I Need to Stop Comparing Myself to Other Women.
I Need to Focus on Building Alliances. Here’s Why You Should Too.
I had a conversation with a good friend of mine above womanhood and. She had finished an assignment on women’s rights, and even so, still felt bothered by the topics discussed in her essay. It centered around how some women aggressively compete, undermine and degrade one another. While we were talking, I silently agreed to everything she said as she was quick to point out that women are constantly and subconsciously tearing each other down. She was irritated by the habitual and constant use of the derogatory terms “hoes” and “bitches” by women to address other women. Her and I grew up with women tearing down our looks and our hobbies
Once our call ended, our conversation stood prominent in my thoughts. I kept thinking about why. The why was so important to me and though I felt like I already had a good idea why, I wanted to take time to really think about why women at times seem to fall into the trap of doing this to other women.
Who is to blame for all the bad mouthing, and competition? Are women born with an innate ability to constantly tear each other apart?
Researchers think that lots of our nasty behavior is because of patriarchy. I have no argument here. Think about it. If we find our value in men, then the only competition is other women who could replace us. Noam Shpancer writes this theory in a Psychology Today article on female competitiveness.
“Cutthroat female competition is due mainly to the fact that women, born and raised in male-dominated society, internalize the male perspective (the ‘male gaze’) and adopt it as their own. The male view of women as primarily sexual objects becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. As women come to consider being prized by men their ultimate source of strength, worth, achievement and identity, they are compelled to battle other women for the prize.”
The prize in my case is a stellar tech job. For me it’s easy to see why women might feel the need to compete against one another — and I’m not excluding myself from this. If there is this pie of tech jobs at an amazing company and if women only have a sliver of that pie then, of course, we’re going to feel we must compete with each other more harshly in order to get those slots. But you know what would solve that problem?
Equaling the playing field. Ensuring that the pie was equal.
Competition would still exist, sure, but women wouldn’t feel the need to compete against one another specifically.
Something that came up in our conversation and in her essay is how girls and women tend to respond when someone who they feel is more attractive than they are get better opportunities. This definitely hit home for me because I’ve always been the one to leave a meeting, interview, and social function, inwardly begging various people I’ve had to interact with to do these simple things for me: Can you acknowledge my existence? Can I say something? Can you actually listen to me when I’m speaking? Can you at least remember my name? These are the basic requirements of human interaction, and yet, with certain men and women, they’re shockingly hard to achieve.
I’ve always felt invisible in undergrad. It’s a different kind of sexism that some women find it hard to describe. It’s the type of sexism where people treat me like I’m not even there, because they essentially don’t consider me fuckable. I try to get a word in, to start a conversation, to engage the way normal human beings do, but I am quickly disregarded. One’s responses to me will be curt, or nonexistent. He or she will glance at me, acknowledging something just came out of my mouth, but that gaze will swiftly readjust itself back onto the other person in the conversation. That other person usually being a “hotter”, feminine looking woman, or another man. The conversation continues to be a struggle to the point where I want to shout at the top of my lungs, “Hey asshole, I don’t want to fuck you either!”
Since I’ve started coding, invisibility and scrutiny has been a curse more than a minor annoyance. It’s harder to shrug off the disregard when it’s hurting my chances of success. All because some shitty, shallow people who held more power than I did, didn’t want to have sex with me. It shouldn’t have to matter, but it does. It makes no sense that it’s even an issue, but it is, and it hurts. It hurts to have a cool portfolio, pitch good ideas, and to know that you have talent and the ability to make something of quality, but to be rejected for reasons that are completely irrational. I couldn’t help but notice that the women who were praised by the administration, celebrated by organizations, and received jobs at big name companies were women who were in fact thinner than me, had clear skin, wore more makeup than me, had straight teeth, had nice hair, looked more feminine than me, and went to more elite universities. In other words, more conventionally attractive and happened to be everything and the best at everything.
What really bruised my self-esteem when entering tech was when I became invisible to women who were all these things. At a conference or a career fair I was usually the last to be spoken too, or never spoken to at all among a group of attractive women. A woman and a man at a conference even excused themselves in the middle of a conversation to speak with an attractive, white female student from Princeton. As a cis, bisexual, black woman wearing braces in adulthood, and giant black glasses, I know that without an elite university attached to my name my invisibility is pretty severe. I can’t help but get irritated that my naive approach to success might not cut it for this industry. It’s a unique experience that’s difficult to share and address, but this is an experience that needs to be told so that women in this position can overcome this in a healthy manor.
Unfair standards for women definitely exist. There is this incredible pressure to look pretty, to be perfect, to be flawless, to not mess up, and I think even if we don’t realize it consciously, that pressure can be crippling. Women’s looks and mistakes tend to be noticed more and remembered longer than those of our male peers. How could we not self-scrutinize? Part of the angst towards women who meet these standards seems to come from knowing we don’t fit into the stereotypical definition of what a girl or woman should be, making it harder for us to reach our personal goals. These standards for women are so pervasive these are now apart of a long list of hidden biases saturating hiring processes according to this study.
The average callback rate was 30% across all of the CVs sent out. For attractive women, it was 54%, and for attractive men, 47%. Unattractive women had by far the worst results, with a 7% callback rate. Unattractive men had a 26% rate.
In university I’d fall into the trap of thinking that a woman’s looks or pedigree are attributed to their success and forget to acknowledge the work they had put into their fields like I did for my field. A common, egregious ramification that I’ve always seen from female peers and the media are when an attractive woman’s career success are attributed to sexual favors she bestows upon her bosses or recruits. Phrases like “she got there on her back” or “she used her boobs” have been wielded as handy weapons for devaluing or entirely dismissing an attractive women’s career ascent. It riles me even more because it is a weapon only used against women. I used to tell myself that there are some tradeoffs between spending time on my appearance and cultivating my professional skills because it made me feel better about myself, but I realized I was wrong. We can’t be surprised if some women — women who society sees as unfuckable, are skeptical of a more attractive woman surpassing them, but we can’t keep assuming women spend time on their appearance for other people. This quote from the piece Coding Like a Girl tackles this nicely:
“…most people think femininity is an act to impress men. It was then that I was 100% sure my dressing up wasn’t for him at all, I didn’t at all care if a partner disliked my dresses, or makeup. I was wearing them for me.”
I always think this to myself every time I think about how women treat other women and why womanhood can be so polarizing: What does it mean to be a woman and why? Who gets to decide what a woman is? If woman is different from another woman, what unites them as women? When experience can vary so radically from woman to woman, is there any point in pursuing a single definition of feminism or womanhood?
I needed to put everything in perspective. Instead of thinking there’s a social injustice I need to correct with women who I felt perpetuated unfair standards, I threw myself into women in tech groups in and out of school to learn how I could be successful as these women. Very attractive women, who were also amazing at their fields, did hold administrative positions and were the more vocal members of these groups. This wasn’t always easy and did come with huge learning curves, but the beauty of networking and mentoring with women in the industry is that you realize that there’s more to their story than what meets the eye.
The social injustice we have to correct is the one putting a dangerous emphasis on appearance. We assume girls/women who are attractive, and also brilliant and personable are happy. We assume women who are attractive, and also attend elite universities, and work at the best companies are perfect. I’ve been very anxious to be around these type of women because I have many insecurities about myself — like not being able to afford the best make up, the cutest clothes, struggling in classes sometimes, having crooked teeth, and not attracting as many people; My ex friend from college even covered my face with a towel to make our hook up “easier to enjoy.”
What we have to realize is maybe that attractiveness came at a price. We’ve seen attractive women receive unsolicited attention. We’ve seen attractive women who attend elite universities flock to therapists. We’ve seen attractive women vomit. We’ve seen attractive women commit suicide*.
We’ve seen attractive women scour their wardrobes for the largest, ugliest cardigan they can find to hide themselves in. We’ve seen attractive women wear a little less make-up and pack a few pounds for protection. We’ve seen women degrade and demean attractive women because we’re still insecure about ourselves.
Movements like #MeToo put things in perspective from the standpoint of attractive women as well as women from different backgrounds. It fostered conversations between so many different groups and I feel we’re reaching some sort of common ground. The #MeToo movement is a reminder that a woman shouldn’t have to pay the price for being beautiful and feminine— It’s not a call for attention and it’s not a threat to womankind if she’s doing it for herself. We also have to remember that we shouldn’t enforce a single definition of beauty or femininity for women to the point where they’re tearing down other women, and themselves.
How do we rise above competition and comparisons?
Between being hard-wired for competition and nurture-induced judgement, it’s easy to see why a woman could find herself competing with another woman. As a community, we need to put an end to the catalysts for harsh female competition. Here’s how I believe we can foster some change:
Catch yourself if you’re feeling competitive with another woman.
Try to reach out to her and work together instead. It’s not always going to be that simple, but I’ve been amazed how just pausing for a moment to check my own behavior in those contexts can go incredibly far.
Be a role model of how you can lead a successful career while supporting women, people of color, disabled and LGBTQ colleagues. Challenge the people around you to get better and do better. When you see young women doubting herself, behaving competitively, or saying something catty about another woman, hold them accountable, but also spend some time getting to know them. You may learn that they have insecurities about themselves that they’re projecting onto other women. The more women feel empowered and supported, the less they’ll feel the need to compete and compare themselves to their colleagues.
Don’t compare yourself to others.
The reality is that women don’t have to de-value other women to find value within themselves. Instead, we should defog the mirror in which we see ourselves and other women. It’s okay if a woman is prettier, smarter, taller, fitter or whatever else than you; imagined or not. When we focus on our own light, our own uniqueness and fulfilling our own paths in life, it will become easier to see that our value is not tied to anyone’s approval and that “other” woman owns their autonomy and their choices have nothing to do with you or womanhood.
Stay true to yourself and focus on tackling projects and getting opportunities that YOU’LL be proud of and want to go on for hours on end.
At times as a woman and minority it seems like getting praise for your work is the easiest way to move up in the industry because it shows that you’re just as capable as your contenders. It’s more important to get yourself to a career where it’s okay for you to be yourself.
When we each focus on being the dominant force in our own universe, rather than invading other universes, we all win. When we are fully able to see that we each are unique beings, then we can understand why we don’t have to prove how worthy we are by putting other women down. If you want to better yourself, it does not take tearing another woman down to do so. You are your own competition, so start there. We are worthy just as we are, and it’s time we all started to believe that — Reassure your female peers of this. You’re making the world a better place by being yourself.
*There is help. Call the hotline for your country for help and support, 24/7.
