get the minority group together to mingle and dish, but occasionally a man was deemed suitable to wander among us. Originally an intimate affair, it swelled over the years as tech companies grew and became a real who’s who of C-level and VP types.

As that shift happened, I watched the design clothing increase in line with the hierarchical judgment. Slowly it became more important where you worked and what title you had, and with that, I became less enchanted by the event. As a true introvert, I mostly liked 1-on-1 clever banter with smart women, and I didn’t really need to play a ‘who’s more important’ game.

I finally stopped going to the event after one notable evening. The group had grown quite large (100+) and the host house was packed. Despite the sheer number of people, someone suggested we go around the rooms and introduce ourselves by name and title. If you just experienced chills, you will understand the collective worry of the lesser women in the room. As the big names proclaimed themselves, I looked around and saw many women calculating how to introduce themselves. As a lowly Director, I knew the math. I watched as one woman fearfully stuttered out her identity as a realtor, and I felt aching sympathy. We were losers.

I walked out of that event that night with relief. I hadn’t connected with previously close colleagues because they were too busy hobnobbing with more important people. I wandered the event looking for companionship and mostly found snobbery. I struggled to name what I was feeling. Suddenly on the sidewalk, clarity struck. I said out loud, “That’s not your tribe,” and I instantly felt better.

This memory is about women, self-confidence, and how women can erode each other’s self-confidence so easily. I already wrote at length about women not supporting women in my book in a chapter entitled A Special Place in Hell Question. The gist being that while I understand natural competition arising, we are falling into a tidy societal trap creating our own hell when we don’t help each other.

Fast forward five years after releasing my book, and I’m coming off an experience where I felt actively hated by or at least inactively disliked by some senior women in my midst. While I often felt dismissed by the male senior leadership, this felt more acute. If I asked a question in a public forum for instance, the men might benignly dismiss my question as irrelevant whereas the ladies went on an attack trying to prove my question stupid. The question, usually commonplace and I was just voicing it to benefit others, wasn’t worth the reaction. “What will we deprioritize?” is not worth drama, in my opinion. I also wasn’t an engineer, a whole other layer of snobby fun in tech, so who knows the real culprit.

Listen, I get it. The job is hard, and you’re constantly fighting for your right to authority. One way to feel better is to step on someone else. We see that all over the Internet with trolling and overly judgmental reaction about how someone is holding their baby. Why not get a little ego boost by feeling superior to someone else, just for that minute or day? This is a genderless crime; we’re all just climbing on each other to get to the top of the pile. And what does it matter if it is woman against woman? It’s gosh darn preachy to believe women should be nicer. Barf.

But I guess my question is who wins when we feel bad about ourselves? I’m very sure it’s not the ladies.

WHY WOMEN HATE WOMEN - A LIST

1. You are prettier than me.

2. You have nicer clothes than me.

3. You have that unique aura that attracts others to you.

4. You are smarter than me. (Only up to a point; if overly geeky then you are weird.)

5. You are more successful than me in your career.

6. You have a better/hotter partner, house, car, child, etc.

7. You did something awful (perceived or accurate), you man-stealing hussy.

8. Add on a slew of judgments we were taught by society across religion, race, ability, etc.

Made opposite, most of those items make me feel superior to you. I don’t hate you if you’re uglier or poorer than me, but I feel much better if you are. I clock those differences like little wins to my ego. A pocketful of reminders of how right I’ve been in life.

Do we need that right now? With so little support for women by society, especially in the US, everyday can feel like a struggle to balance a busy work life and private life. We’re expected to balance both, both judged if we don’t pursue a family/partner and if we do. We’re also expected to support others around us via church, volunteering, or other extra unpaid labor. Because women are the caretakers of society, are we not. Though the economy doesn’t really support us working less, we must keep up all the unpaid labor of earlier generations. Finally, we’re all in real competition with each other - for partners, for work, for money to survive, for our children’s futures.

So lay off, let me be smug sometimes.

MY CUP OF LOSER

Which brings me to the cumulative effect. It is seeming quite costly to keep indulging our egos, especially via the Internet. To keep degrading each other with the hope of that small ego hit, knowing it’s only a matter of time until the reverse happens, where does it end? I think we’re seeing it play out in the world stage, across genders, and it’s not good.

I’d like us all to embrace that we each hold a cup of loser. We’re walking around holding it all the time like we’re at a barbecue and have that red Solo cup. We’re chatting with others, and we’re constantly adding to our cup of loser whenever we zero in what makes us less than: the neighbor’s new pool, their kids go to private school, she’s aging so well. When we feel superior though (our house is nicer!), it’s not that we remove anything from our loser cup. Our cup just gets bigger. What makes us feel good in the moment, only increases our capacity to feel worse later.

I am having too much fun making these images.

The only way past this is to start reckoning with our cup of loser, to expose what ails us, what we fear, and stop gaming society to reduce others for a momentary lift. Today, I’ll share what’s in my cup of loser in hopes that other people can see it’s not so scary. Everyone’s got their cup. This is mine:

• I was always a poor, left-handed, curly-haired, awkward, introverted nerd. That never really left me. In my teens & twenties, I was repeatedly called weird by other women. I haven’t really outgrown it, I just know who to avoid now.

• Linked to above, I’m sensitive to teasing because to me, it all sounds mean. It all WAS mean when I was a kid. My family loves to tease, and I react negatively because my brain says it’s an attack. Therapy has helped a bit, but not enough.

• My career was great, but not awesome. I was repeatedly blocked from high leadership positions through circumstance. While I know it was mainly politics and I’m proud I didn’t play that game, I also worry there’s an ephemeral “it” I don’t have.

• I love my writing, but I appear to be an acquired taste. Nothing has gone ‘viral’ yet and I couldn’t get a fancy publisher because I’m not famous enough. While that doesn’t always help a writing career, I worry it’s an indicator of my limits and eventual lack of opportunity.

• I’ve always had body image issues, and as this body ages, it’s quite the reckoning to not spin off my axle again into constant exercise or eating issues. It’s work to stay okay.

Ugh, that was rough. When I get jealous though, it’s about those things. When I want to dismiss someone’s success, it’s about those things. The Internet makes money off of these things, showing me ads and posts that poke at my sore spots. But knowing my triggers has made me kinder to others; it’s just my cup I’m carrying, not something actually wrong with me, and not someone else’s fault.

If you want to share your cup of loser, feel free to email me. I’m always here to listen and definitely not make you share in front of others.

P.S. It’s worth taking a moment to appreciate what’s not in my cup too, like I don’t care if your birthday party is nicer than mine. At all. Enjoy.

P.P.S I have a rhythm now of doing 3 paid posts and then 1 free (aka open to all) post. This happens to be the free one! If you want to read even more intriguing content from moi, please consider a free or paid subscription.