Flicking through a glossy magazine, my breath caught in my throat at a name I recognised.
From my reaction, you’d think it was the name of an ex boyfriend, or arch enemy. It was neither – it was the name of a woman I barely knew.
I’d met her a few times, and she was friendly. But she’d written an article that I wanted to write, in a magazine I desperately wanted to be in.
‘I could’ve written that,’ I huffed to my husband, angrily flipping the page.
This woman kept cropping up on my social media feeds, on the websites I visited. I could hardly bring myself to admit that I’d read her successful debut novel (and loved it).
So why did I refuse to read her article? Out of spite? To put it simply, I was jealous of her – and it consumed me.
We’ve all heard about female jealousy when it comes to romantic relationships. Women are portrayed as catty, green-eyed monsters when it comes to battling for love interests.
But what about in our personal and professional lives? Why is it, even as feminists, that we are often jealous of other women doing well?
Take me, for example. I’m 26, married, live in the big city and have the job I’d always dreamed of. I have my health, family, and good friends. Yet, I haven’t done everything I want in life.
I feel so much pressure to compare myself to other women, which makes me fiercely jealous of what they have and what I don’t.
The body, the book deal, the nice haircut, the healthy Instagram following, the high-flying career. Sometimes I can’t even bear to read a tweet about a fellow female writer’s new award without a jealous lump forming in my throat. Does this make me a bad feminist? No.
In an ideal world, we’d all be proud of and happy for successful women. I would like to think I would support any woman who is breaking the boundaries of life set for them. Instead, I find myself intimidated by them.
It seems to me that women are trained from a young age that it’s survival of the fittest amongst our gender. We’re the ‘lesser’ sex, and therefore need to compete with each other to be successful.
It can be hard, then, to see women for what they are, perceiving instead only that they’ve got what we feel we lack. That can be anything from long legs to awards on an email signature.
The seeds of envy are planted young. The markers of success are drilled into us young: we should aspire to have a good education, meet someone nice to marry and procreate with – before living in a nice house with a fantastic view, all while juggling a glittering career. When someone else has that and we don’t, it’s a problem.
On social media we choose to be surrounded by people we admire and aspire to be but this can become overwhelming if your achievements seem lesser than theirs.
First and foremost, we’re only human. Nobody’s life is perfect, regardless of what filter they’ve used to show it. It’s natural to be jealous when we’re exposed to social media’s premise that the first step to bettering ourselves is to compare our lives with others.
As a feminist, that’s just not what I want to stand for. I want to see other women as my equals, not my idols.
I no longer want to let jealousy highlight my own insecurities and fears, but work on them so that I might be a better support and role model to others.
It’s easy to feel insecure but it doesn’t mean changing our own success criteria to fit other people’s.
We can turn a negative into a positive, moving away from comparisons, not trying to fit the mould and harnessing our insecurities to stop looking elsewhere, and start living.
MORE: My only New Year’s resolution is to be a better friend
MORE: The world would be a richer place if girls had power
MORE: How to have feminist sex
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/03/can-jealous-women-still-feminist-11995405/
0 Comments