Estrogen Wars

Posted by Natalie Shobana Ambrose
By Natalie Shobana Ambrose
theSun, Malaysia (page 19)
March 10th, 2011


“There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women” says Madeleine Albright, the former U.S. Secretary of State. Ironic isn’t it, for all the progress women have achieved through the years for equality and yet we ourselves have sabotaged our own progress.

We’ve just celebrated International Women’s Day centenary. One hundred recorded years of acknowledging the equality agenda. The right to vote, to work, own property, impartiality in the work place, the right to education, bodily autonomy, fair and equal pay and engaging in constant disgruntle discussion against sexist oppression. The fight is about gender parity for women and against being dominated by the opposite sex, yet something that is seldom addressed in the open is how women mistreat other women.

For all that has been achieved, women are often mean spirited towards other women, damaging the competition in a personal capacity. Though, not all women display this behaviour, there are so many women who end up exchanging notes about how mean other women have been to them in the work place or in social settings. It’s puzzling, yet not uncommon. Let’s just take a look at popular television. People are making money over cat fights especially on reality based TV shows. Just the shorts of these programmes speak volumes of how women sabotage each other and it is deemed ‘entertaining’- but it doesn’t mean it’s just happening on TV.

Sure, we have our sisterhood of friends discussing personal details of our lives yet our solidarity for other women in general is low. We blame men for the bad state of women’s standing in society, or society for our inferiority complex but in many ways, women are partly responsible. Women bully other women with passive-aggressive behaviour, manipulation, backstabbing, gossip, poor undeserved rating, limiting access to important meetings and information, or blocking access to bosses and mentors, and sabotaging other women’s careers is widespread.

Instead of being supportive, often enough it is women who derail other women’s careers. We seem to have a jealousy gene which we don’t control too well. This unprofessional behaviour seems to be a taboo topic and goes unaddressed. You’ll find courses on improving women’s leadership skills, breaking the glass ceiling and so many other types of women power courses and conferences but hard-pressed to find one encouraging women to go beyond our innate nature, to value and be supportive of each other.

There are many theories of why this is so – scarcity of women in top positions causing more competition, the ‘it’s not intentional’ reason, or the ‘I got here on my own, so why should I help you’ syndrome, the ‘why help someone who could be my replacement?’, or being supportive of another women is showing favouritism. If we want to find an excuse there are plenty but it all boils down to bad destructive behaviour.

It’s seems petty to call one out on such behaviour and the all to common gender stereotype blame on Aunt Flow and how our hormones get the better of us, might deter women from shedding light on the issue. It almost feels like we’re taking giant leaps backwards if we do so, undoing the work of feminine unity of the past. As a result, instead of being accused of being overemotional, best just endure the wrath of false sisterhood solidarity.

Women are in constant contradiction of the feminist movement. On one hand we advocate equality, respect and assume solidarity with one another. Yet at the drop of a hat, there are women who are willing to mistreat another woman to get what they want – be it a career move, popularity or the affections of a desired person. Clearly we have become a barrier in our quest for equality and need to end the estrogen war.

Decoding the reasons why women seem to carry on the mean-girl behaviour from secondary school into adulthood is not important. What’s important is putting a spanner in our misconduct and not letting others get away with it too.



Natalie doesn’t expect special treatment from other women-                                                                         just treat me as well as you do the guys.