Note from Jane: I wrote this post about a week ago but I didn't publish it because after I reread it I felt like it was a steaming pile of bullshit. I doubted I could follow the advice I offered at the end. I've tried to pay attention to the way I've treated my friends and other women in general the last few days, and I quickly realized I have a lot of work to do to be the supportive woman I expect us all to be. So, since I've been making an effort to change my ways, I feel like I can now publish this post without feeling like a complete hypocrite.
You would think the older women get the more secure we would feel. You'd expect us to get comfortable in our own skin and stop comparing ourselves to other women. Not so much.
We get so in touch with our insecurities that we recognize that other women have the same insecurities and we use that information to prey on each other. Remember when you were a kid and another girl was mean to you? Your mom said "She's just jealous" or when you got a little older she'd say "She's just insecure and it makes her feel better about herself to make you feel bad about yourself." It made little sense at the time but mom had it right, as cliched as it sounds, and we're still jealous of each other and try to tear each other down.
When a guy has a problem with another guy, he'll confront him face-to-face. He'll just say he has a problem and they either hash it out or duke it out until it's resolved. Women are much more subtle. We can make a jab with a sharp butcher knife feel like a compliment at first. We can make sabotage seem like a kind gesture on the surface.
Have you ever heard a woman say "I love your new haircut. It makes you look soooo young." It sounds like a compliment, right? But any woman who has been on the receiving end of that will walk away wondering "Does that mean I looked old before?" Or how about this one: "That's such a cute dress! It makes you look so thin!" That's a nice, backwards way of saying "You're kind of fat but that dress helps hide it." And it's not just a figment of our imagination because we all know we've said something similar to someone we thought looked like crap before she finally got her hair fixed or who's put on a few pounds and needs to camouflage it.
A few months ago, Gregarious Girl had knee surgery that kept her from her normal gym routine for several weeks. After she was able to get back into the swing of things she told some co-workers how good it felt to be working out again and how well her workouts were going. Guess what showed up at the office the next day? A big box of assorted donuts. Sabotage disguised as a kind gesture because one woman got worried someone was going to look better than she did.
Perhaps I'm being too cynical. I'm certain most women have genuine friendships. I know I do. But some of us specialize in being frenemies. And it only takes one frenemy in the group to start the back-stabbing and suspicions. I have to admit I've been a frenemy before. In my defense, though, even if it is a crappy defense, I learned to be a frenemy from other frenemies; they made me suspicious of all the other friends, thus, turning me into a frenemy. And the really, really ugly part: they made it seem okay to be a frenemy.
The really crappy thing about frenemies is that we genuinely care about our friends but every now and then we get really jealous and the claws come out. We don't want them to come out. We can't help it! It's survival instinct (maybe?) -- we have to fight to make ourselves feel better or go down in flames fueled by insecurity.
When I was about 8-years old a friend's mom gave me a copy of the book Little Women for my birthday. It was age inappropriate, really, and completely went over my head when I tried to read it. A few years later I read it and really liked it. It's about four magnificent sisters and their struggles to overcome their character flaws. Isn't that all of us? Unless you're in serious denial or have an ego the size of Texas, you're aware of some of your flaws and you probably struggle with keeping them under control.
I think maybe a character flaw of womankind is our insecurities and attacking each other to hide them. We cause a distraction by pointing out someone who's gained five pounds so maybe no one will notice we've gained ten. We point out the co-worker who sometimes doesn't get her work done on time as a smokescreen to hide our own perpetually-flawed reports. We gossip about a friend's relationship problems to make our own seem less serious and talk about how weird another friend's idiosyncrasies are so maybe we can feel more normal. Have you done it? I know I have. And I hate myself for it.
The way men compete is easier on them. They play football, or poker, or lift weights to see who is better at something and there's a clear winner; but we have to try to out dress, out cook, out accessorize, out decorate, and out pretty each other. It's exhausting! And expensive! I'm waving the white flag of surrender on behalf of all women. Let's stop being the kind of little women who pick at each other and start being the women who support each other and cheer each other on. Who's with me? Anyone?
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