Sisters, are they literally doing it for themselves?

Have you read Victoria Coren's column yet today? If not, why not? It's not about poker you know.  It's about girl's having the option to do cheerleading at school rather than the football.  She makes a wonderful point about girls' roles in society being, quite literally, sidelined and wonders why it is that girl's WANT to just be the jiggling prize for the boys rather than the decorated sports star.  I, rather more clumsily, was making a similar point about TV presenters in a previous post.  What Coren asks is why aren't women allowed any serious competition with each other (let alone with men)?

With all this inverted girl power knocking about it made me think that women are competitive, just in a different way.

It's true that women are capable of making very firm friends with each other.  Over late nights of bonding and mutual secret revealing, women can quickly progress from acquaintance to friend onto full blown sisterhood in a matter of hours.  I know many men who are quite envious of this.  Some long to be able to open up to their male friends in the same way, to bond over feelings and shared experiences.  But unlike SOME women, men seem to be able to participate in creative activities in a social and mutually respectful way.  Women seem to get jealous of one anothers achievements, and here is where girl competition is rife.

Now, I'm not talking about people's friends here, more precisely, acquaintances.  Those people you know, but don't love enough to be happy for all the time. I know men can be very competitive in the work place, but I'm stepping outside of that.

I have alluded before to a certain situation that happened at the start of my blogging life.  I wrote a rather pessimistic, upset post about feeling unfulfilled.  In it, I referred to someone who represented all the opportunities I had missed and that they had taken.  I TRIED to make the post as anonymous as possible.  I TRIED to choose keywords that only the person involved would pick up on.  I thought that being a first post the likelihood of ANYONE reading it was slim, let alone anyone I may have known in a previous life.  Part of this plan was not to use "he" or "she".  What I found very interesting, and ultimately infuriating, was when someone left me a comment.

It wasn't that someone was criticising me that got me down, I was ranting and I sounded daft.  What got to me was that in their comment the person kept referring to my post subject as "she": "she must have done this", "she must be better at that".  Whoever this person was assumed that because I was a girl, the person I was writing about must be a girl too.  WHY?  Because women can only be envious of each other?  Because women can only aspire to the heights of other women? 

Do women really view competition along gender lines?  Sure, in any physical activity there are obvious reasons why Average Joe may not be suited to a heavy lifting duel with Average Josephine, but surely where creativity is concerned everyone is fair game? Say, Blog Wars broke out tomorrow, my blog would be up against ALL the trillions there are in the world, not just the ones written by women.  So why did this person ASSUME I was talking about another girl?

This is something I will definitely be coming back to.  Right now I have to beat some men at some stuff.

And yes, the person who left the comment, she was a girl.

pic: Sooki and Anna 02 by Seneschal of Avalon

too sexy for my blog

After my last two blogs, word on the street is that I have “issues”. They stem from deep rooted low self esteem seeds. And what is the fruit of the low self esteem tree? that’s right kids – great green eyed monsters. They are terrors, they have the power to render you completely useless for days on end because some other person had the audacity to be a tiny bit better than you. The green eyes can turn perfectly sunny days into grey miserable ones, flooded with embarrasing accusations. Just this morning I got in a tizzy because my other half has booked a fabulously attractive girl to play at one of his gigs. These are the facts which based her booking:

• To have a multi- musician gig you need more than one musician
• She is a musician
• She is free to play on that date
• My other half needs to book people for gigs so they are a success and he can buy food and clothing.

My list, however, was rather different:

• She is sexy
• Everyone will want to touch her clothes
• She will probably come one stage naked and sexy
• She is very very very sexy

I would also like to point out that I have never, ever heard her music. I haven’t even seen her in the flesh. I based this list purely on the handful of photos I have seen of her. My other half has never once alluded to the way she looks, it was me, and only me that turned her into Aphrodite. If I spent half and hour wringing my guts out about it I only have myself to blame.

I am of course a massive hypocrite. My background music of choice today is Florence and The Machine. Lungs as you probably don’t need me to point out is a dizzyingly assured debut album from a woman who is a brilliant lyric writer. I also don’t need to point that Florence Welch is entirely gorgeous, writhes about on stage like a woman ravaged with pent up sexual frustration and is extremely talented. Based on the above criteria I should therefore hate the breath that emanates from her lungs. But I don’t. I cannot work out what it is that lets certain women slip through my jealousy net, I can only surmise that it is because they exist in that other realm of fame. I will never have to encounter them; their shadow will never darken the sky above my head as I shrink deeper into the pavement. “Real” people on the other hand are THERE, you can sniff them and touch them and everything. In them I have proof sat across from me that fabulousness doesn’t affect just the fortunate, it can exist in the next friend of a friend you are destined to meet. And what are you going to do when you go home after meeting this pinnacle of womanhood? That’s right, you will eat biscuits and not do anything for a fortnight because “there is no point, they do it better than me so why should I even bother.”

I have always considered myself a bit of a misanthrope but I am probably more obsessed with other people than anyone else. It isn’t healthy and I could watch my whole life bob away on my pissy attitude. But I am not the only woman who feels like this. Every woman who has ever said “She is pretty in an obvious way” or “Yeah she has a great voice, but she’s a complete bitch” is guilty of letting the green eyes ruin a moment of her life. I hope I will get to the stage with my issues where I can accept them and make them something I am amused by. But until then I will accept any green eyes you want to throw my way ladies, go on, it will make me feel better: “She has a nice bum yeah, but she can’t write a blog to save her life. Bitch.”