Is there a sisterhood?

[poshsinglemum]

I've read a few things on mumsnet which suggest that people don't believe in a sisterhood as we are competing for resources such as men, money etc and therefore cannot be looking out for each other.
I find this really sad as I love my girlfriends but at the same time can see elements of competition and envy between us girls.
What is the sisterhood if it exists? How far can you trust your fellow females?

I've known some deeply "unsisterly" women - women who made a habit of going for men who were attached, and getting a kick out of it if they could prise him away. It does happen... BUT I think they're a small minority and most women have loyal female friendships and also a sense of not wanting to do the dirty on another woman.

I have definitely had other women look out for me and vice versa I hope. I would probably trust another woman by default until/unless she proved me wrong.

Having said that, if another woman shits on me (eg tries it on with my boyfriend, tramples over me in the workplace) - I do bear a grudge and would not give her another chance. So maybe I'm unsisterly in that way. I'd be the same with a man though.

If you are gay, and you try to steal a women away frmo a man, is it less bad than if you are stelaing a man away from a women? because it's not another woman you are being nasty to, so you are not being 'unsisterly'.

(I guess the woman in this situation is bisexual).

Aw cheers AF

I think in some ways you see what you expect - so if you expect women to be supportive/friendly/kind/warm etc then you find that reflected back at you.

Similarly if you think they are shrewish/bitchy/competitive/liars you will get that reflected back too.

Anyone who has ever worked in an office with two or more women in it already knows the answer!

Trillian Astra - just setting out the rules of the sisterhood - or what they used to be when I first subscribed to them.
The fact is that those "rules" do apply particularly to other women though

All I know is that I hate working in female dominated work places and find female bosses in general a lot less fair to male ones.

I've been thinking that ''the sisterhood'' is something that us women can subscibe to or not. We can choose to love or support our fellow women or we can view them as competition and turn against them.
In reality I spose I do a bit of both. The former until someon ehurts me then I turn to the latter!

Also my sister and I are NOT close and we are competetive. Mabe that's what sisters really amounts to.

How far can you trust your fellow females?

Well my best friends and close female relatives are highly trustworthy, they are indeed a sisterhood.

Obviously it is often easier to empathise with other women's experiences than with men.

I do find it tiresome in some women the idea that you are out to "steal their man". Yeah right. And of course some women hate other women for the sake of it.