Women who hate women-why?

[poshsinglemum]

I shared a house with a girl at uni who was about 5 years younger. She said that she didn't like women and all of her best mates were men. She especially hated girly girls (e.g; me!)
She even once said that she wished she was born a man. She considered herself an authority on how men treat women and said that I should hear the derogatory way that her male friends speak about their women and yet she seemed to revel in this.
She later graduated onto hating ALL people male and female and turned out to be a nasty piece of work.
I think she felt threatened by other women and the potential bitchiness. It turned out she was just as bitchy! I just find it really sad when women are like this; bitchy and competetive over men.

Does anyone know any other women who despise other women or compete with them and how would you analyse this? Mabe it is natural to compete with other women and the sisterhood is bollocks? Just for the sake of argument.

[notanumber]

I don't think anyone who claims to dislike half of the human race is representative of anything other than that being enormously fucked-up. Given that it is her own gender which she so despises, it also reveals enormous insecurity and self loathing. I don't think that any general trends can be taken from such an example.

[sparky258]

Hmmmm-yep-insecure!
yep-ive met women like this and its not very pleaseant.

having said this-are they not the victims of partriarcy[sorry-i hate the word victim but i cant think of another word]

women are bombarded everyday by all sorts of stuff-its no wonder that some feel insecure.
actually[i feel]that while this is happening-
patriarcy has still got its dirty little claws into some.

ooooh-i hate it when people accuse others of being bitchy-
is this not a partriatic word?
its pits women against each other-it divides women-instead of women helping women and understanding where each other is coming from!
besides-a bitch is known as a female dog-
how derogritry of us!

years ago-we had signs up on b and b s-
"no blacks[actually-i saw worse than this"
"no dogs"
"no irish-years later this was changed to-"no travvellers"!
and it was in this order!
[im not having a go at you posh]

instead of dissin women-i feel that we should look at the bigger picture-
yep-the woman in question dont seem to like women-and now-she dont seem to like men either-i feel sorry for her-shes in a horrible place-
and so are many others-
we have a lot of work to do!
by the way-i still cant fuckin spell-so please forgive me

[TryLikingClarity]

I went through a phase in my late teens of only having male friends and not really liking other girls. I didn't hate them, but was just wary due to certain bad life expereinces.

I think I can sort of see what the flatmate was doing - she'd been hurt and was lumping all women, then all people into that stereotype that had hurt her initially.

Perhaps that is the case, I've never met her, so I don't know.

She does sound insecure and defensive - she hates them first so they can't hurt her. :( I've been there too, not a good headspace to be in.

[Jazzicatz]

There is a really good chapter on this in Ariel Levy's book called Female Chauvinist Pigs. Well worth a read.

[TheCrackFox]

My mums is a bit like that and regularly comes out with phrases like "feminism has gone to far", "men are better bosses", "I am a man's woman". Yadda, yadda. Her golden child was/is my big brother not me or my little sister. I worked out from a very early age that she was a bit of an idiot but I have no real explanation as to why she is like this.

[HerBeatitude]

I agree with TLP it's part of a patriarchal divide and rule tactic. Women who hate other women are lining up with the winning side, kidding themselves that they'll get to join the feast, when actually all they'll get is a few crumbs from the table, poor saps.

[HerBeatitude]

And yes, they get rewarded, they get to be one of the lads - up to a certain point.

Makes it all the more hurtful when they subsequently find out that even when they diss other women, they're still paid less than the lads.

[Sakura]

There's also the difficulty with having to identify with a subordinate group. Under patriarchy, women are subordinate, they are despised by the media, looked down on in general- especially older women.
So wOmen who hate women are exhibiting a type of self-loathing brought on by this situation.
Rather than identify with women, it is more comfortable to align themselves against them in order to separate themselves from other women, mentally. I sometimes have difficulty "believing" I'm a "housewife", for example, because the role of caring for children is derided so much by society. YOu literally are regarded as pond-life.

It often happens in abusive families too. Children often align with, and identify with, the abuser, because the vulnerability of the victim makes them too uncomfortable. If it's their mother, they don't want to believe she's suffering because she's been dealt a bad card; they want to believe she's got a choice about the situation.

[Sakura]

sorry, just realised notanumber had mentioned the self-loathing. I'll just add that it's not random. It's definitely a natural consequence of being a member of a subordinate group.
Has anyone watched or read "The HUman Stain" about a black man who was so pale he managed to pass himself off as white (well, Jewish). He became a professor but of course he could never have children with his white wife because he would be exposed. He cut himself off from his family.
I love the parting line his mother gave him, "You're as white as a lily, and yet you think like a slave."

[Kaloki]

Maybe for some of them it's just that they've had bad experiences? Same as some women find it hard to trust men after a bad relationship (and vice versa)?

I know I got bullied by a large group of girls at school, and for a while after I felt safer being friends with boys. I guess it shows up more between the sexes as they tend to have slightly different social set ups. And if you have a bad experience with one then the other will look more appealing.

[mathanxiety]

Women like this have swallowed the patriarchal lie hook, line and sinker. So yes, very oppressed, and wishing to avoid the negative consequences of membership of the oppressed group, they identify with the oppressors. A sort of an 'uncle Tom' of women.

They are not in touch with themselves at all, don't want to be, and in fact loathe themselves. They prefer to parrot the views of misogynists over getting in touch with their own selves, their thoughts and feelings and their own voice.

In my experience, they are very inclined to attach themselves to any sort of reactionary, right wingish, strict, doctrinaire philosophy going and seem to distrust their own minds and critical faculties and instincts.

Some of them whom I have known have had strange ideas about food, and body image problems (*not implying this is the case for everyone with these issues here, just a couple of women I have known who fitted this bill).

[mathanxiety]

And I think there are some who are not able to cope with the competition etc., that goes on among girls and women, or the idea that they are not the shining star a group where someone else may be prettier or smarter or whatever, or they feel that someone else is prettier, etc., and therefore they gravitate towards men, where they are not in competition with other women or in any sort of perceived competition, and they feel they are not in competition with the men in any category of attributes that matter to women. Just as some men who couldn't hack it with other men gravitate to the company of women.

[Sakura]

In "Sexual Politics" there's a section on "collaborators" and how patriarchy has always needed female collaborators to carry out its dirty deeds.
It is very effective because it then appears as though women are oppressing women. Examples I can think of are the nuns who treated Irish girls appallingly in the laundries (depicted in the film the Magdalene sisters) , or female family members who carry out FGM, or chinese foot-binding. At first glance it appears as though it's women doing it to women, but in fact if you analyze their actions properly you see they're nothing more than proxies for the patriarchal agenda.

[Sakura]

what you say about competition math, there's also a section in Sexual politics about how underlings tend to peck at each other because they're deeply frightened of confronting the real threat i.e men as a group: the patriarchy

[YulenoYurbubson]

I only realised relatively recently that my mother is a misogynist. Once I had that lightbulb moment, so many things fell into place. It even made it easier for me to sympathise rather than condemn her, because I can see why she is like she is.

For her, it is an extension of her own self loathing. She was brought up by parents who idolised her older brother and were ashamed of her for being tall and overweight. Then at a very young age she met and married my father who, under his jovial bon homie, is a chauvenist and a bully. He is quite manipulative and devious, and it suits him down to the ground to have a wife who believes in doing everything for him.

In turn she went on to adore my brothers and dislike me. She finds it so difficult to see me as a confident feminist, strident in my opinions even when they upset men . She absolutely revels in the steriotypical differences between the genders ("come on, shall we girls go and do the washing up while the chaps watch rugby?!"). In a way though, I think she envies me. I'm not sure. She certainly doesn't know how to relate to me.

She dislikes women, and prides herself in being 'one of the boys', and the only woman who is tolerated on boys night down at the club. Male = GOOD in her world.

Some of her ideas are really sad though. She is genuinely riled by the success of Dawn French, because how can that fat woman be so successful? Why on earth do people think she is attractive? She stopped watching Vicar of Dib when Gerry got that gorgeous boyfriend because "it was so silly, as if that gorgeous man would look at her." :(

[MillyR]

Some of the descriptions on this thread are familiar to me. I have experienced women who dislike other women and consider themselves to be one of the boys. There are comments about how the men say XYZ about women and judge women in XYZ sexist way.

I always find that strange because most women know that some groups of men make sexist comments - it is not a revelation, and also, why does the woman reveal it as if she is somehow exempt from the judgements about women? Being one of the boys doesn't change the fact that she is a woman.

[Sakura]

Milly, Dworkin wrote that when she first read all the classic works of literature she "knew" she was the protagonist, she identified with the "I" of the male narrator. It was only when her feminist consciousness was raised that she realised she wasn't the male protagonist at all; she had always been the pitiful, weak females depicted in the novels- she just hadn't wanted to realise it.

[MillyR]

I've only come to that realisation myself very recently. I have started reading more books that are about women, and about women talking to each other. I think that it has a big psychological impact. It is the Bechdel test for books.