Female Rivalry: Why Women Compete With Each Other and How To Stop

“Hannaford is a war zone,” my mother said, showing me the large bandage on her hand from an injury sustained at her local grocery store.

The bandage was stupidly large for the small wound, a cautious intervention by a nervous employee. There was no negligence – just an unfortunate run in: octogenarian vs. freezer door hinge.

But my mom wanted to milk the story to within an inch of its life, much to the delight of my teenager who took copious notes, adding them to the “Grandma quotes” file on her phone. This war zone one will go down in infamy.

(Suddenly it’s not hard to understand where I get my slight tendency to beef up a story.)

A lot happens for my mom at Hannaford. There were the pandemic confrontations with other customers about mask-wearing. There was the time she quoted Taylor Swift to the store manager. There have undoubtedly been political debates in the produce section. And now this.

The truth is, I kind of relate. Hannaford plays an unlikely role in my life, too. It’s my practice field for life, the place I dare myself to show up as the real me – unpolished, unprimped and wearing whatever the eff I want.

Liberation, between the sockeye salmon and Triscuits.

Why the grocery store, you ask? It’s the most common place I run into the people who judge me.

The Rivalry "Thing"

We live in a smallish town and there is never a time I don’t see someone I know in Hannaford. I run into my kids’ former teachers, clients, friends, acquaintances and sometimes even family members.

Most often, I see other moms.  

There are the ones I hug, long-lost compatriots on the mom road who hold a special place in my heart.

There are the ones I served with on PTO committees and school functions hanging disco balls for dances, cashiering at book sales, rubbing sunscreen on red noses on field day.   

There are the moms I’ve sat beside at some field or gym whose names I don’t know.

Then there are the moms I try to avoid. They are usually sporting the latest trend and are tight and lifted and golden in all the right places. Their cool, assessing gaze feels judgmental and competitive. Sniffing out the flaws in other women is sport to them and they love to tell you all about their findings.

You know this vibe, right?

Of course you do. You’re a woman. It’s a whole thing for us.

Female Objectification: The Critique

So there I am in Hannaford, grabbing a bag of granola, when I see an old acquaintance. I am wearing a pair of bike shorts and a tank top with no shirt tied around my waist to hide my bottom. (Like I said…practicing.)

Pleasantries are exchanged and a few wincing exclamations of how kids grow up so fast. It’s nice to see her.

We smile and I turn to go. That’s when it happens.

Her eyes go south, scanning down my body. Specifically, my backside where the bike shorts are not concealing the width of my twin cheeks (a conscious choice on my part not to be ashamed of my body).

This was not a casual look. It was THE look women give other women.

The critique.

I feel betrayed. We’d just had a quick heart-to-heart, two humans, and now I am thrust back into just being a body. Objectified.

I’m also humbled. After all, I, myself, had done this thousands of times to other women.

But here’s what is lost: connection. The critique automatically places in the hierarchy, one of us on top, one beneath.

I don’t even care how I rank. I just want off the fucking ladder.  

Signs of Female Competition

Why do women assess other women this way?

What is happening when women say things like, “She’s so beautiful. I hate her” or “I would kill for her hair/eyes/thighs”?

We don’t do this to each other because we are jerks or have black, malice-laced hearts. We do it because the system is set up to benefit only some of us.

Society knows how to disempower girls and women. By pitting them against each other. By creating competition and division. It is strategic and intentional, a system designed to uphold men, their status and their power.

What starts in elementary school with cliques and mean girls smoothly morphs into the sophisticated adult savvy of dominance and exclusion.

Female rivalry can be outwardly focused: direct and indirect aggression, ignoring women, discounting them, gossiping about them, reporting them, sabotaging them, calling outspoken women bitches and calling sexual liberated women sluts.

It can also be inwardly focused: experiencing feels of jealousy, self-judgement or feelings of inferiority in relation to other women.

Lack of top leadership positions for women fuels this rivalry. Competition is built into the structure. Women are taught to close the door to success behind them lest other women sneak in.

But it’s the objectification of women’s bodies that really powers this competition. So much could be said about the damaging effects of socialized beauty and body standards (some of which I wrote about here). In short, these arbitrary, capricious ideals infiltrate our psyches from a young age, shaping our beliefs, perceptions and desires in ways most of us are unconscious of.

(Interested in how media manipulates women’s bodies to perpetuate impossible - and racialized – beauty standards? Read this and watch this.)  

The standard is intentionally narrow and elite. With a bull’s eye so small, very few women will hit it. But we are all conditioned to try.  

It begs the question: why? What are we actually competing for?

Origins of Female Rivalry

Say you’re a woman trying to replicate the current socialized beauty standard. That would be you vs you, right? Why would you be competing with anyone else? Other women, in theory, would be irrelevant to your pursuit.

But they aren’t. And the fact that they aren’t tells us something.

It’s not beauty we are after.

It’s men. Their approval, their interest, their favor.

More specifically, their power.

I know. Big ick factor.

Enter in the internalized male gaze (how women see themselves through the eyes of men and what they find desirable). We haven’t adopted this perspective out of vanity but out of need. (Read this excellent article for a more in-depth discussion.)

For thousands of years, women’s only access to power was through men. Women had to align with men’s expectations and preferences for real reasons, many of which had to do with survival. A quick breeze through history illustrates why we might engage in this unconscious competition. Or you could just watch Bridgerton.

I’m a lesbian and still wrestle with the internalized male gaze. When I contemplate if an item of clothing makes me look heavier or thinner, I stop myself and ask: “Who am I trying to impress and why?”

Competition among women isn’t simply about trying to land a man, sleep with a man or marry a man (though it can be). It’s a competition for sovereignty, agency and freedom.

And we are never going to get it by having perfect cheekbones, full lips or by wearing a size six. We aren’t going to get it through body positivity, either. Because all of this still puts our body as our singular commodity.

We must extricate the internalized male gaze. We need to remove the need to align with anyone’s approval, validation or power (male or female).

We do that by owning the power that is already ours. The power society tries to convince us we don’t have. The power that has been shunned, shamed and weaponized. The power that led people to call us witches, bitches and “crazy.”

How Do We Stop Competing and Start Connecting?

Disengaging from female rivalry is a process of inner work and outer work, of changing our thinking and changing our behavior.

1. Form Celebratory Female Friendships.

Positive, supportive female friendships, absent of jealousy or competition, are a powerful way to build connection and community with women. And connection is the root of healing the eons-old socialized wound between women. It’s our very own peace treaty.

2. Increase self-worth. When we feel worthy, we no longer need to bring others down.

Isn’t all comparison and competition a lack of self-worth? Don’t we hate on others to soothe our own wounds and insecurities? People who know their worth don’t need to steal it from others. Jealousy disappears in the face of high self-worth.

3. Stop talking shit about other women to bond with women.

This is one of those habits that just needs breaking. Feel the urge and say no to it. Stop yourself in the middle of speaking if it’s already happening. Tell your friends it doesn’t feel good to listen to. Create bonds that don’t need to stand on the bent backs of other women.

4. Stop judging other women.

Judgement is the most basic form of competition. We are assessing where we are in relation to others, either coming in above or below. It’s a harmful ranking system that yields no winners.    This is probably the hardest one for me to stop. When I catch myself doing it (many times a day), I ask myself: “Why do I think I know what she should be doing/wearing/saying?”

5. Go out of your way to compliment women, even strangers.

Compliments are an antidote to female rivalry. Feel jealous of a woman at a social event because she looks amazing in that fabulous dress? Compliment her. When we see and celebrate other women, we all rise.   

6. Lead the change.

If you don’t see the role models you need, become your own. Do it in service to yourself and all other women. Yes, it’s scary but it’s also liberating and worth it.

Stop Objectifying Other Women

Female rivalry is, at its foundation, internalized misogyny. No one is more prejudicial toward women more than women do.

It is within our power to excise this toxic perspective.

I still feel the urge to assess other women’s bodies. I feel my eyes want to drift down across their bodies, readying for the critique.

No, I say to myself. I won't.

This is the work of interrupting the habit of objectification that is so deeply embedded in me. I only let myself look at other women’s bodies (and my own!) if I can do so with reverence, respect and equality.

This is how we transmute toxicity into permission.

This is how we, together, create something revolutionary and empowering: the female gaze.