Girls gone vile

Cross-posted from The Caffeine Crew

Which came first, the double-crossing or the denial? This week, I asked the women of Reddit and Yahoo! Answers whether they preferred the friendship of males or females. Results indicated that ‘birds of a feather’ only occasionally flock together. Those who favored females trusted the company of one or two close friends rather than an ensemble. However, some evaded women entirely, only preferring the company of men. The Internet had plenty to say about why women are so fussy when it comes to their own breed.

Are all women attention-seeking, overly-emotional backstabbers who hate each other? Hey now, who started that rumor? Perhaps Jonathan Swift, who stated, “I never knew a tolerable woman to be fond of her own sex.” Or maybe it was this mallard:

Image credit

When I started writing this, I wanted to scribble an inspirational piece about how inaccurate the ‘women hating women’ stereotype is. I wanted to preach that we’re loyal and sensitive creatures with a remarkable gift to empathize and communicate. But… I just can’t. Because I can’t get over that time in middle school Christy told everyone I had a weird face and looked like a giraffe. Or I picture Kara shamelessly flirting with my boyfriend. Or I wonder why Liz recently concluded she never wanted to talk to me again (true stories, fake names). So, how can I argue that we’re sensitive, loyal communicators?

Although the frustration with female friendships has been echoed by many, the problem remains unsolved. Women continue to testify, “Well… I’m not like that,” while pointing the finger at another. If we’re all so saintly, then where did Revenge get its material from? I’m not suggesting that women are lying, but I do think we’re suffering from a severe case of disidentification.

Women are taught to treasure their connections with men over their connections with women. As women, we will compromise and empathize to keep our boys close, but when it comes to girls, some of us desensitize. It’s effortless to commiserate with male friends over why “bitches are so crazy.” We enjoy implying that every girl out there has a mental disorder… besides ourselves. We preach that other girls are hypersensitive drama queens. But not us. Because we are women who think like men. Logical, calm and would rather play a video game than talk about feelings. Well, shit. We’re perfect! (Or your male friends are real dumb for believing that baloney.)

So why do women feel the need to disidentify with their own sex? Because we are taught that the way women think and act is disordered. We have heard our male friends grumble about how overly emotional women are. So suddenly, we’re “playing dumb” when it comes to our EQs in order to identify with men. Here’s the catch: we aren’t men.

Women are designed to be more emotionally empathetic than men. Countless studies confirm that women are more self-aware, can properly identify/manage emotions and empathize like champs. Sensory regions of women’s brains, specifically the insula, are stronger than men’s brains. So when it comes to emotions, men’s brains become overwhelmed by the emotions and create “distractions” in other parts of the brain to handle the disturbance. Women’s brains will stick to the emotional part and sort it out. So insensitivity and sensitivity are differences by design. To insult one or the other is to insult science… and what kind of asshole does that?

For the love of Regina George, let’s be who we are. Women are emotional; own it. Some women also happen to be attention-seeking, petty back-stabbers… but that isn’t gender-specific. Many men are also these things. For every story I have about a girl who called me a giraffe, I have one about a boyfriend that slammed my appearance. The only difference is women are more verbal, emotionally-open creatures who will discuss these issues, and this is often perceived as drama. It ain’t drama, it’s what we do. We feel deeper, we empathize, we discuss and then we get over it. So, let’s get over it.