Mothers are competitive and jealous

[cornfleurs]

I saw this study mentioned in the news and it really resonated with some of my own experiences since becoming a mother - as well as situations I've witnessed on the school run, problems my friends have encountered with other women and even threads on Mumsnet!

The researchers found that mothers responded more negatively to other women who had desirable assets (be that material or social) that they themselves didn't possess. In other words, women are programmed to be jealous of other women.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31816-0

AIBU to think this sounds pretty accurate?

We're not 'programmed', that makes it sound inevitable. Women are socialised to be competitive, to fight over scarce resources in the hope we won't notice who's hoarding all the resources - men.

Well I have noticed the competition between mums regarding:
Natural v medicalised birth
Buggies / brands
Sleeping
Attachment parenting v routine
Grades
Development
Lack of social media

It goes on and on and on...boring.

Programmed by who?

I started to read that article and I couldn’t get past the sexist bollocks of the first line.

Bollocks

I wish I had the energy to be competitive and/or jealous of other mums... I'm too tired to notice a lot of the time!

Not my experience.

That post was very much not bollocks.

It's not my experience at all with my friends, thankfully. We all have different struggles and support and champion each other. However, I choose friends very carefully.

There is a thread running here about an OP who had fallen out of love with her bf. He does no housework and leaves everything to her, won't even make a cup of tea or make the bed. Because she mentioned that she out-earns him significantly and he was also proposing to go part time so he could be an even lazier cocklodger, endless posters filled her thread telling her she should be "grateful" that he life is so easy because she doesn't have children, and that he is magnanimous enough not to be "fussed" that she earns more than him, and must be "blissfully unaware" that she's fed up with the situation. It was clear spite and jealousy about her salary.

Another thread that's running has similar comments because a woman was negged about being too independent and told this made her "unlovable" and because she described her situation posters piled on to tell her she was "arrogant".

It's eye opening reading things on here because it is a window into how some women think and the bitterness and spitefulness is quite shocking sometimes. Sadly it seems to support what the study says. I'm just very glad the people I am close to are not like this!!

The only time that I’ve ever felt competitive or jealous was when I was depressed, I was generally unhappy though.

This resonated for me:

Women attempt to obtain physical and social resources, including allies and mates, to support themselves and their children using a number of tactics including self-promotion; disguised or indirect competition such as reputation derogation or social exclusion, which do not require directly confronting a rival; and scramble competition in which individuals attempt to do better for themselves, without directly interfering with another’s success

That sounds exactly like secondary school with 14-15 year old girls. So I suppose what it is saying is that some women never get beyond that level of emotional maturity.

Women engage more in relational aggression for the reasons stated in the article.

It's natural to be competitive. I'm enjoying middle age as I feel I am no longer in competition to find a mate etc and us women are on a more level playing field.

This is hardly groundbreaking news. Just read a few threads on here to see how women love to tear down other women.

It's natural to be competitive. I'm enjoying middle age as I feel I am no longer in competition to find a mate etc and us women are on a more level playing field.

Yes, after securing a mate I think a lot of the competitiveness is around children. Look at all the threads about University entrance or 11 plus. Once children are safely in the workplace, it dissipates a bit.

Since becoming a mother in particular, I have found huge solidarity and support with female friends. But even before that I didn't really understand why anybody would be interested much in anybody else's life unless a close friend (so then obviously with good intentions!). I really don't understand at all this mentality. I wonder if it comes from a huge place of insecurity and feeling inadequate, that some people project that onto others in some horrible jealousy rather than focusing on their own lives?

I think all humans like to compare ourselves. It doesn't make us jealous, necessarily, but sometimes it helps us validate our own choices if we can see ourselves as doing well.

I don't think it's jealousy of others just that society heaps so much pressure & blame on women & mothers. Many are insecure or not 100% confident in their choices so I think that's why the bottle v breast, parenting style etc are so divisive.

For a study to be published in Nature, it has to have been extremely thoroughly peer reviewed, and subject to careful and intensive checks, so it doesn't matter what knee jerk reactions we might have, this conclusion hasn't been pulled out of thin air.

Probably worth reading thoroughly with a clear head before ranting.

Certainly a lot of people seem very invested in the idea of school gates drama.
I haven’t experienced it myself

If you read the actual study, it says that women are concerned about attributes that would help or improve the lives of their own offspring - which is completely normal maternal behaviour, I think. Most mothers want the best for their children, and it's normal to feel a twinge of envy when you see someone who can provide their DC with better opportunities than you can afford to.

That's a really strange one isn't it? Who would have the time?! 🤣

Yes, of course. But a rational and decent answer to that is to focus on your own life and try to find ways to improve it, not tear down other women who you perceive to have more resources in whatever capacity.

What's always so interesting (to me) with these sorts of studies is that of course humans follow the typical mammalian behaviour patterns, but that one would hope that at least to a small extent, with intelligence and culture and societies and education and rationality such impulses would be overridden just a little bit. And yet, it seems that for many people they are not at all.

Tbh I think that exert is true of all humans and if you take the specific emotion of "twinge of jealousy" out then many animals -animals are genetically programmed to ensure that their young have sufficient resources, whatever "emotion" or innate drive that creates that behaviour the result is the same, only humans are able to express it and study and conceptualise it.

I can't say I relate at all. I just do my own thing. I do have values over issues like breast vs. bottle, but it's something I apply to my choices, not compete over. I haven't got the energy to be competitive.

If we were in a dystopia then everyone would be competitive as survival might depend on it.

I think most people do override it though, feeling a twinge of jealousy is fine - eg you may be jealous of the other mother's pram but you don't take it off her.