Women supporting women: the new mantra of girl-power enthusiasts. What exactly does this mean beyond the obvious of women should support other women? It means that in today's generation, women typically do NOT support one another. Women judge, belittle and hurt other women in pursuit to be the best. Jealousy is a vapid thing, and it makes it hard to be happy or supportive. We feel that if our boyfriend thinks Sally is pretty, that means he thinks I am less pretty. If our boss tells us Morgan has been doing a wonderful job, my work is inadequate. If Kelsey gets 300 likes on her Instagram pictures, and I only get 100 likes, people must like her more than they like me.
Comparison is the ultimate killer of support because if one woman is succeeding, that thereby threatens my success. So therefore, many women dislike other women until proven that they should not dislike them.
But why? When did it become her or me? When did it become all or nothing? When did believing in another woman make me less pretty, capable or successful?
There are many factors that attribute to our feelings of competition. One, because men frequently pit women against each other: “Who do you think is better looking? Jennifer Aniston or Mila Kunis?" The loser feels insignificant. No one wants to be less, therefore it is easy to undermine others to continue to build up our own self esteem. But also, the world favors men. For jobs, sports and power. As little girls, we grow up seeing men as presidents, men playing basketball on TV and men that rescue Cinderella. Sure, it is a little more mainstream, and Disney is making some great women-centric movies. There is also the WNBA, and one day soon there may be a woman president. But for now, we are in a world where men are favored, and we know there are few women that get the same recognition and attention as successful men. So, we want to compete. We all want to be that woman who stands out, who is the best. And there can only be one best, right?
Wrong. What is wrong about our thought process is that we think there are a limited number of girls that can be successful, pretty, or smart. However, there is power in numbers. We do not want to continue on the trend of having a few successful women. We should want most of us to be successful, to be beautiful, to be happy. We should recognize the strength in having confident and happy women around rather than petty and jealous women. It is more beautiful to believe the best in people, to see other's positives and embrace them, to not feel threatened but to let it empower you. So what if your ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend is beautiful? Doesn't that speak well about him? And so what if another woman got the promotion you were hoping for? It is disappointing, but congrats to her, right?
Emma Watson has said, “A lot of the criticism I've ever had in my life, some of the hardest criticisms, have been comments from other women. It's not just enough to ask men to come support us. We really need to support each other." And this speaks exactly about what it means for Women Supporting Women. It means to believe in one another, and not knock each other down out of jealously or competition. It means that women, as a whole, have a better chance at success, than we do individually.
We should refocus the power we put into making ourselves stand out, and focus on becoming one of many great women we females support and respect, together.
