It’s every man’s wet dream . . .
or maybe 
This is actually more like it, with Lois from Malcolm in the Middle:
Women pulling each other’s hair out in a hissy fight. Women tumbling all over themselves, punching and kicking and biting each other until there’s blood. This is, in effect, good entertainment.
Why do we do it?
I’ve had several boyfriends over the years simply baffled by women’s behavior toward each other. About the cattiness that starts before puberty, intensifies, and then never really lets up until WAY after menopause. (I’ve actually heard tales of women verbally fighting in nursing homes, long after there is anything at stake besides a good death.)
Let me try to describe and to explain it.
First, we can hate another woman instantaneously – without anything more to go on than what she is wearing. You’ve all heard it or seen it before. The way a younger, more attractive, smarter, funnier, prettier, sexier woman (it only has to be one, but can also be a combination of these traits – the more she has, the worse the reaction) walks into a room and the other women all turn to look at her. It’s like we have a sixth sense just for knowing when competition is in the room. “Look at her,” we think, “she thinks she is hot stuff.” Then, the deadly venom: “But she’s not.”
From this point, the woman is our enemy. We go into battle mode, but it isn’t like men. We don’t just start something right away. No, we are like cats. We stalk our prey through many hours, days, months. Hell, I’ve carried grudges for YEARS. (There’s still a girl from high school that I would punch right in the face if I ever saw her again.)
There are two types of women who hate other women (which is, quite literally, almost every woman on the planet): the woman who kills them with honey (and stabs them in the back), and the woman who is a straight-up bitch upfront (who will eventually, given enough time and booze, start one of the above fights).
My mom, she was a classic category one, with a sugary voice and a bitter memory for slights. I’m a two. I react first, ask myself questions later. I’ve actually been in physical fights before, where I literally punched a woman in her eye. And this was a FRIEND of mine. (Sorry, Robin!)
Neither way of dealing with other women is terrific, and both methods lead us to increased risk of heart attacks and ulcers.
In other words, women just can’t seem to get along. (Look at the Hilary debacle, the way women judge her, not on her policy, but on her person, as just one potent example. It took the woman publicly breaking down for women to show her any sympathy, for Christ’s sake.)
For some reason, I’ve only had ‘hate’ mail from other women on this blog. Men who read it have tended to disagree with me, but with my points and my arguments, not with how I look or what picture I put up. It’s sad to me that women are like this with each other – catty and silly, and not about substantive topics, but about how we look, what we are wearing, and who is ‘better’ than someone else.
This is probably why women still make much less money than men – we waste too much valuable time on each other.
“A year after they graduate from a four-year college, women earn 20 percent less than their male counterparts, according to a study released in April by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. And it widens to 31 percent less 10 years after college.”
That is just a sad statistic.
I found another writer on this topic, and I basically agree with her points:
“Why Women Hate Other Women” by Cassandra George Sturges
Women compete with each other at a societal level, the criteria for winning is usually set by others and the results are subjective and intangible. Women are usually judged by characteristics that they have little control over; something that they did not create, and that exist outside of themselves such as their physical appearance. Her success is based on subjective, biased, external validation by others. She can’t see how to beat her rival because her rival is in no more control of the outcome than she is. How can you really be more beautiful than another woman, when the decision is nothing more than someone else’s opinion of beauty?
How can you change someone’s personal preference for a certain body size and shape, a particular eye color or a fondness for blondes? How many people are needed to think that you are beautiful before it is a valid or meaningful judgment? Who do you need to tell you that you are beautiful before you can believe it to be true… construction workers, truck drivers, the man walking down the street, your pastor, the Pope, your boss? Women compete with each other for male attention and compliments as if it feeds their self-worth and self-esteem. Women try to dress sexier and have shapelier bodies than other women.
Women instinctively know that men have little power when it comes to sexual intercourse in male and female relationships. Women know that if a platonic relationship exists between a male and a female, ninety percent of the time it is a platonic relationship because the woman does not want to have sex with the man instead of visa versa. Most women do not feel that men are psychologically or biologically capable of resisting another woman’s sexual prowess because of their undying love, loyalty and respect for their committed relationship with them. If a man does not engage in a sexual relationship with a woman who is drop dead gorgeous, most women believe that it is because the other woman was in control of the outcome of the type of relationship. Women intuitively know that most heterosexual males find extraordinary beautiful women sexually irresistible and if that extraordinary beautiful woman wanted her man, he would be hers for the taking.
Women are so busy competing with each other for male attention that they do not have the psychological, intellectual or emotional insight to change the social climate that is causing them to suffer from low-self esteem. Women think of men as being promiscuous, unfaithful, lying, cheating dogs. But what most women need to come to grips with and understand is that research shows that a man is most likely to have a sexual affair with a woman’s best friend, relative or neighbor… a woman whom she trusts, loves and respects. One of the reasons that men who cheat are so successful at it is because women allow them to because they are in competition with each other.
Women believe that they are superior to other women if they are physically more attractive. In a commercial for a diet pill a woman bragged, “I am now smaller than the woman my husband left me for.” This statement leads me to believe that she felt that she deserved her husband’s infidelity when she was over weight. Her motive for losing weight was to be physically smaller than the other woman that her husband left her for. She viewed the other woman as competition more so than feeling betrayed by her husband’s disloyalty. The wife’s motive for losing weight was not to improve the status of her health or increase her self-esteem but be smaller than her competition__ the other woman. The weight control commercial is blatantly telling women that they need to look a certain way in order to earn their husband’s love and fidelity. It doesn’t matter whether or not you cook his meals, raise his kids, and support his dreams… what matters most in a relationship is whether or not you are physically attractive enough to keep your man at home. There is an assumption that it is natural for a man to cheat on a woman who he feels is no longer sexually appealing. Many women believe that it is their fault when their husband or boyfriend cheats on them because they are not attractive enough to keep him faithful.
A woman’s perception of self-worth is validated outside of her self from others and this affects her internal psychological concept of her own value as a human being. Women compete indirectly with other women because they have not learned how to recognize and channel their internal desires, feelings and goals into physical, tangible realities. Once women learn that they can not control or live vicariously through their children or the man in their life; they will stop hating each other and focus on their individual unique gifts, talents and assets.
Why do women hate other women?
1. Women feel that their biological prime-time is limited. She can easily be replaced by a new younger, more beautiful woman. Youth is a woman’s fair-weathered friend.
2. Women feel that other women control their man’s sexual fidelity.
3. Women feel that their level or degree of physical beauty is based on luck as opposed to something that she controls.
4. Women feel that other women can take something that they have worked hard to earn by using their beauty on the job, school and the legal system because men will be taken by her beauty.
5. Women feel that other women can not be trusted. They gossip too much, they are phony and they would take your man right before your eyes.
6. Women feel that other women divert attention away from them.
7. Women feel psychologically competitive with other women to be more attractive.
8. Women subconsciously believe that if they merely looked like another woman, they could inherit her life, her diamond, her man, and people would look at her with the same admiration.
Basically, women need to stop worrying about other women and get on with their own lives. Maybe we’ll begin to be competitive about things that count: like our careers, how much time we spend on ourselves and our families, and how much self-esteem we have. Maybe we’ll stop trying to be better than each other and start trying to be the best possible version of of ourselves – whether or not we’re wearing Prada, or have an IQ of 146, or have a rich husband, or the best boob jobs, or wear a size 0.
Hating other women is exhausting. I spent the larger part of my life doing it – from age 13 to 35. This year, I’m turning 36, and I’ll be damned if I waste one single second more of my life on worrying about what other women think of me. I don’t care if it costs me $4000 in therapy bills to do it, I’m kicking the habit for good.
Because, just like my grandmother once warned me, if I see life as a competition, I’m bound to lose. Someone is always going to be prettier, smarter, funnier, taller, shorter, skinnier, faster, richer than me. With 6 billion people on earth, I expect she was right. I’ll never be the “best” at anything. But maybe, just maybe, I can learn to be OK with that fact.
wow!
I had an idea that some women could be this catty, but no idea it was this bad.
I’ve always been a live and let live person, so if someone is pretty and smart etc. yes, I’d love some of that, but at the end of the day I get on with my life.
I’m totally not naturally bytchy (except if it’s that time of the month), but because of the bytchy women (and men) out there I’ve learnt to expose my claws every so often just to let them know I won’t take any crap.
Identification with the ego causes all sorts of strange behavior in us whimsical and transitory human beings.
hmmm, very interesting. i kinda thought thats how it is but wasn’t sure, and i am a man.
Unfortunately, I am one of those woman.
I wish a psychologist came with the article who can show me how to stop.
I agree its because of insecurity. Always figured though that once I found a good man I would stop this hate for other woman, because I either want what they have or see them as competition
Thanks for the article!
Hey Vanessa
unfortunetly a man doesnt cure this type of behaviour it was something I struggled with before I married my husband and sometimes it seems to be worse after being married. Try to over come it in your own way because getting a boyfriend isnt going to cure it. Only old fashioned hard work and a change of mind will. I have been working on it too and it is a hard behaviour pattern to change.
Hi there
I have been really amazed by how this particular issue has been brought to my attention. As a counselling student I have been amazed by how this particular gender competition in females has really made me more aware of different ways emotion and agression in women isolate women from each other and just causes unhappiness over all for women who take a bi partisan approach to other women completely.
Being in a group facilitation class for studies I have noticed how the singular male in the class seems to be fawned over and supported and yet women in the class – albeit there are alot more of them- seem to judge and pick on other women. Or kind of be very vocal in positive appreciation towards the male.
It seems to me that women need to stick together and form an alliance out of trust and appreciation towards eachother and our individual foibles and strengths and weaknesses. Because cutting each other down verbally and otherwise can tend to erode trust in the possibility of more relatedness and intimacy, and ultimately growth and healing. Isn’t that what a lot of women want deep down? And ultimately acceptance just for who they are.
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Speak for yourself, sister.
I do not and have never acted like this. There are plenty of women out there who are shy, quiet, studious, who don’t have this sense of entitlement (in part due to economic struggles foreign to spoiled brats), don’t want to fight with anyone, think the best of people, and who show up at work to work and at school to learn. They tend to be the targets and victims of immature snots who cannot say what they really mean, strive for drama for the sake of drama, and are a total mystery (and source of misery) to me.
When I see a beautiful woman, I am happy for her. I’m always looking for a model to emulate, not a target. to exploit
I was looking for insight here, not stereotypes.
Hey Kristine,
You are probably the exception rather than the rule. However more often than not, across cultures around the world, i see more women motivated by using other women as a point of reference as opposed to one’s own ability. consequently the result is animosity that cannot be substanciated.
i see men AND women they way they are, but i struggle in the workplace and in social places because most (not all) of the women i meet tend to pass negative judgement on other womwn they perceive as ”better” than them in terms of physical appearance, wealth, success, spouses, weight, height, jobs etc…and unfortunately this is all relative and very short term.
I hear you Kristine. I wish I could meet more women like you, because the women I’ve met are just like the post has described. I find myself to become oppositional with those women, because I am hardly like that. I’d consider myself quiet, studious, with no sense of entitlement, and I do think the best of people. Unfortunately, those traits aren’t easy for most people to embody. Stereotypes do have some truth to them, or else they wouldn’t exist, you know?
Hi, I agree with most of what you said based on what I have seen on television reality shows and how catty women are to each other over beauty, men, envy, etc. Certainly not all women and girls are like this but many are. I only understand so much being a man, but having talked with women and seen women and teenage girls fight it is totally brutal. Women are much more violent in fights then men. Like you said women and girls when they fight, pull hair, scratch, bite and bite almost anywhere on the other’s body and roll around on the ground tearing at each other and each other’s clothes.
I think it’s because when guys fight lots of times they fight because they are too afraid to back down and it’s a macho thing. With girls it’s a catty thing.
Like a girlfriend of mine once said to me “you guys fight like wmps” “When we girls fight we go right for the areas that hurt!”
I guess that’s why they call it catfighting!
“But what most women need to come to grips with and understand is that research shows that a man is most likely to have a sexual affair with a woman’s best friend, relative or neighbor… a woman whom she trusts, loves and respects”…..Hmmm I disagree with this. I know of a lot men who’ve had affairs/ran off with a complete stranger. For example, my cousin’s gf’s sister had an affair with a married man and I’m 100% certain that she hadn’t even met her lover’s wife.
But I agree with everything else. Its an irrational thing….you can’t control jealousy, its something thats in-built in all human beings, its inseparable from us in the same way our organs are. When we attach ourselves to our partner, the idea of him finding another woman more attractove is always going to be a source of intense stress, unhealthy obsession, and most importantly discontentment, misery and low self-esteem. We always want our partner to accept us as 1st prize, not something that he was forced to settle for because he couldn’t get anything decent looking.
i agree with everything you say but it is still hard to believe it is true.
i am one of those women who respects all women. i dont judge women and i forgive way too easily. i really admire women who are smart and use their brains to get ahead in their career and life, regardless of their looks.
people give me compliments about my looks, styles, values, and brains. although i appreciate their comments, i would prefer to only credit my brains for my achievements because i would never use my looks to get ahead in my career/life.
i am that girl that catty women hate. i get along great with everyone, except catty women. these women tends to be 25-40 single or divorced. they judged me on my first day at work, it was only a half day and i was just setting up my computer – but already they acted like they completely knew who i was. they didnt even introduce themselves or the team to me (and they call themselves the team lead). it was hard at first when someone you dont know, who dont know you, judged and isolated you before you even start your full day on the job. these women would bully and gang up to spread lies about me around the office and stop talking to people who talk to me. i have never done anything to them, how could i? i wasnt even given a fair chance to prove to them who i was as a person. nevertheless i gave up on them and should be leaving the department soon. i cannot deal with catty unprofessional women who bitch and trash other women they dont know. i refuse to try to gain them over bcos their opinions dont matter. am not changing my values to fit into an environment i do not support.
I’m just a creepy and sarcastic as the next woman. I beat up on my neighbor because she was wiser and much more educated than I was. Like “Ole Blue Eyes” sang it: I get it my way!!! I know that I’m a sickly big thug, but that’s my personality. I can’t change and I won’t. I’m the leader and everyone must follow me or I take my guillotine out. That me. King Henry VIII.
Love to bout with you in roller derby, your trippin on pure ego. Ego will let you down again and again. Focus on your unique pure essence. No one like you and never will be another YOU.
Honestly as a woman I can totally understand this and relate. If you have ever spent a day shopping at the mall, its right there in front of your face. At first I thought I was imagining hostility from random women I didnt know, I actually started studying more and more of these women and sure enough there was random anger and hostility. I also noticed that it wasnt just directed at me other women were getting the same dirty looks. They see each other, size each other up and give the dismissal look. “Like I’m a supermodel get out of my way”. Anyways I wish it was something that was easy to stop doing. I am not saying I am not guilty of it as well because I know that I am, alot of times I do it in retaliation. The interesting thing is most women probably dont think they are doing anything wrong when they behave this way. It is a self preservation behaviour for them. Hopefully I can stop doing it because it really does stop me from making female friends and it causes major trust issues.
I see this behaviour all the time…the unattractive ones get on well together, but as soon as they see someone attractive, they feel the need to verbally brutalise her.
I think the reason why women are so aggressive and emotional is because they are being discrimated against first…by men. I know that 95% of women do not like to admit to this, but men have a habit of treating unattractive women like crap, commenting on how bad they look (believe me, I see it happen) These women get very angry because they know that attractive women are not subject to this treatment and just isn’t fair to them. Not only that, but they feel that the comments from men are evidence of where they stand on the looks ladder and it causes them a lot of stress and pain.
So they feel the need to put things on an even keel by treating attractive women badly, which to be honest makes them just as horredous as the men who are destroying their self-esteem
first off, to fight it out, requires violence, which leads to being injured etc.
then when its all done, still nothing is settled or changed so maybe you
fight again, things are what they are, period. make no mistake, a catfight
draws out a certain desire most men have and like, its something men dont
do, so we watch out of amazement on how it resembles two feline pets
going at it SO-primitively it has to be a fantasy come true turn-on,
granted i dont have much to say about instant rivalries, thats foriegn to
this guy, i cannot understand pre-judgement, it blows my freakin mind;
bottomline= if rolling around pulling out clumps of ratty old hair makes
you feel like the better, prettier, smarter, best dressed chica on the town!
then by george let me grab a fosters beer ,a lawn chair, and you go girls
i promise not to break it up, you need this affirimation to soothe your
jealousies, no doubt….
With all due respect, Hermione (you must be fairly young),
That’s a load of rubbish.
Men are nowhere NEAR as cruel to women as other women are.
Maybe in grade school, or high school… but not in the adult world. Sorry.
Women are vicious to each other. Attractive ones, unattractive ones, popular ones, unpopular ones…they are VICIOUS.
Interesting post, though I would hope that there’s a good chunk of the female population that doesn’t not fit in any of these categories. I’m a 30 year old female, and like Kristine, appreciate other women’s (and men’s) achievements. It’s more inspiring than intimidating. For some bizarre reason, I just didn’t care enough about what other people thought, and really just felt perfectly fine (usually) with my flaws and quirks. Only looking back do I realize how catty some of my female peers were (for example, I’ve always been naturally thin, and girls would constantly say things like, ewww, it’s so gross that I can feel your spine/hip/whatever bone may normally be a little cushier with other girls) Of course, no male has ever seemed grossed out by how skinny I am. As a teenager, I thought that my “fat” lips were ugly to the rest of the world because one girl would always call me fatty fat lips…yet through all of that, I was content being me, and simply didn’t feel the need to participate in the whole who’s better than whom game.
I think if we instill better confidence in little girls, people will just stop caring as much for catty remarks. Regardless, I have many girlfriends who also hate drama and never badmouth each other, and I avoid any girl who shows the slightest bit of bitchiness. So, there are non-catty girls out there, just not as many.
LOL funny, but I think that guys can be catty as well! I recently witnessed at a friends house and knew right away cuz I’m used to being the catty one.
Women are far more catty than men.