Is a woman really another woman's worst enemy?
We have always been led to understand that women have to be in constant competition and, in many cases, for male attention and pleasure. For the show, a button: many of the teenage movies of the 2000s starring women like Regina George, in this generation's favorite movie: Mean Girls. They are women who are constantly fighting for the recognition that comes with being the prettiest and most popular, in addition to what seems to be the grand prize, the handsome boy.
It should be clarified that the film seeks to demonstrate how ridiculous this competition can be. The problem is that not everyone interprets it as satire and, on the contrary, they have dedicated themselves to reproducing the script without this main intention. Being “heavy girls”.
And it's not about demonizing competition, you can compete healthily, but the fact that women are always portrayed in a constant battle to have an ideal man is already an absurd cliché. Interests, talents, and intelligence are often overshadowed by the need for stories to please the male eye, at least as evidenced by the entertainment industry and popular culture.
Here it is worth remembering the cliché phrase of a politician in the campaign: “union is strength”. Putting ourselves against each other has an additional intention behind it: by maintaining the constant competition and distance between them, it makes it easier to exercise power and thus give way to the various forms of oppression.
The counterbalance to this phenomenon is the sorority. In simple terms, sisterhood is about solidarity and mutual support between women, or the equivalent of what fraternity between men is, but which feminism and women themselves have been responsible for deepening and empowering.
It has been the union of pain and common ground to validate the existence of machismo throughout history. Because sorority is not only support, it is also the path to understanding the body and mind, which, when related to each other, allows us to understand what it means to be socialized as women and, consequently, the position of power held by half of the people because they are men.
When women have been reduced and little understood in their complexity by patriarchy, coming together has allowed them to be perceived beyond service to men. And this can only happen if they relate to each other in a healthy way, rather than on the basis of an imposed and, for that matter, fictitious rivalry.
For example, at school, the only women who shared how it felt to menstruate, or taught how to put on a towel, were women. And yes, more than one stepped into the role of “not being like other girls” and he “only have male friends because they do understand me”. But despite everything, many realized that that was of no use when it came to things that only another woman could understand.
When there are women who support each other instead of competing, that's when exploration begins and the so-called “character development” emerges. When those bonds tighten, trust flourishes. Then, we must bear in mind that in such a patriarchal society growing up as a woman is a very difficult experience (that's why feminism exists), so there's nothing like having company in the process. So who better than another woman?
It is almost always heard that relationships between women are full of envy, jealousy and gossip, but this happens in ALL types of relationships, not just those of women. In addition, it is worth remembering that often these conflicts are caused by misogyny: jealousy for a man, comparisons of physical appearance based on men's ideas of what is attractive, etc.
So yes, it's not like problems don't exist, it's how you think about solving them instead of being left with those silly prejudices that only push you away. It is important to keep in mind that friendship between women, without wanting it or intending it, becomes a powerful way to combat gender inequalities and oppression. It's leaving the bias that “all women are enemies” behind.
Now, do they all have to be friends in the name of sisterhood? No, not at all, that's one of the charms of sisterhood and that's because it's not about agreeing with all women, because being a woman is not the same as being a good person and not everyone goes through the same things, it's about empathizing. Unfortunately, existing in machismo has left traumas that sometimes seem to be only something of women, that here in Latin America is palpable: the so-called generational trauma, that has happened between grandmothers and mothers, of being the ones who carry behind them the responsibility of lifting up the family.
These types of scenarios are proof of how necessary it is to start weaving healthy relationships, based on union, rather than envy and imposed ideas in order to face inequalities. See other women as great allies, not as competition.
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