Why Women Compete with Each Other

When reading this article <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Psychological_projection" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Psychological_projection</a> was what came into my mind. Note that the author&#x27;s generalization to all womanhood is also an easy way to not take responsibility for one&#x27;s own past or ongoing bad behavior.<p>Not saying that bitchiness in the workplace does not exist, and I did observe the tendency of male-male or male-female work relationships to be healthier. But neither nature nor nurture force any person to act in a certain way if he &#x2F; she just knows better. There are many women in science &#x2F; technology who do know better and act accordingly (or simply professional).

First off, men also compete against other men. Men also compete against women. Basically, humans compete against each other.<p>Now about her theory:<p>&gt;That’s the third theory of female competitiveness that I’d like to propose: We aren’t competing with other women, ultimately, but with ourselves — with how we think of ourselves. For many of us, we look at other women and see, instead, a version of ourselves that is better, prettier, smarter, something more. We don’t see the other woman at all.<p>The article already starts off weak because it doesn&#x27;t define and separate productive competitiveness from unhealthy competitiveness.<p>But assuming she&#x27;s addressing the unhealthy &quot;competitiveness&quot;.<p>Girls don&#x27;t so much compete against other girls as compare themselves with other girls. When we perceive themselves as inferior in some way, some express our displeasure in unhealthy behaviors (gossiping, overcompensating, etc.) and negative emotions.<p>Most of it stems from poor self-esteem, poor self-image and a scarcity mindset (if there exists someone smarter, prettier than me, it threatens my chances of getting what I want). I don&#x27;t imagine this to be specific to one gender though, I&#x27;m positive guys go through the same issues.

<i>&quot;Women compete, compare, undermine and undercut one another — at least that is the prevailing notion of how we interact.&quot;</i><p>This is written as if men don&#x27;t do exactly the same thing --and in my experience they do. Even among my close group of friends, the competition and &quot;playful&quot; undermining is non-stop and often exhausting.<p><i>&quot;[Women] express indirect aggression toward other women, and that aggression is a combination of “self-promotion,” making themselves look more attractive, and “derogation of rivals,” being catty about other women.&quot;</i><p>So for the exact same reasons as men, though men wouldn&#x27;t normally be described as &quot;catty.&quot; Catty means being subtly or indirectly cruel, and though men will act this way, it seems infrequent, perhaps they are more directly combative, or they do it in a more joking way. In any case, it seems that men are equally competitive, for largely the same reasons, though they may express themselves slightly differently.

The first example of a put down in the article is a simple fact.<p>If you consider reality insulting, you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage. Doesn&#x27;t matter why you feel that way.

<i>&gt;There are two main theories of why women are competitive in indirectly aggressive ways. Evolutionary psychology, which uses natural selection to explain our modern behaviors, says that women need to protect themselves (read: their wombs) from physical harm, so indirect aggression keeps us safe while lowering the stock of other women. Feminist psychology chalks up this indirect aggression to internalizing the patriarchy.</i><p>That doesn&#x27;t sound even vaguely right. The ev-psych explanation has less to do with physical protection (from what?) and more to do with competing for the highest-quality men.<p>It&#x27;s a bizarre article, which doesn&#x27;t even touch on the fact that men <i>also</i> compete with each other, though for the most part in very different ways. Looking at how and why intra-male competition is different to intra-female competition would be an interesting subject for an article. Discussing intra-female competition in isolation isn&#x27;t much use.

&gt; We aren’t competing with other women, ultimately, but with ourselves — with how we think of ourselves<p>Reminds me of a quote,<p>&quot;If you are willing to look at another person&#x27;s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.&quot;<p>- Yogi Bhajan