COMPETITION  AMONG  WOMEN  

(As published in Today’s Dallas Woman Magazine.)  

Yes, I was eavesdropping:

            "You know that blonde with the skirts? I don't wear shorts that short."

            "You know they don't start out that way. She probably takes them to the tailor and says, 'I want them up to my navel'."

            The two women at the restaurant table next to me went on to discuss how, even though they had never talked to the "short skirt bimbo," they disliked her, and felt she was somehow a threat. Why did they feel such strong competition and jealousy feelings toward this woman?

            Or consider a recent episode of Maurey Povich, focusing on severely obese women who had dropped 100, 150, 185 pounds, and wanted to surprise friends from the past. Old best friends saw these ladies in their new, slender appearances, and jokingly made comments like,  "I hate her," "I'm so jealous," and "I'm never standing next to you again."  The curious factor was the gender difference: men surprised with their old friends' new weight did not make competitive, jealous remarks -- just the women did.

            Ask men to describe a woman, and they usually make global statements. She's tall. Pretty. A little plump. Funny-looking. Women, however, dissect their subject into tiny fragments: "She's got beautifully long eyelashes, but she wears way too much mascara, and her left nostril is bigger than her right, but it's not as bad as mine, with mine you can see that..."

            Many female clients I've worked with echo the same theme: "Every time I see these busty, leggy, flat-stomached supermodels, I become irritated and frustrated - how can I compete with that!"

            Is it really a competition? Consider a laboratory experiment where men were asked to rate their own wives and girlfriends on appearance. One group of men were shown pictures of exceptionally beautiful women before the rating of their own partners. Those men rated their wives and girlfriends as significantly less attractive and appealing than men in the control group who had not viewed the exceptionally beautiful women beforehand.

            Another client years ago stated she "became who her husband wanted her to be" after he had an affair, so she could "keep him around, happy, and out of the other woman's arms." This precious woman lost herself, changed her very personality, because she felt she wasn't good enough to win the competition.

COMPETITION

            Evolutionary biologists would say competition between women is a survival instinct. If another woman comes into your cave enticing your mate, jealous feelings encourage you to protect what's yours. The competition therefore ensures that your mate stays around to help raise the offspring, and provide meat for the family. The theory also says competition may have developed through natural selection. Cavewoman Sarah and cavewoman Pam know caveman Tom is genetically the cream of the crop, and his children will have a better chance in life. If Sarah feels competition and works hard at mating with Tom, while Pam doesn't even know the race started, Tom chooses Sarah, and Pam's DNA never get out of the gate. Or Pam mates with genetically inferior caveman Bill, and her DNA die at the hand of a saber-toothed tiger. So feeling jealous of the "short skirt bimbo" may be your way of trying to catch the best male, and then keep him, so that your genes live on.

            A potential problem with the theory is that jealous behavior often turns men off -- counter productive to the whole mating dance. The other hitch is that by this time, you'd expect all women to have developed extreme, pathological levels of jealousy, because the non-competitive females would have died out. So let's consider some other reasons for female jealousy.

SOCIAL

            The media usually sits in the hot seat in discussions like this, but do an experiment: take any fashion magazine and find someone who looks like you. I did this recently while conducting a women's retreat, and none of the 45 women found an self-reflective image in the pages. I heard a lot of, "I'd love to look like that," and "I'd kill for that stomach!"

From very early ages, little girls are taught the importance of looking good, and socialized into competing on a visual level. Little girls are told more often than little boys, that their misbehavior is 'ugly'.

            Little girls then grow up into women who rate their own physical appearances with a harsh and critical eye. Conversely, even if the beer belly now protrudes over the belt, men will stand before a mirror, suck in their stomachs and say, "Still lookin' good."

            One consistent element of eating disorders, which still predominately effect young women, relates to wanting to live up to the perfect female image as portrayed in movies, on television, and in print advertisements. Many women with eating disorders report routinely going through a hypercritical survey process as they compare their own body size, muscle tone, skin quality, etc. with every other woman in the room. If she doesn't win the competition, self-esteem suffers, and it's back to the treadmill or into the bathroom to purge up dinner.

COOPERATION

            As we look to form healthy business connections, friendships, and mother/daughter relationships, jealous competition works against some of our natural disposition of relationship building. Women have a natural ability to form intimate relationships, oftentimes over and above the male's ability. We have built-in relationship manuals. Men work typically in hierarchies -- women in circles. This innate female ability forms the glue in many families, churches and synagogues, communities, and companies. When we stay in the jealousy, we disconnect from the vital ties that glue us together. Competition and jealousy, sabotaging and backstabbing, keep women from forming the relationship structure characteristic of a healthy family, business, and community. I see families and couples all day long ruined by the pitting of two females against each other, instead of using their wonderfully female quality of connecting to enhance relationships.

            When women compete instead of cooperate, each loses the celebration of the other person and that person's success. In business, women are now learning to use the naturally female qualities of watching out for the other person's needs. This works to everyone's advantage. One of my favorite female colleagues lives and preaches this philosophy. She believes that if she can hear and fill your needs and wants, even if it does not benefit her, everyone wins. Nurturing relationships in business, referring work to other women, and seeking the other's best interest, personify the feminine circle mentality, and I know I would much rather do business with someone invested in mutual cooperation, than someone judging me by the length of my hem.  

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