The average woman will spend her day working, taking care of her family or friends, running errands, cleaning, attending meetings and cooking amongst a list of other never-ending things. Let’s face it–being a woman is not an easy task. However, it becomes a lot more complicated to do simple day-to-day activities when we are constantly being criticized for our actions, appearance and life-style choices.
We often put all the blame on men for being the ones to criticize women. The funny thing is it seems that females are so quick to judge and criticize other females. We read about it magazines and watch it on television–females are attacking other females. It starts on the playground and continues to the workplace. It seems like every day there are more and more media stories focusing on the negatives of other women and what they are doing wrong–seldom what they are doing right and positive stories.
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In the February issue of Elle Magazine, actress and singer Zooey Deschanel addresses the issue of females bullying other females. Deschanel is often stereotyped as being weak because of her girly disposition. She explains that ever since she was young she was bullied and how that has helped motivate her and her career.
“I really have stood up for myself on multiple platforms. It’s sort of the grown-up version of middle-school nastiness, and I’m just like, come on. If there’s one thing I’d like to graduate from, it’s girl-on-girl hate. I don’t believe in it,” Deschanel said.
Deschanel has a point. When will women stop hating on other women?
As a woman, we have so many problems to worry about and the last thing we need is another woman, who is most likely dealing with the same issues as we are, to judge you and bully you. Women more than anyone else should understand the difficulties other women are going through and should do everything in their power to make it easier for them, not worse.
Everyday women are faced with scary or challenging situations such as pregnancy, relationship abuse, body insecurities, sexism, rape, work-place discrimination, etc. The last thing a woman needs to be is a challenge for another female to face and deal with.
Women would be so much better off if we banned together instead of attacking one another and ripping each other to shreds because of their own insecurities. Women can use all that negative energy they use against other women and make better use of their time and energy.
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We can be solving problems and climbing career ladders. We can be forming female mentoring networks and setting up child carpooling with other moms. We can encourage each other to take risks and compliment one another and actually mean it.
When we stop hating on one another we can start getting some work done. Women cannot afford to be divided in this male-dominated world. We have to stick together and stop ripping one other to shreds at the first chance we get. Because how will any man respect us if we cannot even respect the members of our own gender?
By: Lisa Crocco