Unmasking women’s rivalry

By Soni Kanake

Take it or leave it — women are their own worst enemies. Most can attest to the fact that only a bossom girlfriend will genuinely smile or laugh with her when she rises above horizons.

Take the case of a woman who climbs the corporate ladder or breaks the enviable glass ceiling. You guessed right, it is the women — especially colleagues and friends — who will be the first to bring her down and whisper obscenities in closed circles. "She’s sleeping with the boss," they will say behind closed doors.

Arguably, women just do not trust each other — and perhaps this explains why most fancy male hairdressers, gynaecologist or just prefer dealing with men. Women are generally competitive in nature, and if they are not busy competing for men or who looks hotter, they are busy trashing each other’s dressing and hairstyles. Even best friends do it.

All this is done in an attempt to try and outdo each other and prove that one is the better woman. They have officially branded each other as ‘bitches’ — no wonder you will often hear them ‘bitching’ about their unsuspecting sisters.

Generally, women offer each other zero support and having a female boss is every woman’s worst nightmare! The female boss adamantly refuses to understand why her female junior wants a day off or why she is late to work.

One would expect that since she is a woman, she understand better and address her fellow woman’s issues — wrong!

A lot of women will not acknowledge their female junior’s hard work and will continue to sit on their promotions. It is worse if the junior dresses better than her boss or is blessed with more youthful looks.

Visit any office where a woman is in charge and she will treat her fellow women like furniture in the room. It never helps matters if the receptionist is a woman, in which case any female visitor wishing to see the boss (worse if it is a man) will never get to see him. Yet all this belittling is an unnecessary exercise in futility. Because women outnumber men by far, methinks it would help if we treated our similarities as a unifying front instead. Think about all the common goals that women treasure and which inevitably unite them. This is how to go about it:

1 Shopping instead of bad mouthing other women: Why not do what comes naturally to you. Shopping is like an aphrodisiac to women. It is exciting and rejuvenating. Women shop for the sake of shopping not because they need something. For them, it is a therapeutic exercise.

2 Bonding sessions: Women like to talk; they like to share and download

information. However, make sure the content of your conversation is helpful to avoid time wastage. Women tend to understand each other — even when strangers, they can still offer each other advice. Whether at a chama, in the office or at the gynaecologist’s clinic, they will connect and have something to talk about.

3 Love and relationships: When a woman falls in love, she has one singular goal, to make it work! Due to this heavy emotional investment, they need each other for support. Women use excessive heart and effort; little wonder men are referred to as ‘the head’ because they use their heads most times in the relationships.

4 Need for intimacy: Unlike their male counterparts, most women crave intimacy in their relationships. A lot of men do not mind arms-length relationships if left to their devices. Women are able to bond with each other and understand each other’s issues, which leads to fulfilling relationships.

5 Mirror, mirror on the wall: women are obsessed with looking good and spend a lot of time on it. They pay attention to how they look, whether they are models, professionals, businesswomen or ordinary housewives. Women value their looks more than the time spent creating the look.

Educating a woman is essentially educating a nation. Well, imagine all the positive things that could emerge from women supporting each other and how liberating it would be. As opposed to tearing each other down, women should look for common grounds to relate to each other and look for something positive in each other. This way, they will go a long way in building each other. Remember, great minds think alike, especially when they are female!