kicking beauty standards to the kerb since 2016

Here's Why We Need To Stop Pitting Women Against Other Women

Here's Why We Need To Stop Pitting Women Against Other Women

Dear ladies: as quoted from the legendary masterpiece that is 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.’

It’s been ingrained into our society that girls should be jealous of other girls. We should always be unhappy about a girl who is more popular than us. We flip through magazines, or scroll through social media, feeling bitter about any girl’s figure we rank above our own. 

Why does it seem so bold to say that, we should not only stop with the comparisons, but we should actually feel good about other peoples’ successes? Somebody’s achievements do not highlight a failure in you. Somebody’s happiness does not have to cancel out your own. I want people to say, ‘I’m really happy for you,’ not for the sake of being polite, but because they bloody well mean it. 

I hate the way that, while rivalries can occur between any genders, there seems to a particular normality with girls hating other girls. There’s this unspoken rule that girls are supposed to be bitchy. They have to smile to somebody’s face, then stab them in the back as they leave.     

I’ll admit it – I love a bit of goss just as much as the next person. It’s entertaining. But perhaps the drama of, say, Katy Perry vs. Taylor Swift is exciting at the time, yet I’d smile more at the pair of them sticking up for each other. The novelty of petty arguments and Twitter rows wears off. The stuff that really stays with you is the positive moments. Seeing girls support other girls. Seeing girls complementing other girls. Seeing girls stick up for other girls when we need each other’s help now more than ever. 

With fuckboys on the loose, sexism galore, and hell knows what else to worry about, these times make you want to roll your eyes and say, Ugh, men. And while men aren’t entirely to blame for the current problems in our culture, of course, this still highlights the need for us ladies to band together when you can’t always rely on the guys.

I appreciate the girl who tells me to message her, to let her know I got home safe. I appreciate the girl who, while she has never contributed towards sexism, still sees the importance in calling it out. I appreciate the girl who congratulates me on my promotion, and genuinely feels good that more females are in higher job roles. I appreciate the girl who, while people turn into all sorts of people when they’re drunk, by default remains a nice, bubbly person, complementing my outfit in the queue of the club toilet.  

I find it odd how we live in a world where it is considered so outstanding in a person if they’re nice. Deep down, I like to think we’re all decent people – we’re all born with the potential of being nice human beings – and yet it’s seen as so bold and unconventional to just be kind sometimes. There is strength in being soft.

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