Women have never been worse to other women.
It probably has something to do with women never having greater access to other women.
We see more women, we hear more women and we read more from women than at any other moment in history.
So, what are we doing with this new found voice?
Well, it would seem, yelling very loudly at each to “shut the f*ck up”.
*****
This week, we hate Taylor Swift.
“It’s cool to hate Taylor Swift,” The Guardian published this week. “She’s a social media pariah, the punchline of every meme… She’s become universally despised to the point where it’s taboo even to admit to feeling sorry for her.”
The Tab published last year, ‘Confession: I hate Taylor Swift,’ written by Alexis Morillo, which cites Gina Florio’s piece for Babe, ‘5 important reasons I can’t love Taylor Swift anymore’.
Junkee writer Matilda Dixon-Smith, tweeted on the day her video clip dropped, “Cheap f*cking shot at Kim KW’s traumatic experience being robbed and tied up in a bath bitch.”
Megan Reynolds wrote for Jezebel, "There are far more pressing horrors facing women than the tired-ass argument that makeup is a tool of the patriarchy intending to bring us down."
There are entire websites dedicated to hating Blac Chyna, Nicki Minaj, Tyra Banks and any other black woman you can name. The 'I hate Tyra Banks' Facebook group attracts comments from women, accusing her of being "white black traitor", because she had a baby with a white man.
We are very good at hating lots of women, all at once.
*****
If only this was an epidemic that didn't touch Australian shores. But alas, women hate other women here as much as anywhere else.
Constance Hall, writer, author and social media personality, has hate groups dedicated to her with more than 2000 members. Mostly women.
After announcing her separation from her husband earlier this year, she told Perth Now, that people printed out photos and "stuck them all over Perth saying, 'Vote 1 for Constance to be voted a s- parent'... it gets really, really nasty".
POST CONTINUES BELOW: Why are women being so awful to each other? We discuss on Mamamia Out Loud.
Within one of the hate groups who have named themselves 'Abdication of Constance Hall', one woman wrote that she sent sexually explicit images of herself to Hall's ex-partner. Women in the group encouraged her, and said they were planning to do the same thing.
Just yesterday, a 'mummy blogger' from Perth named The Notorious MUM announced that she was going to stop writing, because she could not handle the constant abuse.
The more we share, it seems, the more we find not to like.
Holly Wainwright wrote last week for Mamamia, 'The are Mummy Blogger 'hate' groups on Facebook. I hung out in them for three months.' She found that women (who make up an overwhelming majority of these groups) hate you if you're smug and ungrateful. They hate you if you're too fat, and just as much if you're too thin. They hate you for what you feed your children, how you speak to your husband, and how little time you spend cleaning your house. These women believe, Wainwright writes, that it is their right to be "abjectly awful," and if you dare respond, "you're a thin-skinned weakling and shouldn't bloody write on the internet."
It's not just 'mummy bloggers'. We hate Delta Goodrem, although no one is very good at articulating why. 'I hate Delta Goodrem,' has 500 likes on Facebook - again, almost entirely made up of women. "This will make your night lol," Louise writes, tagging her friend Sophie in the group.
*****
Women, who have spent the last century or two advocating for basic human rights, who have been told to march, rise up, lean in, and speak louder, are now being very much instructed to sit down and shut up.
You're too white, or too rich, or too polarising, or too honest, or too manufactured, or too loud-mouthed, or too annoying.
We are eating our own. But why?
Last weekend statistics were published that 40 per cent of Australian women have been diagnosed with anxiety or depression. This research is consistent with findings all over the Western world.
Women are not happy. We are in crisis. And we hate ourselves.
We scroll through Instagram, or turn on the telly, or read a column - and the second anything makes us feel 'bad' about ourselves, we attack.
"You're making me feel bad for not exercising," we reason. "Cry me a river from your million dollar mansion..." we say through gritted teeth, still grappling with the reality that we will likely always rent in a suburb we do not want to live.
She makes us feel bad about how we eat, or what we do for a living, or our imperfect family. It's her fault.
It's not, of course. But similarly to how it's the coffee table's fault when you stub your toe on a bad day, in our minds, it is.
The cruellest person reserves the greatest cruelty for themselves. We are mean, and we think mean thoughts, when we are starkly unhappy.
Spend three minutes on Twitter, and you'll see that some of our most influential feminists litter their feeds with criticism towards other women. Personal, mean, below the belt criticism.
Just as the worst people to journalists on Twitter are other journalists, and the worst people to Lefty advocates and other Lefty advocates, women are spending a great deal of their time on the Internet, attacking other women.
Public discourse - the advent of Twitter and Facebook - was not meant to be about people all over the world throwing shit at each other. It's come to resemble an unruly dinner party, where everyone is throwing food and they don't know why or who at.
I'm not sure who started it, but someone has to put their spoon down first.
Women can argue - they must. There is no problem with a conversation around what women in the public eye do. Feedback that is constructive, helpful and insightful leads to social progress.
But the feminist catch-cry that the personal is political has been misinterpreted to mean the person is political. And they're not. They're just a human being, made of flesh and blood, who is both good and bad, feminist and anti-feminist, Left and Right, progressive and conservative.
Before we type or yell, I wonder if we could consider for a moment why we are so angry.
What about this has upset us - in this very moment?
And maybe once we pause, we'll realise it's time to put down the spoon.
You can listen to the full episode of Mamamia Out Loud, here.
Top Comments
It's probably a mix of things. Clickbait is designed to pull people in and it works. The bigger the outrage or shock, the more clicks.
Second, even if you tried not to, social media algorithms seek out articles and people you seem to agree with. Your YouTube feed is quickly full of agreeing perspectives, automatic echo chamber that warps everyone to believe more they are right and in the majority.
Third, no battle so viscious as that over nothing. The less the difference, the less middle ground to be found, the more acute the minor points of difference. If your partner leaves their cup in the sink, that can become a more emotive issue than deciding to buy a new house together.
Don't disagree with any of those points.
My own personal beef is with the over saturation of these women, who actually aren't that extraordinary. I am tired of being bombarded by news and stories pertaining to these women, who don't speak for me, who don't represent me, and who, moreover, often are utterly anti-feminist and/or hypocritical in the platforms they choose to inhabit.
I'm fed up with being told to "scroll on if I don't like it", or having any intelligent discourse being shut down with accusations of being a "hater" or "shaming" other women (because we're all meant to "raise other women up", apparently). I'm jaded by the fact that truly amazing women aren't being given the same oxygen as light-weight, privileged, uneducated celebrities who are given more political and social power than they deserve, or know how to intelligently use.
Be it Dixie Chicks or Lena Dunham, I don't know how much celebrity opinions change much. Clinton surrounded herself with celebs and it to some at least got more scorn than support for it.
Personally, I'm as enthralled by Robert DeNiros political stance as I am interested in hearing Bindi Irwins thoughts on reserve fractional banking and neither is likely to change my mind on either unless they do so on the power of their arguments rather than their celebrity status.
Ultimately, celebs do damage themselves by weighing in on other matters, I assume they do it for the same reason as journos tend to hang to the left, for the acceptance and acclimation of their professional peers.
Well analysed Guest. Most women don't hate other women. I love my women friends, they are the backbone of my life. I love my husband and family, but it's with my female friends that I can really let my hair down.
I particularly agree with your last paragraph, you've said it all so well and reflected my sentiments so exactly, there is nothing for me to add to it.
I think the platforms given to celebrities is much greater in power and paradoxically set much lower in standard to achieve, thanks both to the reach of the internet and social media. The rise of the influence and bankability of bloggers, reality TV "stars" and "influencers" is proof of that: thoroughly mediocre writing, describing ordinary stuff done by ordinary people, but laughing all the way to the bank nonetheless, all the while being availed of the opportunity to be heard and acknowledged by the community. These folk would never have got a gig pre-internet.
I too are not influenced by these people, but I fear many are. But when I express these thoughts, I'm just a "hater on the internet" who "hates other women". It's so frustrating.
The dislike between women hasn't increased. It's just the same as it always has been and always will be. Women also dislike tonnes of men btw. In fact for every person in the world there is probably a person or two who greatly dislike them. This is a non-event argument in my opinion.