It’s not easy being a women:

We bleed for a week a month for forty years straight.

Western society makes us shave our legs every two days.

We have to force a bowling ball (a really big bowling ball) out of our little lady parts… Sometimes more than once.

And that’s without the everyday negative energies surrounding female relationships, our perceptions of each other and the subtle, yet brutal, ever present war within our own gender. As little girls, when our minds are tiny sucking sponges, fairy tales within books, movies or fables force us little girls to witness the beautiful Princesses as targets of bitchy behaviour. The ugly sisters wreck Cinderella’s gown to prevent her from impressing the Prince. The mermaids literally attempt to drown Wendy because they are jealous of her relationship with heart throb Peter Pan. Snow White’s step mum poisons her. Already, when the thoughts of dating, sex and marriage are yet to conquer our minds, we are taught that women must compete against each other, more often then not stemming from the interests of impressing and ultimately “winning” the men.

Thankfully, I’ve never been physically bullied, drowned or poisoned by anyone over the affections of a male. But I have experienced far too much hostility, whether first hand or merely as a witness. Whether we admit it or not, whether it be environmental or deep rooted somewhere in our cave woman instinct, there’s something in us as women, that sees danger in other women.

Granted, there are some women out there – actually, no, there are some humans out there – that aren’t very nice at all. Some are even evil. But I’m talking about the victimising of women that haven’t actually done anything wrong.

Such as, 1. Your ex boyfriends new girlfriend.

If you haven’t at least once stalked your ex boyfriends new girlfriend’s Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, either I need your secret to contentedness, or you’re lying. It’s human nature to be intrigued, of course. But what about when those subconscious questions come into play: is she an upgrade or a downgrade? If you aren’t over him – does she deserve him? If he was awful to you – why is he treating her better? I can’t remember ever hearing of a girl that has recently discovered her ex’s new girlfriend and has subsequently come away with a positive perception of her. You never hear her say, “Dan’s new girlfriend is so pretty, I hope they’re making each other very happy”, unless she’s being sarcastic, or untruthful. More often than not, what you do hear is, “Dan’s new girlfriend looks like such a slut/bitch/insert derogatory term”. The only reason explanation I can think of for this kind of analysis is that the friend in question feels threatened/insecure. But my guess is Dan’s new girlfriend is probably a nice girl and probably unknowing of the details of your past relationship with Dan. So she hasn’t done anything wrong and doesn’t deserve your hostility. Instead of attacking this girl, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why you feel this way about her. Maybe there are some issues you need to address when it comes to your ex boyfriend or your relationship. And who knows – more likely than not, she’s also virtually stalking you, experiencing the same territorial emotions as you. Which brings me to case point two,

2.Your current boyfriends ex girlfriend.

Again, we’ve all done it (can you see a pattern, yet?) – stumbled across a social network and somehow landed on the girl who loved your man before you came along. We feel the same range of emotions we do about the ex’s new girlfriend. The same wondering, the same comparison. Only this is worse, because you’re currently so loved up with your boyfriend that the thought of him loving someone else before you makes you want to scream/cry/be sick/maybe strangle her. All of which are reasonable, territorial emotions to go through (except maybe the strangling. Don’t do that). But look at it the same way as example 1: she had him before you, yes, but she doesn’t have him now. I doubt they still want each other, otherwise, wouldn’t they be together? There is absolutely no need to feel hatred towards her. If he is a good boyfriend to you, chances are that’s down to his experiences with her, so she’s done you a favour. And even if she treated him badly, affecting how he deals with things like trust, remember: there are always two sides to every story. I’m not saying be best friends with this girl, that may be a little weird (especially when you start trading stories about your boyfriend… Ew), but give her the benefit of the doubt, and stop breeding negative energy in your own being by hoarding negative feelings about her. The lesson in these two examples is be confident within yourself so that you don’t feel the need to put yourself up against someone that is not in the same race as you. Also, try not to lurk – you know you’ll only see thing that you don’t want to, so why torture yourself? Work on your own life instead of wondering about a strangers.

3. The girl your boyfriend cheated on you with.

This is probably the trickiest situation for us girls to deal with. Being cheated on is an absolutely awful feeling (For those that have been lucky enough to escape it, imagine having a hand rip open your chest, pull out your beating heart and putting it in a blender: that doesn’t come close to the feeling of being cheated on.) Of course, naturally, our first natural instinct is to hate him, and hate the ‘other girl’, because we’re angry and hurt and upset, of course. But take a minute to think about it – it is completely and utterly, 100% your boyfriends responsibility and not the girl he chose to cheat on you with. She could have absolutely no idea that the guy inside her has a girlfriend. As far as she is concerned, he’s single and willing. She is not a ‘slut’ or a ‘whore’ – she is free to enjoy sex with whoever  she wants. This example changes considerably if the girl knows he has a girlfriend, or worse, knows you personally. That is what you’d call a bad friend. But I can’t help but feel that girls get a worse deal in these situations than the man. A girl I knew from school had been with her boyfriend for two years when we had sex with her best friend. She banished the friend, but easily forgave her boyfriend. Why inflict hatred on her, yet forgive your all knowing, entirely responsible partner?

And finally,

4. The girl who has the man you want. Whether you like it or not, you can’t run away from the fact that the reason you dislike this girl is because you are jealous. The sooner you admit it, the sooner you can put to bed these negative emotions. There isn’t a lot you can do in this situation, apart from appreciate the fact that they like/love each other and let their relationship run it’s course. What’s meant to be will be, so if it’s supposed to be you that he chose, he may eventually do so. But don’t hate on his girlfriend while you wait for him to make up his mind.

I would LOVE there to be a wider sense of sisterhood among women in our current time and place in history. We can understand each other while men cannot begin to even try. I can empathise with the examples above because I have experienced them in the past and know many girlfriends who have or continue to.

Instead of merely siding with friends against other girls, competing in this mindless invisible war, can’t we all be on the same team?