I spoke with a friend of mine a few days back. She’d been having a tough time dealing with college, social life et al and wanted to talk about it. Turns out, a bunch of people from her class had been actioned (and all too gleefully) badmouthing her. I won’t go into details about all the spiteful remarks, but the gist of it all was that she was very closed in, talked to people only when she needed to, was unintelligent and had a small phone (yes, you read that right). What did she do? She called me up and went on a tirade of malicious & nasty comments against all of them.
Now, my friend, she is an amazing person. She has the kindest heart and a charming personality. So, why did that happen? Why on earth, do we have a group of girls tearing each other down for the most insignificant of reasons?
This is just a small example of what is called, ‘internalized misogyny’ or in more simple terms, girl-on-girl hate.
Let’s own up to it. How many times in our lives have we put down a girl because she dared to dress differently? How many times have we shrugged off a girl because she talked to a selective group of people and therefore came across as arrogant and proud? How many goddamn times have we called an opinionated headstrong girl a bitch because how dare she! Leadership traits are masculine only; and heavens forbid if she is loud. It is the end of the world. How many times have we appropiated a girl’s body as too thin and too fat and fat thighs and bulging stomachs and too small eyes and beaked nose? And don’t even get me started on what we think of girls who can and choose to freely express their sexuality. They are deemed ‘easy’.
Why do we do this? Why do we consicously choose to put down other women to make ourselves feel good?
From a very young age, we are taught to abide by a certain set of norms that are ascribed to the gender we are born with. We, as girls, are taught to be docile and meek, dress decently, not talk too loud, to be passive during confrontations, avoid arguments etcetera. Then, the media bombards us with images of women with scrawny bodies, but full boobs and booties (all hail photoshop), shaved and trimmed and plucked. And little by little, we are fed this message that the ultimate goal in our life is to have The One. The Guy. Our Prince Charming. So what if you have achieved spectacular success in your career, you are still a failure at life if you haven’t found the man you want to marry, screw and spew kids with, scrub dishes and wear pretty clothes at civil parties. I am not even going to talk about the general assumption here that we all would simply pursue a heterosexual relationship if we do.
We absorb so much of this unconsciously at such a young age that, every time we see a girl prettier than us, we feel insecure. If our friend ‘lands’ a better boyfriend (and the standards are: richer and better looking) we feel that tinge of jealousy. Again, every time we see an abrasive, sharp girl, we tend to be mean towards her because she had the courage to defy the standards we set for her to put up with. This is unhealthy. It is detrimental to the cause of gender equality. It is extremely injurious when we put down people from our own gender. As Tina Fey says in Mean Girls, “You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores”.
My friend did nothing to offend any of those people. Yet, she was at the receiving end of unwarranted attacks because she was pretty and had a comparatively much less complicated life. She too, in return, put down all of them, because that is the only way we have learned to feel better about ourselves.
Of course, there should be competition, of course, there should be healthy contests among us. But at the cost of making someone feel low about their appearance, body, sexuality or THEIR PHONE? We’ve got to stop doing this. The only way we can tackle misogyny is if we, first, stop employing it to our means.
It isn’t of course easy. It is not easy to brush off years of conditioning, but we can try. We can start by gently calling out people when they pass impolite and unjustified comments about someone. We can consciously stop ourselves when we try to engage in foul talk about our peers. All women are not our rivals and once we realize that, we can focus on our own personal growth without inhibiting others.
Note: Image is only for representational purpose.
