"I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to." - Alice Walker
While at a conference hosting 1,000 or so women it was hard to ignore the underlying tones and vibrations. A friend of mine commented that she was "worried about so many vaginas in one room". I initially thought it was funny but after thinking on it later that night I felt saddened by it. Because although we're not supposed to admit that women are often inhumane to one another the fact is glaring us in the face. In the new wave of feminism it was taught that calling women out on such things was playing into the patriarchal goal to divide us and pit us against one another. We were supposed to unite as one and take on the "enemy" which was definitely not each other. By the time my generation came along it was much more common to site these difficulties that exist within the feminist movement as the reason for a fractured community. Or maybe it's just that we were born into a time when women had already accomplished so much that we felt the need to take on humanity as a whole, not just in regard to feminism. Whatever the reason it does not take away from the conflict and dynamics, which still exists between women that tears us apart.
I remember when I was in elementary school there was the Queen Bee, named Jill. She transferred in from another school when I was in 3rd grade. Up until that point our group of friends had not yet discovered the notion of excluding certain girls from our little circle on any given day for any given reason. We were not clued in to indirect aggression and the subtleties that accompany such actions. Jill quickly asserted her dominance and the group became her lemmings. I fell in with the pack as not to stand out. Almost every day it was decided that we should not speak to a certain girl for whatever reason Jill dreamed up in the school yard that morning. Whether it be because someone had the wrong color hair clip or just because the wind changed – we never questioned it. Imagine being 7 or 8 years old and walking up to your group of friends only to have them ignore you. Completely ignore you. You say "Hi!" and smile and are greeted with cold-shouldered silence. Nobody even makes eye contact. And no explanations are offered. You slink off to the corner of the playground and wait for the bell to ring so you can run back to your desk. All of us experienced that at one point or another. And then one day Jill decided to descend upon my best friend. A girl who had lived across the street from me since birth who was in the grade below us. She was adopted. Which was "odd" enough to set her apart and Jill saw her as an easy target. I stood up to her. I was ridiculed. I was tormented and lost every single one of my friends. My mother tried to intervene and speak with the school and Jill's parents. It only made it worse. It got to the point where I was so miserable my parents pulled me out of school and we moved to another district.
I use that one example but the fact is I have a dozen more. And I'd be hard pressed to find a woman who has never experienced similar situations, whether when they were 7, 17, 27 or 57. As we grow older the rules of the games change but underneath it all boils down to the same thing.
My partner often tells me that I'm sexist because I continue to harp on about the dynamics between women and not men. First of all, I'm a woman so I speak about what I know. And second, I have a daughter and I worry about the dynamics that will surround her as she grows older. I will admit that there are dynamics between boys and then men that I'm sure are damaging. Nothing that I say here is meant to take away from that. It's just not part of this discussion right now. And although a fundamental principle of feminism is to state that we want equality it does not mean we don't recognize the differences that exist between the sexes. While aggressiveness between infants and toddlers might look the same to an observing eye, regardless of the gender, it is because they lack the verbal skills to express themselves. Once children reach the age of verbal development it's a completely different scenario. While boys continue to punch, hit and kick one another, girls develop a sense of social intelligence at a very young age and begin to employ their defenses in a different manner. She learns that the safest way to attack is behind someone's back or in a similarly indirect manner. Whether or not this occurs because of what she learns at home or what it taught and expected from society as a whole is a much larger discussion.
My interest in this is not only what I have learned and want to continue to learn about the way women interact with one another but how to raise a girl and then a young woman in a society where such interactions are prevalent. Or is it just not possible? How do we change the way we as women interact with one another and stop the games?
(This post was written by DefiantMuse. She can be found at Musings of a Defiant Mother.)
