Why Women Hate Women -By Bimbo Ajao

People say women hate women the most all the time. They say women are women’s greatest enemies and not men, anytime a woman body-shames another woman or calls a woman ugly. Well it’s true that women hate women, it’s true that we say bad stuff about each other. It is also true that women set standards for other women to meet, and get mad when they are not up to the standards of other women, then try to bring such women down. Now before you get mad, you need to understand that this is only a certain class of women. Majority of women who act like this are insecure about themselves, they then make themselves feel better by pulling other women down. Now you may start to wonder, ‘why are women so insecure?’ ‘Why do women hate each other?’

Of course there is a reason women hate each other and this has a lot to do with the way women are being raised in our society. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, a popular writer and also a feminist said on Beyonce’s popular song, ‘Flawless’ – “…we raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or accomplishments which I think could be a good thing, but for the attention of men…” This is the major reason women hate women. Raising women to compete for the attention of men is basically placing men in a high position, as though they are trophies, and definitely, competitors do not like each other because they all want the same thing, hence the jealousy and hatred.

If you look at the major reasons some women express dislike for other women, it often relates to men. For example; Ayesha Curry getting dragged by women for saying she likes to cover up and not expose her body the way some other women prefer to. This was in fact a very hilarious reason to get mad at someone, especially because she was talking about her own personal preference and not setting standards for other women. But she still got dragged, and that was because quite a number of men praised her for that. Amber Rose on the other hand posts naked pictures and gets dragged, majorly by men. But guess who comes to her rescue, women. Why? Because she was getting dragged by men. The only logical explanation for the two scenarios is ‘jealousy’. The women who dragged Ayesha Curry did so because they felt like she was better than them for doing the supposedly right thing by covering her body, and was therefore being praised for it. If we observe closely, the women who dragged her support women liberation, but they somehow still feel affected by what conservative people feel about them, which makes them insecure. They want to be seen as ‘okay’ but are scared other women could be seen as their better, so their ‘liberation’ isn’t really liberation, it’s more like consolation. They seek equality, but pull everyone who does not share the same belief with them down, they claim to speak for everyone, and meanwhile they only listen to their own voices. While Amber Rose got support because she was speaking for this so-called liberal women. She got support because she wasn’t threatening, there was nothing to be jealous about and because men didn’t appreciate her. If men had given her a round of applause and probably called her ‘wife material’, trust another group of women to be after her tail. This is not to say that Amber Rose also got dragged by a few women, I’ll call them ‘non liberal’ and of course, we already know what that is about. All of this does not in any way mean that men the devils, it only means that the society is flawed.

This simple explanation is the same reason Yvonne Orji got shamed by some women for remaining a virgin and Amber Rose is praised for organizing the slut-shame movement. It is the same reason makeup artists get praised and Alicia Keys gets insulted for going to the Grammys without makeup. The only solution to this is to change the way girls are raised. Teach them to not depend on the attention of men, help them to learn to put themselves first and be comfortable in their own skin, tell them marriage is not the most important thing, teach them to be independent as men are. If these changes aren’t made, women will continue to see each other as competitors, men as trophies and continue to hate each other. And for the women who are adults already, learn more about liberation. Understand that people have the rights to make their own choices, whether or not the choices suit you or whether or not you believe in the choices. Feminism is choice, not another way of imprisoning people and making them do your bidding, so you can feel less bad about yourself. Feminism isn’t about you, it’s about everyone.