Why do you think women are so inclined to criticize each other? 

In any society, the people within a marginalized or low-power group end up taking out that pain and anger on each other through in-group conflict. Women today are grappling with our own form of this. In our own society, women do not empower each other but rather bring each other down. To the extent that women are each not fully empowered ourselves—that we are still denying our own dreams or treating ourselves harshly—we will criticize, attack, and try to sabotage other women. We do this because it rattles us to see in them what we have not permitted in ourselves.

We will lash out if we see something emerging or expressed in another woman that we have squashed in ourselves. We won’t wholeheartedly support another woman following her passion if we’ve talked ourselves out of our own. We won’t support her idealism and desire to change the world if we treat our own idealism with judgment or harshness. We can’t celebrate success, ambition, assertiveness in another woman if we are curtailing any of that in ourselves.

Is it jealousy that permits this? Quite possibly. It’s hard to see somebody else succeed in something else, even if it’s something that you have decided to give up (for whatever reason). Even then, us women should be able to put aside our jealousy in order to support one another. This week, take some time to reflect on your own actions. Make a list of ways you can improve and choose one or two things to work on!