The Best Woman

It is the last Sunday of women’s month in South Africa. I have spent most of the month speaking about the violence men inflict on us. I think we also need to take a moment to examine how women treat each other. Yup ladies, let’s admit it...we have a problem with each other.

In the same way that men have been socialized to be patriarchal and anti feminine power, we too have gone through the same brainwash.

Men have made us feel so bad about being female we have come to hate our femininity we have come to hate other females. We have been taught to frown upon strength in a woman. We have been taught to silence the woman who talks too much or too loudly or behaves ‘like a man.’ How dare a woman walk in the forefront with men?

We have been taught that being male is a special privilege. We have been taught that we are not allowed the privileges that males enjoy.

 

Much like white supremacy, divide and conquer is used on women.  We are made to feel that having one woman in the boardroom is an achievement and yet we make up fifty per cent of the population. If the boardroom is only ten per cent female, there is an unhappy forty per cent somewhere. It goes without say that the disgruntled forty per cent will resent the ten percent inside the boardroom because simply put, ‘it’s not fair.’ Thus it feeds into a system of competition amongst women, because there are not enough seats at the table for us. We are all scrambling over one chair. This is how the world has made us hate each other.

 

Men march into industries in groups and there is room for everyone but there is only ever space for one queen. So we spend all our energy trying to out-do each other in everything. We want to be the best looking at the club, the only queen in the media and the only woman in the boardroom. Unlike men, we do not move in gangs and use our numbers. We want to stand alone and shout ‘I am the best!’

 

Society has taught us to treat women badly. It is us women who police each other and each other bodies. We copy fashion from magazines to gcwalisela each other instead of building relationships.

In a social setting, when men are introduced to each other they get on like a house on fire, we women on the other hand size each other up first. Our natural instinct is to distrust women we don’t know.

Men are raised that it is ok to have multiple lovers. Women are raised that they must only keep one lover. Where men can play piki piki mabelane, we women much protect our ONE asset with everything we have. The ONLY thing that asset is not safe from is...other women. We are each other’s competition for this ONE partner. Men would hate each other too if they were in the same position.

Men live in a world where they share all of us, so they are cool with each other. Women live in a world where they have to scream ‘mine, mine, mine!’

 

We live in a world where we sisters are sexually objectified. Whether we like it or not we are judged based on our looks and what mainstream media dictates as the standard of beauty. Human beings have created one standard for all of us to fit into. To succeed in this world we have to look sexually appealing to men. For a woman who is not that standard of beauty, every day is an act of violence. Every day you look into the mirror and see that you are not ‘beautiful.’ Naturally the women who fit into that standard will have a superiority complex. Do you see how men use our looks to make us hate each other and fight for their attention?

 

This thing called Pull Her Down (PHD)syndrome is real but it is also not our fault. We are all guilty of PHD because we are all socialised by the same system. It is time that we recognise it within ourselves. Call ourselves out when we see ourselves doing it and make more of an effort at being more compassionate with each other.

 

From today, I dare myself to make a genuine and loving connection with every single woman I meet because the world is doing EVERYTHING it can, to divide women.