My Sister, My Rival, My...Enemy?

Chris Rock once said in one of his stand up performances:

"Women hate women. You get any two girlfriends in this room, been girlfriends for twenty five years, you put a man in between them: 'fk that b----h'. Guys are not like that. Guys actually think that there are other fish in the sea, and if a guy introduces his boy to his new girlfriend, and when they walk away, his boy goes, 'Oh man, she's nice, I gotta get me a girl like that.' If a woman introduces her new man to her girlfriend, and they walk away, her girlfriend goes, 'I gotta get HIM, and I will slit that b---h's throat to do it.' Every girl in here got a girlfriend they don't trust around their man."


Chris Rock can deliver a joke in a way that will make anybody laugh and I cracked up the first time I heard this. But after I stopped laughing, I started wondering...why do some women have that mentality? And why do others find it hard to get along with, support, or simply compliment, another woman?

Let me start by saying: I do not think that ALL women betray and disrespect each other. If this were true, I would have NO female friends, and I have several whom I love, love, love and cherish!! :-) I am not attempting to paint every woman with the same brush, BUT the older I get, the more it seems as though women have developed a "kill or be killed" mentality when it comes to jobs, men, or anything that stands between what they don't have and what they want.

I've been blessed. I have an awesome sister and wonderful friends. We uplift and nurture each other. We celebrate each others' successes and encourage each others' dreams. We have a gangsta mentality: "If they get you, they get me..." (I'm listening to Rihanna's "Gangsta 4 Life" as I write this...LOL)! But not all women can say this. There are women who don't trust their co-workers, their so-called friends, their sisters, their cousins, even their mothers! There are women who, like Chris Rock said, would never allow their boyfriends, fiances, or husbands to interact with their friends. There are women who would have no problem betraying someone close to them to achieve a goal. Really??

Historically, women have united to fight for "our" causes: suffrage, workplace equality, motherhood, and more. We have stood up to prove that we are complex, strong, multifaceted creatures - not just sex objects or baby makers or mothers or wives. Soooo, how did we go from marching together, holding up picket signs demanding equal rights to stabbing each other in the backs? The August 2009 issue of Essence magazine features an article titled, "Black Women Behaving Badly". In it, the author examines why Black women sometimes view each other as enemies and what can be done to change this. I love Essence, but it is a magazine that has traditionally been written for Black women, and I want to broaden their perspective by stating that this is a problem among women of all races (If you have seen any of the Real Housewives shows on Bravo you probably agree with me).

As a teacher, I work in a predominantly female profession. As you can imagine, I have heard my fair share of gossip and have been on the receiving end of two-facedness and pettiness. Not too long ago, my friend was speaking about one of our co-workers and stated, "She's a really nice person, but she's always gossiping..." I replied, "If she's such a nice person, would she really be gossiping?" Perhaps some gossip is harmless...eh, perhaps, but what about the "mean girl" discussions where you tear down someone's outfit or job performance or weight? Is that innocent too? Where do we draw the line?

The Bible says, "You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor..." (Leviticus 19:16). This is a powerful statement. Do you HAVE to comment that Suzy Q wore those pants two days in a row? Do you HAVE to talk about Jane's hairdo today? Or, can you bite your tongue and keep those things to yourself? Words are potent and one slip of the tongue can cause irrevocable damage. I've heard women say not-so-nice things about other women, but I've chosen to keep those words to myself, knowing that no good can come from repeating negativity - "Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down." (Proverbs 26:20). I try really hard not to fuel those fires.

It was recently communicated to me that another teacher doesn't like me. When asked why, she said that she "just doesn't"...NO reason other than that. This woman doesn't know me. We have never had a conversation that exceeded 2-3 minutes, but she doesn't like me?? Hmmm...When I was much younger, I was extra sensitive and my feelings stayed hurt behind what someone else said about me. I hated to be disliked or misread, but now I usually brush my shoulders off and attribute certain negative behaviors to someone "just being a woman". At 31 years old, I'm used to it...isn't that sad? We become used to being discussed, used to being looked up and down, used to having everything we say or do dissected - in search of some flaw, some weakness to exploit and broadcast to anyone willing to listen. I've heard overweight women tear down thin women; thin women criticize overweight women; fashionable women make jokes about the less fashionable; mothers put down non-mothers; I could go on and on. It irks me when I eat Special K or Healthy Choice and hear comments from other women such as, "What? Are YOU on a diet? Why are YOU on a diet? You need to eat!" Umm...seriously?? Maybe I just like Special K and Healthy Choice, maybe that's what I had a taste for today, maybe you need to mind your business and worry about what you're eating and not what I'm eating...Although the conversation led to a discussion about how thin I am, the words didn't sound like compliments, they sounded like jabs...

Soooo...where do these attitudes stem from? Insecurity? Immaturity? Stupidity? We often chalk a lot of these behaviors up to good, old-fashioned hatin', and sometimes we are right...but is it always about hatin' or is it something deeper? In the Essence article it mentions that "At the core of being able to be a sister...is being able to love yourself...intrinsic to sisterhood is self-love, self-esteem and understanding and accepting who you are." WOW. Let me restate that as simply as possible: When you really feel good about YOU, you ain't thinkin' about puttin' down others! Get it? :-)

Speaking from experience, I know that it can be difficult to be excited for someone when she reaches a goal you've wanted so badly. How can you be happy for your YOUNGER sister who is pregnant with her third child, when you and your husband have been struggling just to make baby #1? Or...you send out 10 resumes a day and can't find a new job, but your best friend sends out ONE and is immediately hired? Or maybe...you go to church, pray, practice abstinence and still...no husband, but your loose-as-a-goose neighbor has been with more men than you can count yet she will be skipping down the aisle with Mr. Perfect in six months...SUCKS, right? Of course it does. But how do you prevent your feelings from escalating from understandable disappointment to plain ol' jealousy and hateration? Being a green-eyed monster is unattractive on even the most beautiful woman. If you are Christian, I have an answer for you: Remember that what God has for you is for you, and that those things will happen on His time, when He is ready. You don't have to feel bitterness or envy because of that child, that job, or that husband. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Soooo, yes it's hard, yes it seems unfair, but the psalmist told you everything you need to know right there: God will give you the desires of your heart, IF you delight in Him.


Right before I turned 30, I couldn't BELIEVE I was still single. Thirty and single? That wasn't the plan I had for my life. I was that chick wiling out, exclaiming, "WHAT??? WHO is getting married? How is SHE getting married before ME?" Cry, cry, boo hoo, poor Alonna. Where did that mentality get me? Nowhere! It took some time, but God really had to work on me to start changing my perspective, to start trusting in Him. Once I did that, I could be happy for other women. I could genuinely be excited for my friend who was getting married or my friend who'd just learned she was going to have a baby. I don't have to be mad at another woman who seemingly has "more" than I do. I also learned to stop romanticizing/fantasizing everyone's situations...nothing is perfect and sometimes we envy another woman, having no idea what her story is. STOP IT. TODAY. RIGHT NOW. OK? :-)


When you are unable to accept who you are and where you are, when you don't grab a hold of your thought life, when you continue to envy others and lament when things don't go your way, you may end up resorting to drastic measures to get what you want on your time. You stretch the truth or snitch on a co-worker, hoping to win favor with your supervisor. Maybe tattling or lying will work or maybe it will backfire and you will be exposed for being petty, dishonest and unprofessional. You sleep with another woman's husband because you are 35 and tired of being single. He SAYS he is leaving her and he SAYS he loves you and he SAYS he wants to be with you, but it's been a year and you're still single and he's still married. Why would you do that to another woman? What good can come to you when you attempt to destroy someone's covenant relationship? You try to justify it because it's not like you know her and if she were really doing her "job", he wouldn't have approached you, right? Nope. Wrong. You are wrong, wrong and mo' wrong. A woman from the Essence article declares, "We are our sister's keeper, and if we fail to bring life to our relationships, we automatically sow death." DEATH. The DEATH of your morals, the DEATH of a relationship, the DEATH of your job...it goes on and on...

Recently, a woman in my life hurt me deeply because of a man. It wasn't just the loss of the man that stung, it was the fact that my "sister" had participated in that game. At one point, I was so bothered I could barely look at, much less speak to her, yet I had no choice. Ironically, she also ended up hurt after all was said and done. Perhaps the drama could have been avoided had she made different choices - honoring sisterhood over a temporary want with a bamma who was no good from the jump. I'm working on forgiveness, but I don't think our relationship will ever be what it could have been...See? More death.

Many of us are intimidated by or have been burned by women, so we carry with us these distrustful and demeaning attitudes towards each other, failing to realize that we are more alike than we think. At the end of the day, we want the same things and we hurt from the same pains and disappointments. Unfortunately, we never get to know each other on an intimate level because instead of promoting respect and love, we encourage backbiting and hate. If we grew to the place of having a genuine desire to want the best for each other - even women we don't know - those walls would come down and the fears would slowly begin to disappear. Essence quotes Toni Morrison, who stated in a commencement address: "I want not to ask you but to tell you not to participate in the oppression of your sisters...I am alarmed by the violence that women do to each other: professional violence, competitive violence, emotional violence. I am alarmed by the willingness of women to enslave other women...We are moving in the direction of freedom and the function of freedom is to free someone else."

Yes, you ARE your sister's keeper.


Love and sisterhood,

A.S.