Women Being Pitted Against Women

Is anyone else here sick of that feud between Katy Perry and Taylor Swift? And everyone has seen Nicki Minaj asking Miley Cyrus "What's good", right?
Well back in the 90's Kathleen Hanna was pitted against Courtney Love. It seems the more you look back on the past, when you're dealing with the media, women are always being pitted against women, and that sucks. I mean, as a gender that demands equal rights, isn't kind of wasteful and time-consuming to be fighting amongst ourselves? Can't we have the Civil War after the Independence? Isn't that the way history generally tends to go anyway?

In my personal opinion, which you are totally entitled to respectfully disagree with, I think that we should really be banding together because we are seriously some boss ass bitches.



Yes. I just wrote that. Because I also believe in reclaiming those words, which I guess may lead to another post. But today, I've decided to rant about women being pitted against other women.

Don't get me wrong, women should still have the right to call out other women, and recognise when someone is being shit, despite their gender. But there is no reason to have a constant bitter feud, if you don't like someone, or you feel that they're bad in any way, cut them from your life but don't hang on and keep the conflict going, just avoid them. I know it's easier said than done, from personal experience. Some people get under your skin to the point where you can't help but take a sneak peak at their social media accounts. But women aren't perfect, some of us are horrible but it doesn't mean that the rest of us are. We don't have to like each other, just like men. And while we are on the subject of everyone not being bad, and leveling playing fields, some guys are friend zoned and all, but a good guy gets on with it, and there are girls out there who are friend zoned too. It's not just men who face friendzoning. So women can't be hated for friendzoning men when they are just as likely to be subjected to the friendzone too.


"It feels like the reason we play women against each other is because it's the last bit of power that men have. They're like, "Let's make them feel shit about each other"" - Lily Allen.

Women have enough to deal with, feeling like they're too heavy or skinny, too freckly, with hair that's too short, long, curly, bushy. We are always 'too-something'.

Perez Hilton once tried to pit Lady Gaga against Katy Perry, but no one reacted and the whole thing failed. After he began writing about Perry's 'Roar' being higher up in the charts, beating Gaga's 'Applause'. Neither woman took the bait, being smart enough not to care and both respecting the amount that both women put into their work. I like to think that they both root for each other, especially as they have happily had their photos taken together at red carpet events.

All of these female feuds also keep us from bigger issues, such as racism, sexism and media pressures to change our bodies to name but a few. For this reason, I feel a little edgy whenever someone mentions their love of Taylor Swift. I don't hate her for suddenly declaring herself as a feminist, in fact, I feel it's a great way to break the taboo of the label, showing that you can identify as one and not burn bras, declaring men to be the enemy.
It's her 'squad' that irks me. Feminists today are preaching body positivity, yet her squad consists of these tall Amazonian women, with perfect legs and clear skin, glossy hair, always looking threatening beautiful, pushing societal ideas of perfection and keeping them alive, which in turn, has made the rest of womankind feel consistently horrible about themselves. 

If I were to start my own celebrity squad, I'd have women with and without tattoos, over a size 12 dress size (and under because I'll also be fighting skinny shaming). I'd have every ethnicity, and every style or subculture. And we would sometimes turn up to things in sweat pants, and not all wear fake tan. We would be real women, and we would represent real women. 

Taylor and her Squad

But Taylor does have her good points. She helped Kesha by offering her money during her legal battle with Dr. Luke. Plus she likes cats and crime shows, so as a criminology student with three cats I can't really fault her. Plus her music is catchy and its always great to see a powerful woman in the music industry, especially one who hasn't always relied on her sexuality to further her career. I could write a whole post weighing up on the pros and cons of Taylor Swift, but let us keep to our original subject, shall we?

It has become obvious that women need to be tough now. We need to show that we aren't pushovers, and we need to still fight the glass ceiling. Statistics have shown us that there are low rates of women in power.

Based on current trends, women will not be equally represented in parliaments until 2065, and will not make up half the world’s leaders until 2134.                -  vsointernational.com

But here's another thing. Women also have to face a double standard. Feuding and fighting is 'anti-feminine' to some people's eyes. But aren't women entitled to defend themselves? No one, man or woman, can be expected to be nice and happy at all times can they? If a someone loses their job, their partner and their house all in one day, wouldn't that put them in a bad mood, making them say controversial things on something like Twitter, for example? Or a tough day at work? Or sleep deprivation from being overworked? Just because the media make someone out to be a naturally bad person, doesn't exactly make it the truth.
It has also been shown that while mentioning women, the media has been shown to make women much more hysterical or emotional, for example: 'XYZ' STATED, the man, but 'XYZ', CRIED the woman.
That's it. She didn't 'state' it, or 'said' the sentence. Many words to choose from, but she 'cried' it.
People have bad ideas and opinions about two men outside seen fighting, but even worse ideas about two women fighting. Women swearing, alone in itself, has even caused quite a few stirs! Why is it that it is more acceptable as a man? Or just merely passed off as banter, when a woman is immediately seen as 'attacking' someone and 'being a bitch'. 

Well as they said in Stephen King's 'Dolores Claiborne', 'sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hang on to'.

Maybe I am a bitch. But at the end of the day, you can't please everyone. All we can do is cut the poison from our lives. While one person thinks you are the bees knees, someone will just brand you as being the bitch. So just own it. Be the QUEEN Bitch! Let them know it. Let them know that you won't be walked all over. Don't get me wrong, you may get a chance to show one of these people that you're a nice person, but you won't please everyone so don't bother wasting your time on those particular people. Life is short. We're put here for a very short space of time, and all we can do is make the most of it.

Also, you can disagree with someone without being as asshole. Respect people's opinions. Please. Just give your take on it, respect each other's views, and drop it. Some people can enjoy a disagreement, they may think that a good debate is the key to finding a solution to the problem or find playing the devil's advocate to be fun, but this isn't always the case.

But at the end of the day, not all women get along but we should still respect each other, and band together to finish the work that still goes unfinished, such as under-aged marriages, lack of education and hyper-sexualisation and objectification within the media.

So back off media, and stop using women fighting as a way to boost your sales.