The Unspoken Reality of Female Rivalry

Here is another topic worth discussing and understanding about: female rivalry or girl-on-girl hate

I hope that after reading this we, women and men, can better understand this issue first before advocating for 'girl love'. We should learn and understand the how's, the what's and the why's first so as to know the background to this issue and how we can improve on ourselves. At first, I was hesitant to blog about this issue because I was afraid I might break the unspoken "girl code", that we do not point out each other's flaws and that we should always support each other. I know many girls would feel uncomfortable talking about this but the fact that I respect women in general (whether or not I like you or dislike you), gave me a very good reason to write about it.

First, let us be honest with ourselves (especially us girls/ladies/women), at least for 15 minutes of reading. There is no such thing as "no competition". Competition is everywhere. Comparisons are always being made. Jealousy and envy is hard to refrain from. We are human and as much as we try to be the best person we could ever be, there is no where to hide when it comes to being competitive. But of course, there are super competitive people and there are less competitive people. If you say, you are not a competitive person at all, stop lying to yourself (you wanted to be better than at least one person in something). Why do I talk about competition? Because it has something to do with rivalry. Without one, we cannot have the other.

So, I assume that female rivalry is a universal occurrence and that competition between women leads to it. Unless you are aware of some tiny island somewhere on this Earth that all the women there are so supportive and loving towards each other that rainbows come out of their butts, please do let me know. And don't talk about the Amazons. I'm digressing. It is an interesting topic because it is full of drama (which people do love somehow) and it has been brought up by many famous women out there trying to promote a supportive social environment between women from all walk's of life. Somehow the more I read about this topic the more Finnick Odair's voice comes into my mind saying, "Katniss... remember who the real enemy is!".

As a girl who came from an all-girls' school, I believe I know a thing or two about female rivalry and I admit that I have consciously or unconsciously played a part in it some way or another. Throughout 11 years of school with girls, I have witnessed many forms of female rivalry, and now that I am already in my 3rd year of college, I still do see it happening. As much as I have begun to dislike female rivalry ever since I was in school, I cannot say that I will completely stop playing a part in it and I think the backstabbing and dissing doesn't go away. Now we should question it.

Honestly, telling a girl that "as a girl, you should feel this and that, you should be this and that", does not solve the issue. And the problem is that, many people do not understand what they are fighting for or against. Even so, many people do not realize that what they are doing may cause psychological harm towards a certain individual. Yes, pointing out that there is a problem and there are people who play a part in that problem can improve the situation, but it does not completely stop the problem. Here, I will discuss some theories and opinions from a number of people on this issue and then hopefully at the end of this post, we all get to learn something.

What is female rivalry? 

When two or more women compete with each other for any kind of reason (mostly in a destructive sense).

I will digress from now on. Of course, there is male rivalry and we often do see it (actually we see it everywhere; boys, 40-year-old men, 60-year-old men) but its nature is quite different from female rivalry. We often hear from men (our brothers, guy friends, boyfriends, husbands) that women have a reputation for being competitive or "bitchy" with other women. As a girl/lady/woman myself, I do agree that women are generally competitive and passive-aggressive not just with other women but also with men. Like I said, there is no escaping from competition. Men also compete with other men in almost anything. Men have been fighting and competing with each other since the beginning of the human race. Most wars were started by men (what if women ruled the world? Would there be wars?). Men outnumber women (by a little between ages of 0-50. Women outlive men, so by ages 50+ there are more women to men). So of course there is a higher probability that when a man is in a competition, he is competing with another man. Besides, a man has little reason to be competing with a woman. On average, there are more men actively participating in the labor force (although in some low income countries and high income countries, the gender gap is low) worldwide. There are more men occupying higher positions in the labor force.

So it does tickle me a little that somehow when a woman fights with another woman, it is a "bitchy" issue. We are equally competitive as men if not more. Of course women and men are competitive about different things. So why a big fuss when a woman fights with another woman? Is it because some people feel that women have bigger battles to fight? For equality mostly? Should men be a woman's number 1 enemy and only enemy? I do not think that "men somehow came together without a single fight among themselves to take away the world from women in a revolution." It just happened. But I have to remain neutral in this.

"When two or more women compete with each other for any kind of reason." 

On Psychology Today, Noam Sphancer Ph. D presented 3 studies which apparently provides support for the existence of this so-called 'female competition'.

1. A study by Jon Maner and James McNulty of Florida State discovered that women's testosterone levels went up when they unknowingly smelled t-shirts of ovulating young women, presumably in preparation for aggressive competition. 
2. Canadian researchers Tracy Vaillancourt and Aanchal Sharma, showed how women judge and condemn each other based on appearance. They arranged for female participants to interact with a young research assistant. Some of the participants saw the assistant dressed in revealing clothes while others saw her wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The researchers tracked participants’ responses to the assistant during the meeting and after she left the room. Results? Read on.
3. The researcher Zhana Vrangalova and her colleagues at Cornell University surveyed 750 college students about their sexual behaviors and attitudes. Then, participants read a short description of a hypothetical person (of their own sex) who had either two (non-permissive) or twenty (permissive) past sexual partners. Participants then rated this potential friend on several friendship-relevant outcomes. Read on for the results. 

Why does female rivalry happen? 

Lynn Margolies, Ph.D. on PsychCentral said that healthy competition and confidence are encouraged in boys but not for girls. So if you're a competitive and confident girl/woman, you're a bitch (which is actually a common view held by both men and women). But if you're a boy/man, you're a man! (which is also a common view held by both men and women) According to Margolies, when there is competition team spirit provides a tool that strengthens bonds between men. Most men are actually comfortable if they are able to compete with one another. After all, that is what makes a man a man, isn't it? Most men don't feel bad about beating their friends in something and actually call themselves best buds after that (#friendshipgoals). For most girls, competition is something different especially when it involves beauty, life achievements, relationships and many other things. And I do want to emphasize the word most (because this is getting more sensitive by the minute) and that I'm not generalizing here so this does not apply to every girl out there in every situation. For most girls, we have learned from socializing with our girly peers and our families that we are not supposed to win at others' expense. That is a no no! We do not hurt other peoples' feelings! The effects? Our natural competitive spirit (both men and women have it), cannot be shared openly with others; it cannot be shared happily and jokingly with other people. If we win at something, we should feel a little happy but then beat up ourselves for hurting the competition. Why?

Margolies said women are "feelers". We pride ourselves of being sensitive to other peoples' feelings. So when we win at something (probably get higher marks in a test, followed our dieting plan, got a new hot boyfriend while others are single), we over-identify with the insecurities of other girls, putting ourselves in their shoes, and then feel bad about our so-called success. Then this negative emotion coupled with healthy aggression turns in to jealousy, envy or mistrust of other women who are more successful than them. So this mentality is then projected from that woman to the other woman. It's like one woman telling the other woman, "Hey! I don't feel good about beating my friends. You're not supposed to feel good as well!". Both men and women are threatened by success, but men are more willing (also encouraged) to try to challenge the successful person or more willing to positively accept defeat. On the other hand, women who are already confused as to how they should feel about themselves, then turns that into feeling of mistrust or helplessness when faced with a perceived successful person. Example, if a woman is in a relationship and then her partner has an affair with another person who she thinks is more attractive to her partner, women will most probably blame the "attractive" person and not their partner (I mean this in a heterosexual relationship). Why? Most women mistrust other women because of the very fact that they can't deal with their own insecurities or competitiveness. Women take care of people emotionally. The problem is, we expect other women to do the same for us what we would do for them.

"Healthy competition and confidence are encouraged in boys but not for girls" - Lynn Margolies Ph.D.

How did it come to this? I have no idea. But I assume that most women have the same mentality (mostly women who are insecure of themselves) whether or not they are successful people. According to Margolies, when this aggression cannot be channeled into a healthy positive quality, it becomes inhibited. It becomes a hush-hush feeling of envy and desire for others to fail but at the same time, guilt and shame. When you see a "bitch talk" or "cat fight" happening, behind that whole drama is a mixture of feelings such as insecurity, healthy aggression and guilt. Guys do it openly, while women do it in a not-so-obvious way. Most women don't know how to deal with their competitive nature in a positive way because of the very fact that these feelings have been repressed. In the end, we manipulate, lash out at others or beat up ourselves.

Now let's look at it in a socio-biological kinda way. We all know that men compete with other men to get a woman. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, women do the same thing to each other to get a man. It is called intra-sexual competition which initially focused on men gaining sexual access to women. Of course this only applies to heterosexual attraction. It'll only get more complicated if I have to relate homosexual, bisexual, polysexual, pansexual or asexual attraction to female rivalry (which can be an interesting question). So according to Emmanuel College Boston researcher, Joyce Benenson there are 3 unique characteristics of female competition:

1. Protection of their own bodies from physical harm. Women rely on concealed or indirect aggression towards other women rather than physical or direct confrontation simply because they do not want to hurt themselves which may cause problems for their current pregnancy or future baby-making. 
2. Equality, uniformity and sharing. The logic is that women who are of high status and are very attractive need less help and protection from other women. Also they are considered less motivated to invest in other women, thus these women of high status and attractiveness represent potential competition to other women. According to Benenson, women deal with the threat represented by a woman of high status and attractiveness by insisting on standards of equality, uniformity and sharing for all women so as to ensure that these are the attributes required for proper femininity. 
3. Social exclusion. When a new attractive women is present in a new area, all the women already there may turn their backs on her, forcing her to withdraw from the scene, which increases their own chances with the surrounding males. Now, this really sounds like a scene from National Geographic.

So this brings us back to the results for the studies mentioned above by Noam Sphancer Ph.D.:

Results for the study of how women judge and condemn each other based on appearance

The assistant was unanimously criticized when she wore revealing clothes and largely ignored when she wore regular attire. This study (and others) supports the evolutionary prediction: a more attractive woman (i.e., one who has more of what men like) will receive more hostility and less cooperation from other women because her presence threatens their own access to the evolutionary prize.

Results for the study of how women rate their potential promiscuous or permissive friend 

It was revealed that female participants, regardless of their own level of permissiveness, overwhelmingly preferred the non-permissive potential friend. According to the researchers, this is because women want to guard their partners and because they fear social stigma: if you go around with someone who’s known to be promiscuous (a “slut”), there is danger that the label will latch on to you, too. Studies show that women tend to criticize and reject other women who are viewed by them as sexually promiscuous. “Women are indeed very capable of aggression against others, especially women they perceive as rivals,” said Dr. Vaillancourt in a New York Times article. “The research also shows that suppression of female sexuality is by women, not necessarily by men.”

According to Sphancer, the study which found that women tend to reject women who are viewed by them as sexually promiscuous give support to the observation that women are often the chief enforcers of strict and sometimes cruel norms of female appearance and sexual behavior.

Example 1: In China, girls’ footbinding ('Lotus foot') was a custom for over a thousand years. The ancient custom involved breaking the toes of a 4 to 6 year-old girl, folding them and binding the feet tightly for years. This custom was valued because women with small feet were considered more desirable if she were to be married. The main enforcers were mothers and grandmothers.

Example 2: In some Muslim countries in Africa (like Somali), the ritual of female genital mutilation (FGM) is still practiced. Again this practice is designed to make the girl into good bride material for men or an initiation rites to 'womanhood'.  'Clitoridectomy', 'excision' or 'infibulation' apparently controls a woman's sexuality and prevents the woman from being promiscuous. Sewing the vaginal opening, cutting or removing the clitoris apparently reduces the possibility that the girl will have sex before marriage, thus upholds the family's honor and benefiting the interests of the future husband and his family. This ceremony is mostly managed, performed and enforced by the mothers and grandmothers.

This assumes that gaining sexual access to a woman is a biologically desirable and scarce resource for men. When women are able to be in control of that, what Noam Sphancer calls "bargaining power" in the relationship economy it pays for women to enforce sexual conservatism even at the cost of manipulating other women identified as permissive. Sphancer adds that with that kind of mindset or logic, mothers and grandmothers have a strong motivation to ensure that their daughters will become highly attractive to men, to carry on their genes. However, feminist psychology argues that competition among women is driven by social mechanisms. This means that women who are born and raised in a male-dominated society or patriarchal society, learn and assimilate the "male perspective" and adopt it as their own. Women viewed as sexual objects becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, even though it is a male view. Thus, the ultimate source of strength, identity, worth and achievement for a woman is to be considered prized by men compels women to compete with other women. Sphancer said that according to this argument many women refuse to see that the real threat to their achievement, power, value, and identity are not other women, but the male establishment that controls their lives. ("Katniss... remember who the real enemy is!")

"...women are often the chief enforcers of strict and sometimes cruel norms of female appearance and sexual behavior." - Noam Sphancer Ph.D. 

So, is getting the opposite sex the ultimate reason for female rivalry? Are men to be blamed for female rivalry? Next, Fashion Magazine's Caleigh Rykiss tells a story (which you can further read in this link "Why are we so afraid of female competition?":

"The topic of female competition and whether it’s a positive or negative thing has recently surfaced in the headlines. Janice Min, the president and chief creative officer of The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard magazines, revealed her decision to abolish the annual powerful women’s lists – both the Women in Entertainment Power 100 and 50 Most Powerful Women in Music editions. The reason? She’s tired of pitting women against each other in what inevitably turns into a “female cage match.” She explains, “I’ve come to believe that something as simple as our ranked women’s lists contributes to keeping that sense alive, that we accidentally created a beauty pageant of brains where only one woman gets crowned. Some women have publicly cried upon seeing their rankings. That is funny to some people. But it’s depressing as hell to me.” She also claims that in an industry where we’re still fighting for gender equality, creating this competitive environment among women is counter-productive. Instead she is implementing a power list that includes both men and women. While I can sort of see where she’s coming from, Min’s decision to stop recognizing these incredible women is both confusing and infuriating. Are we really letting the few insecure women ruin it for those who work hard and deserve to be acknowledged? Basically, we can no longer celebrate anyone because a few people can’t take the heat or play nice. This can’t be the only solution."

Further in that article, Caleigh introduces a very successful friend of hers Lainey Lui who (runs a successful gossip blog called LaineyGossip.com?) gave inspiring opinions and thoughts about female competition and how much she believes in healthy competition among women. But I would like to highlight one paragraph in that article which I believe is important for women and men to understand:

"As for why the catty culture among women continues to dominate, according to Lui it comes down to two basic facts. The first, she says, is that we are taught to be afraid of ambition. “When we fear something, it becomes dirty. If we were to embrace female ambition, supported by healthy competition, we change our perspective about what that looks like.” Lainey also calls out insecurity as a key factor in rejecting healthy girl-on-girl rivalry. She claims, “in my experience, negative female competition almost always originates in a lack of confidence. If you can get over yourself though, and see where you can grow, you can turn those experiences into learning opportunities.”

Another writer, Susan Shapiro Barash is the author of 'Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth about Women and Rivalry', and in her book she talks about women's relationships, women's movement and competition. This is a small paragraph I extracted from the excerpt that can be found on this link:

"As the early days of feminist consciousness-raising made clear, when we look more closely at a problem, we can feel relieved just by acknowledging it. Although everyone I spoke to had encountered jealousy, envy, and competition in some form, most women hadn't been able to talk about these issues. They felt pressured by traditional views of women, and by feminist platitudes. Many women expressed a sense of obligation to focus on the positive, to stress how important their mothers, sisters, and friends were to them, to tell only good stories about the other women they knew. To many of my subjects, women's rivalry seemed like a dirty little secret, and they were afraid of how they might look if they were honest about it."

Now we know that there are many factors behind female rivalry. It is a combination of many psychological, sociological and biological factors that influence female behavior. Then what?

What can we (men and women) do about it? 

A lot of people (mostly women and also men) are advocating for female empowerment, supporting the feminism movement, girl power, girl love and I believe that is one of the ways to eradicate female rivalry. In my opinion, that is not the only way because female rivalry is a deep-seated issue and it has been going on under our noses for a very long time, unconsciously or consciously. Mass media has played a big part in bringing this phenomena to light and in some ways enforced this idea that women are "catty" and "bitchy" towards each other all the time. Movies such as Mean Girls, Desperate Housewives or the Bachelorette are perfect examples to show the existence of female rivalry. So when this idea that women are supposed to be "bitchy" and "catty" towards each other is normalized (it has become normal), then it gets harder for each woman and girl to break out of that "conventional image". On the other hand, I do believe that gender equality is happening; you have women presidents, women who have achieved so many great things in life now that women back in the early 19th centuries only wish they could. But female rivalry is still happening and like stereotypes it cannot be fully eradicated.

What we can do is to continue to promote healthy competition among girls and women. The problem is that both men and women view female competition as something wrong. The mindset that women are caring and sensitive to feelings should not interfere with our natural instincts, in which women are as competitive as men. There shouldn't be a big fuss (for both men and women) when a woman shows that she is competitive. Female empowerment should not only give women and girls the power to change their lives but also get them out of the oppressed mindset. I believe many women out there still believe that men are the number 1 enemy and that women will always be oppressed by men. That is not so anymore. And as women, we may learn to deal with the fact that we are the only ones holding ourselves back. We may learn to remove that chip on the shoulder of ours, stop acting like we are the victim and build on ourselves instead of building on our anger and grudge. When we stop acting like the victim, maybe we can get out of the fact that we are being treated like one. Yes, in most cultures women are to be protected or mollycoddled or some even treated less than a human being. In some cultures women are thriving, successful pioneers in their own fields and heads of state. I believe women should focus more on building themselves, being open to new ideas and discuss issues in a neutral point-of-view. When we as women can try to understand the reason why we act and think in a certain way and why men think we are a certain way, we can improve ourselves and then improve on the future generation of girls. We do not have to blame anyone and we do not have to blame ourselves.

"What we can do is to continue to promote healthy competition among girls and women."

Here, I am not telling girls and women out there to stop competing with each other or stop hating each other (of course, neither am I encouraging or condoning it). I am just telling girls and women out there that maybe even with all that competition and hate for each other, we can learn to be better people, not a better 'woman', but a better 'person'. Also, we can learn to accept our differences and similarities instead of forcing each and every girl to come together in a movement, like how Susan Shapiro said if we can resist the "urge to merge"... we can look forward to a new world of healthy and productive female bonding.

What do people think about "female rivalry"? 

Loopdaed:

It's ridiculous and unfair. We should be empowering other girls because there lots of other shit to deal with besides getting annoyed over some girl's selfie or love life. We need to stand up for each other because there are guys out there who feel that feminism is "unattractive" so we need to be there for the girls that would have to possibly put up with shit from their boyfriends because they feel superior over the girls.

 Luke: 

I feel that these kinds of hatred can be overcome if girls learn how to be rational to a fellow girl. Girls naturally have the instinct to compete endlessly with another female for no particular reason. There is always comparison based on beauty, wealth, intellect and sometimes even comparing opposite partners to their own! To fight these dilemma girls should understand that personal grudges will never bring one up in life. Live without grudges and overcome jealousy with rational thinking instead of pointless feuds.

Lilly Singh (iisuperwomanii):

Thanks for reading until the end. I hope that all of us can learn something from this. Rest assured, I did learn a lot from reading other people's opinions and theories on this issue. I still have more questions, such as: What if the leaders of the world were only women? Would there be wars? What are homosexuals' or bisexuals' perspectives on sexual competition? Maybe I can talk about them in future posts. I can't say I have learned everything, but I hope I will continue to learn about other women, about myself and I hope you do too. Until the next post!

MY.

Acknowledgement

A big thank you to those who contributed your opinions to this post. I hope more people would share their opinions as well. I know it has been awhile since I last posted something on my blog, and it is because I wanted to take some time to write this one. Girls, this post is for you as much as it is for guys as well. You have inspired me and I believe many women out there are an inspiration to us girls, and it is okay to say that despite being jealous of their success, hair or whatever, it will inspire us to be better people. ;)

References 

Margolies L. (n. d.). PsychCentral. Competition among women: myth and reality. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/lib/competition-among-women-myth-and-reality/

Hoogervorst C. (2014). Oomphify. The Truth About Why Women Hate Each Other. Retrieved from http://www.oomphify.com/the-truth-about-why-women-hate-each-other/

Tierney J. (2013). The New York Times. A cold war fought by women. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/science/a-cold-war-fought-by-women.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1

Sphancer N. (2014). Psychology Today. Feminine Foes: New Science Explores Female Competition. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201401/feminine-foes-new-science-explores-female-competition

Tandy K. (2014). HuffingtonPost. Down kitty! The evolution of female competition. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katie-tandy/down-kitty-the-evolution-of-female-competition-_b_5619269.html

Rykiss C. (n. d.). Fashion Magazine. Why are we so afraid of female competition? Retrieved from http://www.fashionmagazine.com/beauty/health/2015/12/03/female-competition/