Why are women so bitchy?

[BearingUp84]

For context - I'm a woman and I don't think I'm a bitch!

However there seems to be a group of school mums that seem intent on leaving me out of everything. I had no idea why. They meet up (pre covid obvs), have group chats etc. One of them can't even look me in the eye on the rare occasion she talks to me.

It's like the old adage, 2 company 3's a crowd. But it's when we're in a bigger group as well.

Why do some women just seem intent on leaving someone out? Constantly on the edges etc?

YABU - not all women are bitches
YANBU - these women are bitches, try make more friends

Just rah!

Honestly, trying to act superior with your posts about Big Jobs then taking a jab at SAHM doesn’t make you look clever, it makes you look as bad as the people you profess to be above. It’s embarrassing in adults.

^Yep, this. And the OP hasn’t even said anything about whether she’s a SAHM. So it’s a completely unnecessary dig.

I've literally never experienced "bitchy women".

Then you are really very lucky.

Jealousy and insecurities!! There’s no need to be horrible to other woman when your confident big hugs 🤗 xx

Because only women's behaviour is described as bitchy.

@Cccc1111 that actually made me laugh. I have genuinely fight NOT to piss people off every day by saying exactly what I think, which is what I'm doing right now, with you, so as not to get banned.

I'd say you're the naive conformist if you think that women fit some sort of Sex-in-the-City shoes and gossip and bitchiness stereotype. If that's what you expect, that's what you see.

If you don't have the emotional intelligence of a child, you see that women are people and their personality flaws are individual to each of them- maybe they're shy, maybe they're angry, maybe they're depressed, maybe they're awkward, maybe they're arrogant, maybe they're embarrassed about something you don't even notice. If you're incredibly self-absorbed then you don't consider any of that, you just see them as a stereotype - mean, bitchy women who aren't welcoming you with open arms.

@MiddleParking

Aren’t most parents thinking about work at school run time? I have a Big Job as they’re sometimes called on here and I happily chat to anyone I see on the nursery run but my mind is definitely elsewhere. I’d be absolutely baffled if some —underemployed— individual took that as ‘bitchy’.

So if you have a 'Big Job' (barf) I assume that there are people who work in your organisation working part-time doing basic but important admin type jobs that keep the company running, or actually making the products your organisation sells, or cleaning your office, or raising the children of your colleagues so they can come do their Big Jobs alongside you - they're 'underemployed'?

What an absolutely nasty and idiotic thing to say. They are employed exactly as much as they want or need to be (unless they're looking for work, of course). Your 'Big Job' wouldn't exist if it weren't for the actual hard work of people who keep the economy running doing 'little jobs' and caring for family members. Some fucking humility would serve you well.

@StrictlyAFemaleFemale

Because only women's behaviour is described as bitchy.

I've used bitchy for men many times. It's true that I wouldn't call one man a bitch, I'd say bastard. I find it quite ironic that people are going on about bitch being misogynistic by calling people twats and cunts.

Not SAHMs specifically, just anyone who hasn’t got enough to fill out their day. Which seems to be the fundamental problem for all the many posters complaining about ‘school mums’ not wanting to be friends with them. You can’t go on a female dominated parenting website complaining that some mums are being friends with each other in your vicinity, and then be surprised when other women with children who have the temerity to get on with other mothers, be in group chats with some of them (and are therefore being denigrated as ‘bitchy’) take objection to it. Try bringing something to the table and then maybe people will be keener to be friends with you.

The "Big Job" thing was a bit insensitive. But this is a bit of a red herring.

I think what the poster was getting at is that the "school gate mums" trope assumes that whenever a woman doesn't register or isn't kind or inclusive to another woman its driven by "bitchiness".

When in fact it could be driven by any number of factors: shyness/insecurity/feeling ill/anxiety/being busy. Why do people default to the assumption that if they are not automatically included in everyone's gang that this is driven by maliciousness?

It's underpinned by sexism: the assumption seems to be that as "school mums" (whatever the hell that means), we're all in it together and entitled to form a network simply by virtue of the fact our kids are at school together.

In fact these mums are a diverse group of people, different ages, different marital statuses, different numbers of children, jobs/no jobs, some are wealthy, some are on the breadline. Some have pre-existing friendships, some don't know anyone. Them's the breaks.

When I moved to the area I now live in most of the mums in my DD's cohort knew each other as their kids had all been in the same childcare setting beforehand. Yes it was a "clique" in the sense that they had built relationships. But I didn't go off in a sulk about the fact that they sometimes arranged coffees without inviting me. That's just life: no-one is entitled to be subsumed into a friendship group.

If people spent less time imagining offence and slights and just cracked on with their lives they would probably find it much easier to make friends and not get sucked into this paranoid cycle of worrying about the "school game mums". I suspect that's where the "Big Job" comment came from. In fact its irrelevant whether you have a "Big Job" or are a SAHM. The point is you can't expect to rely on the "school gate mums" for your friendships and all your emotional sustenance. People have to be more self-sufficient.

So if you have a 'Big Job' (barf) I assume that there are people who work in your organisation working part-time doing basic but important admin type jobs that keep the company running, or actually making the products your organisation sells, or cleaning your office, or raising the children of your colleagues so they can come do their Big Jobs alongside you - they're 'underemployed'?

Not sure. Are they, at 8:30am on the average Tuesday, highly concerned that they’re not being brought into the inner confidences of women whose kids happen to go to the same school as theirs? If so then they could probably do with more things to fill out their day. If not and they act normally, then crack on. You can read the word underoccupied instead if you prefer. Makes no odds to me, I’m in all the mum’s group chats my heart desires.

This sort of thing really does need filing under 'don't sweat the small stuff'. Some people enjoy empire-building or engaging in nasty gossip, so let them crack on. Note: people. The constant stereotyping of 'bitchy' women on this thread is depressing. You see these people for what? Five minutes twice a day? That's directly proportional to the amount of headspace they should take up.

All this stuff about fellow mums 'excluding' someone, I doubt whether I'd notice if they did. I have my own life, they have theirs, and 9X out of 10 they simply have their minds on other things. On the rare occasion I have witnessed some unpleasant gossip (COVID-inspired, which seems to bring out the worst in people) I simply muted the Whatsapp Group and disengaged. No unnecessary angst, flouncing or major dramas: just withdraw. You're adults: it really is as easy as that.

Pointless even engaging with 'stupid', but hey. If people persist in banging their heads against a brick wall then it's their heads.

If so then they could probably do with more things to fill out their day. If not and they act normally, then crack on. You can read the word underoccupied instead if you prefer.

I basically agree with this. Doesn't really matter whether its a "Big Job" or a small job or indeed no job. But the key is finding other things to occupy your mind which don't revolve around getting sucked into a paranoid vortex of worrying about why you weren't invited to some coffee morning with the mums from 4a.

I think people are allowed to feel hurt if others who were previously friendly have started to freeze them out. Being upset at feeling excluded isn't some kind of moral failing or a sign of being under occupied. Some people are good at dismissing the slights of others and don't really give a shit and that's great, but other people are a bit more sensitive about it.

Maybe they just don’t want to be your friend. They don’t have to be.

There are parents at my son’s school who I have become friends with, some I am friendly with, and others who I have no interest in being friends with. We are very different/have nothing on common/I find them very annoying

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

I think people are allowed to feel hurt if others who were previously friendly have started to freeze them out. Being upset at feeling excluded isn't some kind of moral failing or a sign of being under occupied. Some people are good at dismissing the slights of others and don't really give a shit and that's great, but other people are a bit more sensitive about it.

That's true but I no one is saying you're not allowed to feel upset about being excluded in principle.

What people are challenging is this particular trope about "school gate mums" and the idea that they are uniquely unpleasant to other mums.

If you unpick this it usually comes down to people massively overthinking very insignificant social interactions at and around school and reading "bitchiness" when nine times out ten its down to something like absent-mindedness, being busy or shyness.

The reason why some of us are wound up by this is because its women piling judgement on other women for failing to be "nice" enough to other people they don't know without taking their circumstances into account.

And its bad for women overall. It's self-destructive, time-wasting behaviour which makes us feel needlessly shit. Men generally don't waste time on this sort of thing. They crack on, don't worry about it and don't destroy their own self-esteem worrying about things that don't matter.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

I think people are allowed to feel hurt if others who were previously friendly have started to freeze them out. Being upset at feeling excluded isn't some kind of moral failing or a sign of being under occupied. Some people are good at dismissing the slights of others and don't really give a shit and that's great, but other people are a bit more sensitive about it.

Yes, an established friendship group freezing someone out is hurtful. Which is why OP would have got completely different responses if she’d described it as ‘my friends’ as opposed to ‘it seems there are a group of school mums’ etc. But then the thread evolved into a general criticism of ‘school mums’, which happens all the time on mumsnet and is always batshit (and pretty sexist). Pre-Covid I used to see the same people on my commute every day and I’m pretty sure people would have thought I was certifiable if I’d posted asking why those people weren’t including me in their group chats.

There have been so many threads like this on MN over the years. The majority of them come across to me as the writer's perception being coloured by their own insecurity as opposed to anyone actively freezing them out. Of course some people can be deliberately nasty but it's relatively rare. Just focus on other, real friends and stop trying to force things. If friendships are not easy, natural and balanced, they are not real.

They are meant to be my friends. I have been in the same friendship group as them for 2.5 years

They're such good friends that you forgot to call them friends in your OP, or allude to them as friends, or indicate in the slightest way that they were actually friends of yours?

Yeah, ok

I agree with Legoninjago- support your kids, be friendly, do things you enjoy and don’t be afraid to stand alone. The more positive energy you put in, the more you will get back. It is sad when you aren’t included but if you are friendly with a good attitude that’s on them not you. If you let yourself get consumed with anger and bitterness you have let them control you. Don’t do that. Give yourself and them a chance.

I think men can be pretty mean - thinking of some 'fun' nicknames used for others, quite cruel really.
Is it that men chat less so any friendships or exclusions are less obvious. And possibly, ime, men are less involved in day to day lives. So meet up and chat about ? Football rather than other people in their ken. Men can leave people out, have seen this in social groups but it doesn't seem to be taken as personally. Or just isn't talked about.

I was just thinking about the only time I worked in an all-male office. I was the only woman in a small creative tech startup, me and five men from 25-ish to 50-ish, all with expensive Japanese denim and tattoos and carefully tended beards and Opinions about coffee and beer and design. I have NEVER heard as much gossip and as much constant TALKING about nothing as I did with these men. That's when I tarted to notice that it really is men on average who talk more and gossip more in pretty much any situation.

Men are individuals of course but as an average (and this is backed up by science - I'll try to dig out where I read it) they do tend to talk more than women, and to talk more negatively about other people than women do. Funny how they try to turn that around on us (and how sad pick-me women, like many in this thread, also back them up as well)

PinkyParrot men can be mean. But they tend not to take this stuff so personally or internalise it and allow it to chip away at their self-esteem.

They don't preoccupy themselves with imagining "cliques" in the workplace -- or if they do they tend to shrug them off and not give them the time of day. Critically, the way they process it seems not to result in them feeling worse about themselves.

I would say that on the ' law of averages' women do tend to gossip and form cliques more than men. They can be really nasty.
Only going by my own experiences in the past.
Maybe I'm just one of the unlucky ones.
It used to bother me , but I don't care now! Getting older can be very liberating at times.

See, I think men are less likely to express that they perceive in-groups but just as likely if not more to make resource intensive efforts to be in one. How many of us know men who talk about sports far more than their genuine level of interest/knowledge would dictate, as a way of engaging with other men?

They’re not important - they’re people at a school gate who have nothing else of interest in their lives. I wouldn’t have time for them.