As a woman, I've had my ups and downs making friends with fellow ladies out there. I don't know why there's so much competitiveness between us. There's a reason for that word "frenemies," huh?
It seems that there are ladies who love to support one another, but there's an equal amount of animosity going around too. So let's try to get along, root each other on, and stop doing these things altogether. Come on!
"Fake friendliness. If I don't like you, I won't pretend to like you. Not gonna be a [expletive] or anything, I'll still be cordial. But I've had women rush up to me, all smiles and hugs like 'oh my goood you came, I'm SO glad you're here!!' And then find out sometime later that Audrey really does not like me at ALL."
I hear you loud and clear.
"Make nice with your daughter-in-law. Stop being [expletive] about her 'taking' your son and you’ll be asked to be a part of more that they do."
True dat! You should be looking at it the other way. You're not losing a son — you're gaining a new daughter.
"Trying to get me to join their MLM."
"[Expletive] Mary Kay, Avon, Scentsy, It Works, Jafra, PHP, Life Insurance, LuLuRoe (however it’s spelled), Color Street, HerbaTrash (HerbaLife) etc."
Oh, my goodness. Right? Why don't they start selling that stuff to their husband's friends, haha?
"Using their own issues to invalidate other’s issues."
"I say this all the time, just because you believe you're suffering worse doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be upset about the things I'm going through too. It's not a fight for who gets the privilege to [expletive] and moan about their circumstances, why can't we all just recognize that everyone has different depths to what they can handle? I may not have been crippled in a bus accident, but I can still be anxious about my credit card debt, Karen."
This struck a chord in someone.
"Stepping down on other women at the workplace, and not letting them advance in their careers, based on rumors you started."
Okay, that's just wrong. I say be happy for somebody's success instead of trying to sabotage it to progress your agenda.
"I work in a government building. The building cost millions of dollars to build, everything is less than 8 months old. Women are somehow using toilet seats to wipe their butts. How do GROWN ADULT WOMEN leave poop marks on a toilet seat and think it's okay? How is there menstrual blood everywhere, how does it end up somewhere other than inside the bowl? Like, use toilet paper? That's what it is for? Women are not always cleaner. It's shameful."
Yikes! I'm so glad I work from home.
"Photoshopping their photos to oblivion thus reinforcing the unrealistic beauty standards. You know skin texture exists, why do you pretend it doesn't??"
Haha! That's right. I don't know when women started pretending that pores don't exist. They do, and we all have them. There's no shame in that.
"Writing love letters to convicted murderers. Ugh, that [expletive] makes me cringe from secondary shame. I am embarrassed to be a woman whenever I read an article about some killer who got lots of press bc his crime was unusually awful, who then gets tons of 'fan mail' from strange women to his prison cell."
Seriously, who does that?
"Weird intense dieting. To be clear, I'm not talking about trying to eat healthier or even trying to lose weight in a healthy way. I'm talking about the overwhelming number of women I know who go on these bizarre diets with fasts and cleanses and they don't eat carrots or they count how often they poop or ... I dunno. Weird [expletive].
"Then it becomes their entire personality for a while and it's all they talk about. It always gives me strong vibes of a person who feels out of control in some aspect of their life trying to regain that control in another, and it makes me horribly sad."
I feel for people like that. I think they're lost and need to find their way back somehow.
"Flushing tampons and other period products."
"Or worse, arguing that it's okay to flush tampons even after being told not to. A quick Google search of 'is it okay to flush tampons' reveals a list of 'no' answers, including one from Tampax (https://tampax.com/en-us/about/sustainability/can-you-flush-tampons/)."
I think somebody is in denial here, haha.
"Workplace toxicity. I have had two women, on separate occasions, try to get me fired. The lies and gossip they spread and the accusations were insane. Empathy should be easy for us to have toward one another and I don’t know how a person can do those things to another person, let alone women to women."
Honestly, I'm sad this happens to a lot of us.
"I was reported for DUMB things by women. Not sounding 'thankful' enough when saying thank you, wearing the same jacket during cold days, talking only about 'boring' subjects, not making eye contact, for being 'weird.' I’m autistic. Like Jesus, if it doesn’t actually hurt you in ANYWAY, can you just, chill?
"At one point, my student died in my class, I was a first-year teacher. My parents screamed at me for crying too much over it. So I was homeless for a couple of weeks and living in my car while figuring out where to live. I slept during my lunch break on a couch we had and they reported me for being lazy. Like, a BIT of kindness would’ve been nice. Instead, things like slapping my hand at the copy machine was 'okay' since I was the 'weird one.'"
OMG, that's not right!
"Being mean to other women in the workplace. Even if we dislike someone, no excuse to go out of our way to be rude and nasty to someone. Someone else’s shine does not dim yours."
Amen to that!
"My old department is filled with women who act like they are in a high school clique. If you won't gossip or make fun of other people, they'll just do it to you. Since leaving that department, I've grown and thrived, and they are still gossiping about other people. The sad part is that they think they are doing better, but they have not grown at all."
Some people never seem to grow up.
"Speaking on behalf of all women. It’s absurd and wildly egotistical."
"And reeks of entitlement."
"Yes, this bothers me so much. I hate when other women assume I'm on their side on everything and I agree with them because we're both women."
I totally get that.
"Faking orgasms! Teaching men a false sense of what is good!"
"Women who fake orgasms are only hurting themselves in the long run."
"The whole culture around not communicating in the bedroom and expecting the opposite sex to know what to do to you is baffling to me."
Me too!
"Insulting themselves/appearance all the time. If you wouldn’t say it to your best friend, don’t say it to yourself!"
"The last time I worked in an office it was primarily women and good lord, once one would start with a round of self-hatred it was like everyone else was expected to join in. Like that scene in Mean Girls, it was like we had to find something to complain about! I’m a woman of size, so I was constantly met with confusion when I refused to discuss my weight, especially when much smaller women constantly complained about a couple of extra pounds."
This is truly sad.
"Claiming we cannot critique other women or call out harmful behavior because being a feminist means supporting all women no matter what they do apparently… so silly. In my opinion, being feminist means we should recognize that women aren't just docile little dolls who only do nice things, but that we are messy humans that make mistakes or even hurt people on purpose. And in order to be a better society, we need to not be afraid of calling out harmful behaviors among our communities."
I definitely agree with that.
As women, we need to do better for ourselves and our fellow ladies. No more negative self-talk, please. And while we're at it, let's cheer each other on instead of sabotaging, back-stabbing, and gossiping. There are bigger problems in the world without women making things harder for each other.
