Full disclosure: I wrote this post about two weeks ago, before my site crashed, and I took that as a sign to not post it. However, in light of what happened in Las Vegas, a place that is near and dear to my heart and where I intend to run a half marathon (which begins at the same venue) in just five weeks, it may be more important to post this now. Not only do women need to get together and support one another but we as HUMAN beings need to as well. But, I need to start somewhere, so I’m starting with my gender…
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Oh where to begin? Ever since the election I have been wondering why women are so divided and, pretty much ever since second grade I’ve been wondering why it’s so hard to have female friendships. I’m not suggesting we agree on everything simply because we have the same anatomy, rather that we support each other or remain quiet (at least publicly) in our objections.
I’ve seen too many examples lately of women beating each other down for no real reason. Let’s see if we can learn by the following examples and spread some woman love. Ok, that didn’t sound quite right but just go with it…
Getting some love from my aunties at a wedding a few years back.
THE RUNNING COMMUNITY
I love so much about the running community. It is truly a place where female runners unite, lift each other up and sweat their way toward a common goal, with a collective love of a singular sport burning in their hearts.
No matter your body type, pace, or race distance preference, you are welcomed with open arms into the female running community.
Until…
Wear a race bib that is not registered in your name
Give your race bib to a friend
Jump into a race midway just for kicks
…and then you are dead to them. They will crucify you with their words, shun you with their actions and make sure everyone knows it.
I understand the underlying factors, and I will not bore non-runners with the details but, unless it directly affects you in some truly horrendous way, you don’t need to shame fellow runners on social media. Stop it.
THE ANNOUNCER – BETH MOWINS
In case you don’t watch football (gasp!) history was made about a month ago when, for the first time ever, the NFL had a bright shiny new female announcer in Beth Mowins. Male sexist pigs were expected on Twitter following her first broadcast, but decidedly unexpected, were the female bashers:
Thanks for letting us know you have your period. #classy
Really? The worst? Obviously you don’t remember Dennis Miller’s stint on MNF.
There were plenty of tweets by females supporting Mowins, but I cannot understand why women feel the need to go out of their way to bash another woman who is making history and, in turn, making it easier for them or their daughters to succeed in something that has been dominated by men for ages.
Stop it.
THE ELECTION
The headline read: American Women Voted Overwhelmingly for Clinton, Except the White Ones
I think about this almost on a daily basis. It boggles my mind that white women could not come together on something I feel is such a huge commonality of ground – voting for the first female president.
I can definitely understand not wanting to vote for Clinton but, I will never understand voting for the insanely obvious sexist candidate, who openly encouraged grabbing us in our hot pocket.
According to an article in The Washington Post, white women typically vote Republican however, whites with college degrees are more likely to swing left than those without higher education. This pattern held true on election day and largely delivered the Trump victory:
“The majority of non-college educated white women (64%) voted for Trump, while 35% backed Clinton. This figure is far higher than non-college educated black women, of which only 3% voted for Trump, and non-college educated Hispanic women, of which 25% voted for Trump. Black, Hispanic and other non-white women backed Clinton in far greater numbers.”
I wonder how they feel now.
THE MOMS
Your kid falls into a gorilla cage at the zoo? Could totally happen to mine.
You want to have wine all the time and joke about it? Go ahead.
You’re a helicopter parent? Fly free.
You let your kid walk five miles home on a highway after school? WTF do I care?
You make only homemade organic foods for your kids and they eat it? I’m jealous.
You breastfeed in public? You’re a braver mom than I am. Do your thang!
You work all day? Damn, you are super woman!
You stay home all day? Damn, you are super woman!
Just because you have a social media account doesn’t mean people need to hear your opinion. And, if you really think they do, why go out there and stomp all over other moms? If you’re a mom you know how hard it is to survive day after day in the lifelong cycle of trying to raise a human who will not be in prison someday. Don’t you think moms already have a continuous loop of “I’m doing this wrong” playing in their heads without your unwanted support of that misguided nonsense?
Imagine what would happen if we encouraged and supported one another?
I think Katy Perry and Taylor Swift should come together and write an updated “Imagine” with this topic in mind. Maybe they will when they have kids.
And, if you really need to vent your opinion on something, it’s called a private conversation – – have one!
THE SOLUTION
I haven’t a clue what the solution is but I know we need to do better and be better where our gender is concerned. Luckily for you, other women much smarter than I am, offer their advice:
From The Huffington Post: Start having conversations about it and bring this topic to light. < – – you can share this blog post. Brilliant! Tune out media that glorify mean-women pile ons. Applaud a woman’s success.
From Pucker Mob: “It’s always crystal clear who the strong women are. They’re the ones you’ll see building each other up instead of tearing each other down.”
From Inspiration.com: Empower young girls. Listen to other women. Share your knowledge.
“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.” Maya Angelou
First, we need to show them how it’s done.
[Tweet “How women can support one another and examples of what not to do! #womansupportingwomen”]
Ok, tell me how you feel…
I’m still reeling from the stats about white women and their voting choice. Although I have a friend who shocked the sh!t out of me when I learned she was a Trump supporter. The ironic thing is that she is a woman who is always about raising other women up and is a supporter of everything Trump is against. Her main reason for voting for him? Because their family business had not been doing as well in the past few years and Trump is a business man who would help them. Wtf?!?! I could go on and on…Anyway, I so don’t get the woman bashing thing. I saw an update on the woman from last year who had her picture taken in the airport a year ago with her newborn baby laying on the floor while she was on her phone. She was racked through the coals about how unfit of a mother she was by other mothers. The truth of the story was that she had been stuck in the airport for hours and hours with a newborn. Stop being so judgemental women! Let’s raise each other up!
I love that excuse for voting for Trump. Guess what? He’s A TERRIBLE businessman…but obviously an incredible salesman. Ugh. And the mom judging is just the absolute worst. Enough already!
Awesome.
It is too early for next to think clearly, but I do know….I agree 100% with your post. It is amazing what others will say about a stranger behind the safety of a computer screen. Chances are those who share their opinion so loudly, would not speak/think that way if it was their friend/family in the same situation. I seriously cannot read much of the negative crap because it makes me angry…and then I can feel hopeless for humans. This post is great, though. I will certainly share.
Should say for “me” to think clearly. See… it’s too early for me to even edit my comment.
Thank you! And yes, I agree about having to just turn it off and turn to something more positive.
As always . . . spot on!!! Xo Allie!
Love this! I am so glad you posted it!
What the world needs now is… love, support and to STOP judging each other!!!! And some gun laws, we NEED us some gun laws.
Needed this post today.
Thanks for being so honest and brave.
Thank you!!! And yes, the laws need to be changed. I will never understand why any civilian would need a semi-automatic weapon. It’s just not necessary.
Absolutely, yes!!
I wonder how to create a culture of support in the next generation- I already see the competition among girls in my daughter’s class, or the two girls that can’t handle a third … it’s unacceptable for kids and should be completely unacceptable for women to be so mean too. With my daughter, I try to remind her that if someone is unkind, it’s usually because of their own insecurities and I absolutely think it’s true of adults too. We feel better if we put someone down because it has a false sense of lifting us up…
I hear you and I feel for every mother of every daughter because it’s such a struggle! No matter what we tell our girls (my niece, my friend’s daughters, etc.) they still have to go through the brutality of being a girl. It’s incredibly hard but keep doing what you’re doing and build them UP!
Let’s start right now! You are awesome! I love your post and you are very much right on this!!
I am embarrassed to say that I have learned some of this things the really hard way… but I am still learning. Some times it feels easier to give into the negativity and the nastiness, but taking the grown up route is always much more rewarding.
Thank you!!
And at least you’re learning. Of course we can all be guilty of this but it’s the CHANGES we make that make the difference. Thank you for your honesty and your comments!
If I actually try to respond to this post this week, I will explode… the number of things I have written and not published recently…. I will pull myself together next week, because I hate that this week, in hate vs Paria, hate won and made me not who I really am….
At least you can recognize it and move forward. Sometimes hate wind but…you wrote things and DID NOT post so maybe it hasn’t won after all. xoxo
There’s a scene in the Netflix show Defenders where Rosario Dawson just starts screaming at people, “Stop fighting! You are on the same side!” That’s how I feel about a lot of issues, especially this. I know there are times I’ve fallen short and could have been more supportive, but goodness, the hate and unnecessary division just break me down. Thank you for being so awesome and posting this!
That is such a fantastic example!! Thank you Laura!
haters gonna hate, players gonna play. lovers gonna love. i’m going to choose love. yes i know, eye roll. but seriously though who has time to criticize other women? it’s such a waste of energy. i guess this attitude came with age, i wasn’t always this wise LOL. it really would be so much nicer if we lifted each other up more often. i like to think that people are for me and not against me, and it’s definitely vice versa. the reality though is anytime something good happens, several people have something negative to say. mainly my close family and friends. i just have come to realize it comes from a place of care and concern and we are all conditioned in different ways. i’m very skeptical at times, and want the best for my loved ones as well. In fact, I want to protect my daughter from all the pain the in world and containing her in a giant bubble crosses my mind.
But the reality is there are assholes in the world and they will always be around voicing their opinions. The choice is to listen or to move on. I choose to move on and let my happiness and living my best life be the giant F-YOU to the assholes.
Yes, of course and I completely agree. The key is in moving on and not adding to the hate. I know you got this…
Yes. Yes. 100% yes. I still can’t understand the vote. I just can’t. But I do know that women are strong and need to get up and support one another. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes we are!!! And yes we can!!
Thank you Jamie!
Wow..I was with you the entire way until you mentioned the election and women’s choice of who they voted for. So its not okay for women to give their opinion (however mis-informed it may be) in certain areas but not in others? We seem to be living in an era where a difference of opinion is only tolerated provided it doesn’t conflict with others opinion. I am a college educated, ‘white’ woman who works outside the home in a male dominated field and I proudly voted for Trump. I am also a mom of a young daughter. Voting for HIllary just because she is a woman is like eating a turd because it looks like a tootsie roll. I care about my taxes and the safety of my country and I couldn’t get behind a candidate that was force fed down the voters throat. Insofar as the sexist comments-guess what? Men AND women, including our spouses/significant others, make similar comments just w/out a hot mike recording every word. Let’s not all pretend we are perfect because we’re not.
Other than that-yes, I agree with you: let’s not vilify people for making choices that don’t agree w/yours.
Finally! Someone who disagrees with me. Welcome.
First of all, I wrote that I can completely understand NOT voting for Hillary and I also wrote that we should definitely not think the same way simply because we share the same anatomy. However, I do believe in supporting one another as women and, when someone as blatantly sexist as Trump is running for the highest office in the country, and there are educated white women supporting him…I absolutely cannot understand that.
You said you voted for him because you care about your taxes and safety? Well, my safety has never been an issue in this country, until Trump decided to start a Twitter war with North Korea, condone white supremacy and incite hatred with every tweet and speech he gives. My taxes are outrageous and I don’t see that changing under Trump, but I could be wrong. However, I would rather pay higher taxes than have a racist, sexist, ignorant, Tweeting psychopath as our country’s president.
As for men and women who write and say sexist comments – they are not our president and I don’t support their ignorance either. I wouldn’t tolerate that nonsense from my husband, sons, brother or father and I certainly won’t from the president of the united states. Obviously no one is perfect but, since you brought up the word “turd” I would say that is a perfect way to describe Trump.
I don’t think I need to tell you that I’m totally down to spread some woman love. 😉
Seriously though. This is a HUGE problem for women in every area. Why are we so catty? We keep ourselves down trying to crawl all over each other in the way up the corporate ladder. Or by judging Hillary by some ridiculous f-ed up standard. Or judging women who stand up for themselves (holla at T-Swift!). It’s so ridiculous.
*I will say that I’m still judging women who voted for Trump. PICK ANYONE OTHER THAN THE PUSSY GRABBER!!! (Sorry… but not really.)
No you do not! And I love it!
Obviously I too am still judging women about voting for Trump but I don’t call them out on social media. I tell them to their faces (if they admit it) and try to discuss why they are wrong 🙂 LOL!!
And don’t even get me started on Taylor Swift vs Katy Perry. WTF?
Thanks Laura!
LOVE this post and so glad you decided to go ahead with it!
It’s strange the way women are different than other marginalized groups in failing to rally around our their own identity and support their own causes. Feminism is still uncool to a lot of women, I’m guessing because they internalize the male point of view and find it disruptive and threatening? Is it because women have learned and evolved through eons of male power and privilige to be cooperative and deferential to survive? And to prioritize finding and keeping a suitable mate above all else, putting their own opinions second, whereas men are more about spreading it around and don’t care as much what women think? I don’t know the reason but it’s always bugged me. One of the greatest enemies to progress towards being treated equally as women is other women who find that notion threatening.
And I am still flabbergasted and depressed at the female Trump vote. Ignorance and bigotry and wishful, illogical thinking and a huge dose of misogyny are the only reasons I can see, because the actual reasons people say they voted for him never check out in the Real World of facts and logic. But they prefer Fox news so they never have to expose themselves to reality. Sigh.
I seriously could not have written this better. You put it absolutely perfectly and nailed every possible reason a women may have to vote or support Trump.
And sadly so true on the Fox News comment – – but everything else is ‘fake news.’
I love everything about this post. I’ve self-censored so many times in the last year, and there are so many things I just. can’t. understand. Thanks for bringing the conversation back to support, to understanding, and for not hiding behind our screens and shaming each other on the internet.
Thank you so much for your comment and, obviously I’m done with the self-censorship because I simply cannot stand it any longer. I also think if women can actually talk openly to one another, we can make more progress.
Nailed it! Thank you for posting this and lighting the fire under my butt and I’m sure so many others!
You are welcome!…and I hope I have lit many fires, including my own 🙂
Love this post! I agree with you, I’ve found that so many women can be so catty and judgmental, rather than trying to be supportive and understanding of each other. I really think it stems from insecurity. Women who are truly happy, confident and successful lift each other up!
And ugh, the whole women voting for Trump thing boggles my mind. I just don’t understand it. He is the epitome of everything I dislike in white powerful men. I’m a college educated white woman who has never & will never vote for Trump. EVER!
It absolutely stems from insecurity and now, with social media, there’s a huge platform for all the hate. So sad.
Thank you for your comments! I loved reading your thoughts!