When women are nasty to other women.....

[JennieLee]

I'm a feminist. (Which is why I'm here.) In my everyday life, the huge majority of my closest friendships have been with women. They're supportive, intelligent, funny. They are good at listening. They're tough and have survived a lot. They share experiences in a way that's helpful. Sometimes there are complications and differences but these are worked out without significant damage being done.

What I'm curious about is the shadow side. Why do we judge each other more harshly? Why does this sometimes turn to a kind of gleeful verbal online bullying - for the most apparently trivial reasons - that seems to me to constitute an act of aggression on people who may in their everyday lives be quite vulnerable.

I've had an experience of being bullied online recently. The sense of shame is not dissimilar to that of being sexually assaulted. Because there's a feeling of 'Was it my fault? Did I deserve in some way? Was I stupid to put myself in the situation. It was only me. It'll be safer not to talk about it.'

So any thoughts on the psychology of female bullies? Are they happy in they own lives? Do they truly believe they are right and that undermining other women is a good way of teaching them 'the rules'?

Sorry you got bullied online OP.

Women are humans. Humans aren't 100% nice. There is a power to be enjoyed by bullying someone unfortunately and that's a temptation to both sexes.

I did read somewhere ages ago that women generally may be less herd-like inasmuch as you can't get them to join together in large numbers as easily in order to e.g. put an army together and follow a leader blindly and unquestioningly. We have a tendency to ask 'why'? Clearly that is a good thing if someone is trying to manipulate us into doing something bad. But maybe means it is harder to hold a united line on other issues such as feminist ones because of the tendency to analyse and disagree and fracture. Two sides of the same coin? Could all be rubbish, it's only a theory I vaguely recall reading once and was interested by.

I think there is a valid point about one way of dealing with aggression is simply appearing to ignore it.

I was thinking about this while watching Elle in Legally Blonde. There are other strategies, but it's one that's worth using at some points...

(And re Mumsnet bullying there was an example on a thread about a stepmother who asked quite civilly and in a caring way for some advice re her stepdaughter. And was basically told that there was absolutely no way she should be in a relationship with her partner at all. Everything was her fault. It's just ramped-up aggression lot of the time.

I wonder whether lots of us are dealing on a daily level with huge amounts of frustration and angst, that is barely being contained. Because I'm not sure that if we're generally feeling happy and secure, we would need to lash out in this way.

lisa summed it up perfectly in the first reply. I especially like this line:

The things that bind us dont get rid of what divides us and that is ok

It’s important to remember that, really well said.

I did read somewhere ages ago that women generally may be less herd-like inasmuch as you can't get them to join together in large numbers as easily

Multi-billion dollar ‘beauty’ industry.

Yeah good point hipster. I hadn't really analysed it much, was just throwing it out there. We don't tend to start wars though

That’s more down to lack of opportunity, imo. I don’t think women as a group are any better than men as a group, or less likely to start wars, all things being equal.

There's also internalised oppression....