Huge barrier to women's equality.

[Getmyheadaround]

Fellow feminist here - I need to get that out the way before I put on my tin hat. I'm prepared to get shot at from angles for this one. I won't be able to reply immediately, but will RTFT later today.

While their are many ways in which women in developed countries face everyday sexism, let alone male violence, the trans debate and barriers to opportunities in the workplace, etc - women can more often than not be their own worst enemy.

Many women who claim to be feminists seem to have no problem with the 'mean girl' culture. It is unreasonable to say, that until this issue is dealt with head on and ameliorated, we can't progress that much further than we already are? It could be said that it presents a huge barrier to achieving equal rights for females.

I appreciate this is an issue for men and boys too, though I believe that addressing it is something they are chiefly responsible for.

Open to all views. Thanks.

Agree with Errol that your experience is not my experience.

IMO it's not a huge barrier to equality, it's a sometimes unpleasant culture in a workplace. I've worked private & public sector, small & large organisations. Yes I've encountered little pockets of 'mean girls' but I've worked with many more collegiate, supportive females. Do I think my opportunities/advancement have been impacted by 'mean girls'? No, I can't remember such an occasion. Impacted by old boys club, men bonding at sport hospitality etc, hell yes.

I don't think we will know that feminism has won or it will be greatly advanced when all females are nice to each other. Everyone's human, whichever their sex, and that involves a range of behaviours. Some will be influenced by sexism in society but even if that's taken out of the equation I believe there will still be bad behaviour and atmospheres in workplaces for example. I would never condone that but I don't think it's correct to point fingers and say women are impeding feminism if they behave badly to other women, however unfair it feels.
I suppose it works both ways too. We need to examine why when women exhibit certain behaviours they are failing feminism and when men do it they are just being an arsehole. That's our own conditioning. Why do we feel women owe us more? (Although of course I can understand it feels more like a betrayal).
Not all women have to be feminists, some may not give two craps about anyone's advancement in the workplace except their own. It's galling when people claim to be feminists and then behave in ways that contradict that but I'm not sure being horrible to other women necessarily falls into that category if examined dispassionately.

As a class, the group who currently have the most power in our society (men) are the group who are responsible for the majority of violence and all of the rapes.

Yet you think that the barrier to the other group (women) gaining equality is that the group just aren't being nice enough?

Men can kill each other and still have most of the power, yet women cant have an equal share of that power because they are "mean"?

If it's personally impacting you OP perhaps you could give a pencil sketch of the problem you are encountering but without revealing too much detail? Otherwise this is just a vague discussion about "mean girls" which probably means different things to different people.

I love the film and I love Tina Fey. I'm very happy to discuss that but I imagine that's not the discussion you were after..

Women's rights are not a reward for good behaviour.
We are human beings, not saints.

It seems that it's being kind, nice and understanding that has got us into our current state.
I'm not sure that asking women to stop feministing and fighting for our rights until every last woman is being appropriately 'nice' has much traction? Maybe head for fathers for justice and all the other male led organisations and insist that they cease all activity until all men are kind?

I'm not sure what you mean by "toxic femininity", can you expand with some examples?

I think I know what you mean by "mean girl" culture (women being cruel towards each other over things like our appearance, family structure, life choices etc?) but I'm not sure how this presents a barrier (let alone the most significant barrier) to woman's liberation. Can you give a specific example of how you think this manifests?

As others have said, there's a reason we distinguish between mysongyny and internalised misogyny. There's no way for anyone, male or female, to avoid absorbing it in a mysogynostic society. But the invocation to "lift each other up instead of tearing each other down" is most commonly, in my experience, spouted by those who are wedded to the concept of choice feminism, and who can't distinguish between criticism of action and criticism of people. Traditional gender roles are a good example. If a woman wants to be a #tradwife then that obviously her choice, but its clearly not consistent with the goals of feminism and that woman's choice has the knock on effect of strengthening the belief in male supremacy which effects all women. So it's legitimate to. Criticise that lifestyle choice but this frequently gets interpreted as "mean girl" behaviour and "tearing other women down for their choices". Ditto any other choice a woman makes which has a counterpart in feminist criticism - sex work, surrogacy, pornography, dressing for the male gaze etc. We need to be able to discuss these choices in a broader context than individualism and that doesn't make us "mean girls" or mean that we are excluding women who make these choices from feminism.

Solidarity within the "sisterhood" is a good starting point, but feminist progress has to actually be grounded in a workable feminist theory developed with reference to material reality and not just feelings. Which means we can't just "uplift each others choices" with no further analysis, we have to actually look at those choices through a feminist lens and describe the effect they have in the world.

But perhaps I've misunderstood your OP. If you ould clarify by answering my first 2 questions that would be helpful.

Also saying that women are the biggest barrier to women's liberation positions women as having a significant enough amount of power as a class to oppress one another, which is obviously untrue. We are working within a power structure set up by and for the benefit of men. For some women that means leveraging the system against other women in order to get ahead, but that doesn't make them responsible for the system and refusing simply to play isn't going to be an effective way of dismantling it. Ask yourself this, do you think that the internalised racism which causes some black people to harm other black people is the biggest barrier to dismantling systemic racism? Do you think that black people need to stop focusing their activism on changing white attitudes and power structures and focus it within their own communities instead? I'm hoping that your answer is no, because clearly that would be absurd. The idea that women need to focus on changing the behaviour of other women rather than male attitudes and male centred power structures is equally ridiculous. That is never going to be the magic key to unlocking women's liberation, its just a way to make our activism more distracted, inwards facing, and myopic. It would be like trying to put out a fire by focusing on the smoke.

OP are you seriously suggesting that until all women are lovely peeps then feminism can't thrive? Men have thrived forever being mean, duplicitous, self-seeking, back-stabbing, power hungry (as well, obviously, as kind, considerate, mentoring, supportive excellent human beings.)

People are people. There's a very wide range of morals and attitudes. Feminism has to be able to incorporate these, surely? (I'm not for pulling up the ladder, of course. I'd far rather work with mentoring, trail blazing feminist bosses. But I don't expect all women to be this way any more than I expect unicorns to graze on my lawn at sunrise.)

Is there also some truth in the thought that the easiest way to do well in a patriarchal system (well any system) is to go with it rather than against it?

And a tendency for people not to see problems in a system that works for them?

Exactly monkey. The OP seems to see feminism as putting as many ladders in place as possible to help women rise as high as men, and until women stop pulling them up after themselves we can never progress. Maybe that's how Liberal feminism works, I don't know. But radical feminism is about removing the need for ladders entirely so that women can be complete human beings who embody the whole spectrum of personality (including being absolutely horrendous people) without it somehow damaging other women's ability to progress (like how men being arsehole to each other doesn't stop other men progressing). We dont need to focus on getting more ladders or on chastising women for pulling them down, we need a system that let's women rise without any ladders at all.

An insecure woman, raised in a patriarchy, can only take out her insecurities and boost her low self esteem by bullying other women. She is rarely in a position powerful enough to bully men. There are also women who enjoy their status as the token woman in an organisation, and pull up the ladder to prevent competition.
In a society of slaves, some slaves will always seek to curry favour with the masters by betraying or abusing their fellow slaves.
As a feminist I find such women pitiable- rather as a resistance fighter might view a collaborator - but they are certainly not the main enemy, and should not deflect us from the war against patriarchy.

Women's rights are not a reward for good behaviour

This.

Women will also never achieve equality if men are made part of our sex class. If we can't be seperate and distinct from adult human males then we can't fight for our equality.

Reading and thinking as I try to get to the point you're asking for OP so bear with me?

Toxic masculinity - if we're talking only about male/male based interactions then males policing each other for sufficient masculine traits and males who don't meet those standards are rejected, mocked, and can be subject to verbal and physical abuse even by strangers on the street if perceived as presenting insufficiently masculine according to the watchers' standards. Intolerance of anything perceived as 'female' and therefore weak and inferior: camp males, males wearing clothes or engaged in activities perceived as insufficiently butch, showing weak emotions or betraying too much sensitivity. Males policing male children in the same way, with rejection and active attempts to discourage and correct, sometimes with punishment, male children showing traits associated with femininity - no son of mine plays with dolls etc. Males demonstrating displays of power and sexual intimidation to females as a joke or status increasing act among other males: whistling, commenting, harassing or physically assaulting strangers, objectifying and belittling females in conversation, talking in terms of preying on females sexually and achieving what is wanted, where males not getting emotionally involved and just seeking their own sexual satisfaction, and showing a lack of responsibility and respect in their relationships, or proving their dominance and control over a female (she has my dinner on the table at six or else) is considered higher status. Dick waving competitions in male dominated work environment where the more ruthless, aggressive and moral-less a man is the higher the respect he gains from other men.

Pretty grotty all in all. It's about maintaining and exerting power over other males to keep them in line, which is in part about males seeking higher status among themselves but also about keeping the absolute power over female people while reinforcing the message that female is weak, submissive and subhuman, to be taken and used as wanted, while being expected to serve or face punishment, and casting out anything seen as associated with or bleeding into this subhuman slave class.

Mean girls? It's not policing femininity or really working along similar lines to the above at all.

What I think you may be thinking of are the status battles that can take place between females - and nothing like on the scale or normalised culture of toxic masculinity - that are inevitably going to happen among a disempowered class living in a world dominated and controlled by the powered class. Where power is hard to get, brings status and rewards not usually available to that class, and often is about 'staying in with' and being rewarding to the powered class, that power is going to be fought over for whatever scraps can be gained. Which means showing the powered class you are on their side and a good girl, by being very good at rejecting and punishing the subordinate class - because that's what the powered class does, and the better and more vicious you are at it, the higher your status.

So females who fight their way up into male dominated groups stay there by pleasing males (saying, doing the right things, behaving in approved ways) and pleasing includes showing rejection and antipathy towards other females. And resisting other females getting into power too, because that's a threat the power you've managed to wrest for yourself. Underlying which is probably the programming that attention from powerful males and status with powerful males is a rare and prized thing, and what idiot would want to dilute and share it with someone who might win that male away?

The MiL who was a put upon, bullied drudge permitted no feelings, the worst of everything and to suck it up without complaint as a young wife and mother by older women in her family. And is now taking her own turn to have the power and release of bullying her own DiL and being the high status one who gets to do it.

The group of girls who gain status among each other and share a group identity by bullying, teasing, being abusive and pushing at the boundaries of their own box of 'be nice, be kind, ladies don't do that' and feeling power.

I don't think it's the same thing at all.

Women's rights are not a reward for good behaviour

Brilliantly put.

Nor conditional on maintaining that good behaviour and pleasing males.

Nor something males lend to females until they find a need or inconvenience to themselves. (Like some males wishing to identify as women.)

On my lunch break. Was going to reply later, but I feel I should say something now.

It's not about women being expected to be 'nice' or 'perfect', 'sweet as pie' in order to get equal rights. It's not about conditioning women to be 'lovely peeps' or 'stepford wives'. It's about women and girls being decent human beings to EACH OTHER. As much we expect men treat us fairly and as equals, and amongst themselves, we do too.

@boatyardblues Touched a nerve? This isn't about correcting work practices. It's about a group of women being vicious, underhanded and prejudiced without any foundation. Not the first time encountered it either.

And why should women AND men turn their hearts into stone simply to get ahead? That exemplifies everything that is wrong with this world - compassion and common decency taking a backfoot.

It's about women and girls being decent human beings to EACH OTHER.
Human beings do not always behave decently. That is the point.

Expecting women to reach a higher standard of behaviour is the opposite of treating them like humans.

Women's rights are not a reward for good behaviour

So much this.

@Melia100

Women's rights are not a reward for good behaviour

So much this.

Yup!

I share a management role with another female. One of females we manage cane to us with an issue and needed to change her work pattern. We met to discuss and my other manager was uncharacteristically horrible, inflexible and uncooperative. When I addressed her later she said "But it was so hard for me to get ahead, work around my family that it's not fair if this person can just request it and she gets it?" She did not appreciated the fact that we could change and pass down positive experiences. There were no work reasons for this difficulty, just a jealousy that it could be easier for those coming behind us.

Try putting any other protected characteristic in to your OP and you will see how ridiculous it sounds.

E.g. Until all disabled people are nice to each other it’s their own fault if they don’t get equal rights.

TemptingTess, I work in an increasingly female dominated industry and definitely this is a thing (no one did that for me so why should I make it easy for someone else kind of thing).

In workplaces it often comes down to bad management though, rather than women being “bad girls” or whatever.

In one work place, we had an (all female) teamwork culture and although there were minor disagreements, generally the team were kind and supportive to each other. A lot of experienced staff who had worked together for a long time.

The business sold, from small independent to corporate owners, management changed and it was all targets and 1000 emails and bulletins a week, initiatives about mental health stuck on the wall but very stressed workers, managers sitting in the office staring at spreadsheets and not acting on concerns raised in the team. We lost a lot of staff in a short time frame and all of a sudden it was every woman for herself, blaming each other for mistakes rather than having each other’s backs and with the inevitable talking and cliqueing that goes with that.

Managers then tried team building days to make people get on, rather than working on the stress points and issues in the workplace where the disagreements were (which mainly came down to trying to run understaffed all the time). In the end it felt like gaslighting and I left.

Make a workplace a pressure cooker and people will take it out on each other/behave ‘mean’ This can be even worse when women are on low pay or have limited options due to childcare etc because they feel trapped there as well. It explains why a lot of women put up with sex discrimination and bullying at work.

Often in reality women are very supportive of each other, even to random strangers they see in trouble.

MN is a pretty good view of this.

Plenty of the three am threads where a few women awake with babies and toddlers or coming off night shift are holding together a woman locked in a bathroom who thinks she has a broken nose and is too scared to call the police on her abusive partner. They'll spend hours helping and check back for days.

Plenty of 'my kid's in hospital hold my hand' or 'I'm in this situation and don't know what to do' threads where women advise, comfort and in a few cases I've seen MNetters make phonecalls or send emails or physically go and take needed things to another woman in trouble.

AIBU is a blood bath - and when you look there you see how high the expectations are that women hold of each other. To me it's one of the biggest giveaways with a poster who is known to be or coming across as biologically male: they get the punches pulled, and slack cut where if it was a biological woman the other women would tell it far more like it is - in the good ways and in the get it together, stop whining, don't be a doormat, you're going to have deal with this kind of way.

I see wonderful things about women's relationships with other women and the wonderful culture that female people have together all the time. I often see women talking here about how important it is that young women have access to talking to older women who have the t shirts and can help and support. There are women here investing hours and hours of their life into the FWR threads to try and protect other females.

It's pretty good really.

My daughter (15) has been suffering from a lot of sexism within her school, both from students and teachers. Her and her friend have created a survey to present to their school board to try and get change done! If anyone wants to do it and share it, we would both be very thankful :)

The survey is here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSi3eqbPymoPMNoPdfO96a8EqW4Z5ynbWawel1RzHzhHys_Q/viewform?usp=sf_link