Why Women Secretly Hate Each Other
A few things you should know about women
Have you ever heard of Queen-Bee Syndrome?
When my sister was in college, she would complain a lot about other girls in her class. Being the elder brother, I thought my sister was just upset about other girls or didn’t know how to make friends. My sister told me that the girls never helped her with notes or other study-related materials or information, even when she failed to attend classes due to illness.
“They are just too competitive and ill-minded,” my sister concluded while describing their mentality.
I thought my sister was never on good terms with the girls in her class. I always blamed my sister for not being capable of making friends. Because, that time, I had amazing friends(males) who supplied me notes and helped me bunk classes (LOL). Even we would skip our coaching classes to play cricket matches together. I never sensed any competition or jealousy in them. Not even once.
I always wondered why my sister failed to make friendship with her female classmates? I saw other girls in my class as well. They were much like my sister — always competing and secretly hating each other. I never understood why on earth almost all the girls do that?
Queen-Bee Syndrome
Queen-Bee refers to women who have achieved success in a typically male-dominated field and, therefore, take masculine traits and distance themselves from other women. But, more interestingly, they see and treat other women critically, considering themselves superiors.
Allison Gabriel, a management professor of the University of Arizona, conducted a study and then confirmed that due to this Queen-Bee Syndrome, women are often meaner to each other than men are to women.
However, an NYT article echos the same. Citing a literature review by Tracy Vaillancourt, the article states that women show indirect aggression toward other women only to promote themselves and look more attractive.
And even celebrities like Amy Schumer and Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift acknowledged that truth.
Sexual Jealousy
In his writing “On Women,” Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, wrote, “It is natural for a feeling of mere indifference to exist between men, but between women, it is actual enmity.”
He further explained, “This is due perhaps to the fact that odium figulinum (intense hatred) in the case of men, is limited to their everyday affairs, but with women embraces the whole sex; since they have only one kind of business. Therefore, even when they meet in the street, they look at each other like Guelphs and Ghibellines.”
Understandably, in this male-dominated world, women treat each other as rivals, and everyone wants to attract as many males as possible to defeat others.
So instead of being happy with other women’s beauty, worth, and success, they get jealous and secretly develop hatred.
Envious of Other’s Possessions
Women generally envy other women who seem to have more possessions. It can be material possessions like gorgeous dresses, supercars, jewelry, etc. But, again, in this social-media-driven world, they also get envious of other women’s follower numbers, subscribers, even Instagram photo reactions.
This behavior of women comes to form a sense of insecurity. When women see other women have all the things they wanted in life, they feel deprived and become envious of others’ possessions. And it gradually develops hatred towards them.
It’s natural, isn’t it? When you want some specific things in life and don’t get them even if you try hard — and then you see others having and displaying the same items in front of you — what else can you do?
If I go back to my sister’s story, I can now understand why my sister failed to befriend other girls in her class and why she found the girls too competitive with each other.
Anyway, in a male-dominated environment, it’s pretty natural for women to be competitive. But it shouldn’t be the case that one woman will start to hate the other only because of Queen-Bee Syndrome, sexual jealousy, material possessions, or anything else.
Thank you for reading!
If you want to read more of my writings, do check out the following articles.
