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.

Girls are so mean and bitchy - why can't they be competitive and ambitious like men?

Women are half the human race. We're flawed and diverse and complicated and will disagree and that's fine. It doesn't mean we don't deserve equality.

I mean, if virtue led to equal rights, then the fact we commit massively less crime (including just 2% of imprisonable sexual offending) would mean we ran the world. But it doesn't, does it?

Rights don't depend on virtue. They usually rely on power to enforce them, in fact... so the reverse, quite often.

@Michelleoftheresistance

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.

I've had astonishing levels of support from women over the years - here, and in the world. I think that's the norm, too.

I think I know where you're coming from, OP. I have been bullied out of a job by a female supervisor who was married to the boss. It was the kind of bullying that a man simply would not be subjected to from a woman. Constant petty remarks and undermining, picking at things that were absolutely nothing to do with my work, but commenting on what I wore, what I ate, my social life etc. because I didn't 'fit in' with her and her cronies. I'm not bigging myself up when I say I think it was based on jealousy. I don't have a very interesting life at all, in fact, but evidently a bit more interesting than theirs. I also am not very well socialised as female (possibly autistic) and so don't pick up on the minute social cues I'm supposed to in order to fit in. I found I would say something and would have it picked apart for a 'hidden meaning' and also find women like this are incredibly easily offended, holding a grudge. For example, I once said I don't drink in the afternoons because it sends me to sleep. This was interpreted as a judgement on them for doing so, and led to lots of snide comments about 'Oh, I thought you didn't drink' as though I was trying to sound better than them and they were trying to show me up for being a 'hypocrite', a scenario they'd completely concocted out of their own insecurity. Just tedious. The bullying wasn't strictly down to them being women, it was more to do with narcissistic traits, but the internalised misogyny meant I was bullied and I don't believe I would have been at all had I been a man. Other things like asking me for help on a computer issue, me giving them the correct answer, then them asking a man for his opinion to make sure/disregard me. I've had far fewer problems in the workplace with men than women, and it gives me no pleasure to say that. Some women in the workplace demand you conform to their social codes/interests etc and if you don't they can't accept you, whereas if you were a man you'd be left alone. This kind of picking at each other I see as women feeling bitter about the life choices they've made and making sure any other women who've made different choices don't have something better. Men seem to give each other far more leeway and don't bring each other down in the same way.

Recognise a lot of what you say, @hypernormal. Internalised oppression is hard to reach. Early civil rights campaigners felt undermined by what they called 'uncle toms', being people who had not personally had a bad time, had good jobs, pleasant working conditions, and lifelong protection bestowed by paternalistic benevolent employers/owners. Early domestic abuse campaigners felt undermined by women who had happy marriages (i.e., job description exactly the same as an uncle tom, ) and who therefore colluded in the belief that those 'other' (i.e, lesser, stupid,) women must positively enjoy being beaten, or else they would leave.

^ 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.

That's just a get out clause. It's not ahigher standard. I expect men to treat one another the same. I also expect men to call out misogyny and sexism. I also expect men to treat women as equals. I expect men to be decent human beings, fathers to their children, etc. I expect men to dismantle old patriarchal systems. If anything I expect men to reach a higher standard than where they're at.

Girls are so mean and bitchy - why can't they be competitive and ambitious like men?

What's your point @FFSFFSFFS ?

@FFSFFSFFS being competitive and ambitious should not equate to malicious, founded on greed though, should it??

Malicious behaviour, UNfounded

FFS typos! Over this. The replies, to me, have only re-confirmed my stance on this. Thanks.

OP you will spend a lot of life being disappointed, your standards are high

Accept what you can't change and change what you can

Some men aren't nice. Some women aren't nice. What's your point OP? And how do you know those women didn't like you because you were a woman? An action that happens to be done by a woman doesn't automatically make it a feminist/misogyny issue the same way a man bullying another man isn't a misandrist/male hating one. In fact it's probably sexist to imply as such.

I've had astonishing levels of support from women over the years - here, and in the world. I think that's the norm, too

Same. I've had a shit time of it over the last five years, and it's only other women that have kept my head above water.

I expect men to treat one another the same.... I expect men to be decent human beings.
And when men do not behave with decency and treat each other well should they forgo their rights too?

Didn't the Midnight Misogynist always use to post the "women are their own worst enemy" line? Or was it another plopper?

Not RTFT

1. I have never encountered this in my working life. And for 2 years I worked in a female only company. I have met some women who weren't very nice.. but plenty of people aren't very nice. I've met lots of men who weren't very nice

1. I read an article yonks ago about how in a very male dominated environment women know there are only limited places for female progression and so compete. In a work context and the same as men do

What is a 'mean girl' thing? We're not at school are we? I don't even know what that looks like.

What sort of industries are you taking about?

'That's just a get out clause. It's not ahigher standard. I expect men to treat one another the same. I also expect men to call out misogyny and sexism. I also expect men to treat women as equals'

And if you're in a male dominated workplace, how exactly do you go about that?

Genuinely interested

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.

Absolutely!
Until the individuals that make up the social culture, the media, the advertisers, the corporate leadership, politicians, aka thought leaders, accepts that women are people and are going to act like people despite constant criticism, progress will be stalled.

It's about a group of women being vicious, underhanded and prejudiced without any foundation. Not the first time encountered it either.

Basically you are framing your experience as universal when it is not.

OP, you are the only one responsible for your unrealistic expectations of others.

So until we're good girls we can't have nice things like the dismantling of the patriarchy?

So until we're good girls we can't have nice things

Who will judge what is 'good' and 'good enough'?

What is considered 'good' in this context? Compliant? Well mannered according to which standards set by whom? (And will these be equal, general standards or just ones for females as a class group?) Why exactly is this particular behaviour so valued and what does it achieve for the group who will identify what is good enough and then reward it?

Who is the possessor of all the nice things? (And who might, if the behaviour is good enough, be willing to share it?) Why do they just have these nice things - does anyone similarly monitor and reward them or are these nice things just automatic entitlement?

Unpack that and you have the massive, intrinsic disadvantage of being born with female biology.

Which doesn't go away no matter how much privileged males wish it would so they can have ever more of what they want when they want it and all on their terms at the expense of females.

I still have no real grasp on what you're talking about or trying to work out here OP.

I explained what I saw as toxic masculinity and that there was no parallel for toxic feminisms on those terms: you didn't reply to that so obviously not useful.

You really seem to be trying to prove in your own mind that female centred females are nasty so don't deserve nice things like equality, when you don't seem to be taking into account your own ingrained sexism.

I read something in the Harvard business review that actually said that the greatest barrier to career progression amongst women was the uptake if flexible working arrangements and other concessions used by mothers (fathers on the other hand rarely took advantage of such schemes so rarely suffered a detriment and actually enjoyed an advantage when female competitors dropped out of full time and present in the office work). I guess I’ll have to write to them and tell them they’ve got it all wrong because it’s mean girls that are to blame 🙄

OP you seem to be saying that until all women are perfect, women in general are not in a position to claim an equal status as full human beings. Men on the other hand get full human status without the need to ensure all of them deserve it.

Somehow women's rights are alway contingent on something. The perfect behaviour of all women at all times is a great catch all for when you can't think of a better reason for not letting them enjoy equal status. Men don't have to jump through this hoop to get rights. This is misogyny.