For the past few weeks, I’ve been mulling over this issue about why, some women do not seem to respect and support other women. In my 42 years, I haven’t met one woman, regardless of age or race, who hasn’t had an issue with another woman at some point in her life! As grown women, we all have a tendency to “size” a woman up when we first meet her and depending on what we determine about her, our judgment effects how we relate to that woman. Now this makes sense of course, I mean, hey we do that with everyone, male or female, right? It’s called human nature.
But what I’ve come to realize is that some women have a seemingly automatic “dislike” button that gets triggered when they’re around other women, particularly ones they don’t know. Some give off a vibe that says “I’m only going to be so friendly with you, so don’t expect anything more!” And then you have other women who will smile and laugh and chop it up with you on numerous occasions and then will completely flip the script and talk about you behind your back.
Now I get that sometimes you meet someone who you just don’t vibe with. Hey, it could be the wrong day, or that time of the month, (don’t judge, we’ve all been there!) We’ve all got our own personal stuff that we carry with us on a daily basis, and when we come into contact with other women, particularly women who have different personalities than ours, sometimes we just don’t connect on a sista girl type of level. But that does not mean we should allow ourselves to be juvenile and petty. If you are a grown woman, can you please remember this and let your actions reflect that??
It’s perplexing to me, especially the older I get, when I see women allowing petty jealousies, misunderstandings, and personal issues to stop them from supporting one another and advocating for each other. For example, to this day women in professions such as teaching, law, engineering, medicine, etc, are still not met with the same level of confidence nor do they receive equal compensation as men do in those same professions.
What frustrates me is the fact that we know this continues to be a serious issue, yet, why is it that there are women who are more than qualified and deserve to be promoted and receive fair compensation, but are passed over and not recognized by their female supervisors?? Why are some women threatened or intimidated by other women who possess leadership qualities?
It’s a damn shame really. As women, we have to fight for every little thing. The expectations, responsibilities, obstacles, stumbling blocks, hurdles and hardships that we face are at times insurmountable. Yet we survive. We thrive. We keep our families going. But we need each other to do it! Where and why have we lost sight of this? As women, we know what each other faces, so why are we not doing more to advocate for issues that directly effect us?
What are we teaching our young girls? Because I tell you many of our young girls are not growing up witnessing a sisterhood. What they see right now is a bunch of individuals concerned with themselves. And to be real, there are some issues that as women in this country we have to deal with together otherwise we will look up and find that another 10, 20 yrs have passed and we are worse off than we are right now. WE need to support each other, whenever, however and in whatever way that we can.
Dawn M. Edwards 
I agree! I think for some people it may be that they’re afraid to see other women succeed. They’re afraid their support may help that sista succeed, God forbid. Of course, that’s really silly. The world is big enough for all of us to get a piece of the pie and we should be happy to see the success of others. And most of the time, we benefit directly or indirectly from the success of other women. So it really is in our best interest to hold each other up. And for those who are so concerned about one woman’s success being bigger than her own, she should work that much harder to achieve her own goals while supporting other women. It couldn’t hurt to try.
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It is very sad that we can not be in support of each other and some even go as far as to be the first to bad mouth and criticize other women on sight. As sad as it is I believe it all goes back to how very insecure women can be. It seems we are always in competition with one and other whether it’s for the attention of a man or a job. As a black woman I have to work harder to prove I am just as capable as my male counterparts especially in the industry I work. I believe this to be true for most women but because we have to do that some women have taken on a ‘me against the world’ attitude and feel that because they’ve had to work so very hard to get anywhere they are not going to allow anyone an opportunity to possibly surpass them and that goes double for other women because they have less influence over a male’s success and advancement. Unfortunately women can be very ugly back-biting individuals with a complete lack of trust for ANY other women simply because they are ruled by their insecurity. I would love to know what it would take for us to be more supportive of one and other but it seems as time goes on it only gets worse.
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I agree, it really does seem to be getting worse and its hard to pinpoint just what the solution is. I think to start we need to have more workshops specifically tailored for women with the goal of learning how to communicate to and relate with one another in a healthy and productive way.
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I was just having a conversation last night regarding Lamar Odom and apparently the brothel manager was being scolded for providing the information on how much Lamar had spent and specifics of his stay there and the his response was that TMZ and other gossip mags like them were swarming all over that place with checks in hand to write so of course he took it. I am using this example to demonstrate how we live in a society whose demand for the ratchet and drama has become the norm and TMZ would not be able to exist were we not in feeding frenzies to watch and document someone’s lowest moments. And who are the largest population segment purchasing, reading and following such drama?!? Women! How can we get to a point of sisterhood support while consuming daily and constant doses of drama and BS? What I would like to know is why are so many willing to feed such guilty pleasures like watching someone’s despair? What need is being fulfilled? We need to get more in touch with who we are, what we have to offer, knowing our own worth and value and embrace that because until we do we will always see other women as a threat that we have to compete against.
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That’s exactly what we should be doing, holding each other up because it would definitely help us as individuals, in more ways than one.
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