We need to talk about female jealousy

 I need to start this article carefully. Not because the topic is controversial, but because people tend to hear things that were never said. This is not an attack on women. This is not an invitation for men to tell us how difficult we are. And this is certainly not a declaration that women are uniquely flawed. Jealousy is human. Men experience it. Women experience it. The difference is that female jealousy often arrives dressed as something else. Concern. Advice. Silence. Distance. A compliment that somehow leaves a bruise. Sneaky comment. And I think we need to talk about it. Not because it is comfortable. But because pretending it doesn't exist has never made it disappear.

Recently I have been in predominantly female spaces, and ooh, my God, had I forgotten how women can be; let's not even get to my high school experience. What struck me wasn't the obvious hostility. It was how subtle it felt. How difficult it was to point to and how gaslit I felt as a girl who'd just been in predominantly male spaces! How easy it was to convince myself I was imagining it.

The Myth of Effortless Sisterhood

I love women. I love female friendships. I love the kind of sisterhood that feels like home.

Like my girls being there for me when I lost my loved ones, or us going on trips, dates, and concerts; us having picnics; making art; and us generally being safe spaces for us to truly be ourselves. But I think we have accidentally romanticized sisterhood into something unrealistic. Women are human. Which means women are capable of insecurity. Women are capable of envy. Women are capable of comparison. Women are capable of wanting what someone else has. And acknowledging that doesn't make us anti-women. It makes us honest.

the myth of sisterhood

The Comparison Trap

There is perhaps no greater breeding ground for jealousy than comparison. Someone is prettier. Someone is getting married. Someone got the promotion. Someone started the business. Someone seems happier. Someone appears to be moving through life with ease. Enter older women in the corporate. Ooh, my days! Do I have stories for days about this specific topic. Recently, I and a client in her mid-twenties were talking about this and the issue of male attention and older women fighting younger girls in corporate spaces. The dangerous thing about comparison is that it convinces us someone else's success is evidence of our failure. It isn't.

The Jealousy We Don't Admit

I think most people imagine jealousy as hatred. Most of the time it isn't. Sometimes jealousy looks like admiration mixed with sadness. Sometimes it looks like wanting something you don't have. Sometimes it looks like grief. Sometimes it looks like wondering why life seems easier for someone else. And that's where the conversation becomes important. Because the feeling itself isn't the problem. What we do with it is.

What I Am Learning

Do I get jealous? Absolutely yes! Do I act on them? No, I have learned to examine myself and work on myself and question myself. And this may sound corny af, but like I have said before on here, my only competition is me, and for that to work, I have to do all the above.

And for that reason, I no longer think the goal is to become incapable of jealousy. I think the goal is to become honest enough to recognize it before it turns into resentment. Because jealousy hidden long enough eventually becomes bitterness. And bitterness has destroyed far more friendships than honesty ever has. Maybe the conversation we need isn't about pretending women don't experience jealousy. Maybe it's about creating enough room to admit that sometimes we do and we don't have to let it control our lives.

Sisterhood