Why Do Women Hate Other Women So Much…?

Bitch Fight

The reason I ask the above question, is because over and over again, I see examples of how much we, as women, seem to dislike other women.

It happens a lot in the work place.

I once had a female boss who could have been Attila the hun in another life, but do you know what, I thought she was f*cking great. All the men who were subservient to her thought she had balls instead of a vagina, (although I did catch one or two of them drooling over her, must have been the power thing) and the women thought she was Hitler disguised as Barbie, and thus, she became the number one focus of their bitch fests.

I once asked a colleague why she hated our boss so much. Do you know what her answer was? Well here it is for you.

“Because she acts like a man”.

Now apparently, acting like a man is a cardinal sin amongst other women. Being strong-willed is frowned upon, and is seen as an affront to sisterhood.

Sisterhood? What sisterhood?

It seems to me that it’s ok to be a ball buster as long as you’re not female. The fact was, most of the females in our company at that time, hated my boss because she was attractive, intelligent, strong-willed, had a good job, and had other men in her power. She was just too much competition for the average woman. She should have been applauded for being all those things, yet because of those very characteristics, she was villified by other female members of staff.

Another example is the Big Brother T.V show. In this country, every year without fail, the strong-willed women, and the women with big personalities always get voted off first. We’ve had six big brothers so far, and in all of those years, we’ve only had one female winner (and that was because all the men were either assholes or snooze- worthy). Nadia, who was last year’s winner doesn’t count because she was a transsexual. She used to be a frickin’ man.

Women in politics is another good example of woman on woman hate. When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister over here, she was often referred to as the Iron Lady, The Bitch, and a whole host of other derogatory names, that had nothing specifically to do with her brand of politics. Why? BECAUSE SHE WAS A STRONG WOMAN.

In the few introspective articles that I’ve read about Condoleezza Rice, (articles written by other women incidentally) she’s often referred to as a cold woman who would benefit from a good lay. Did we ever say such a thing about Colin Powell? Why not just say, ‘she’s a tough talking politician who takes no prisoners?’ Why are emotive words and derogatory terms used by other women, when it comes to describing another woman?

In romance books, we generally seem to love the hero, and more often than not, find the heroines irritating, and even if we like the heroine, we don’t gush to the same extent as we do when a writer creates a truly wonderful hero. Why is that?

I, myself am guilty of this also. I find it hard to tolerate wimpy women, but ball-busting heroines who are overly aggressive, piss me off too. What is the happy medium?

We talk about feminism and sisterhood a lot, but I sure don’t see any shining examples of it. Even within the romance community, there is more bitching and backstabbing that goes on (and I’m not just talking about the readers) than I’ve ever known. This has to be because the industry is run mostly by women for other women.

Why is it so hard to support each other without letting petty jealousies get in the way? As women, are we generally more hateful than men? Scott?