My Clothes & I Were Publicly Shamed by a Female Colleague

I will never understand why women bring down other women. What’s as horrifying as it is sad and true, is that regardless of age, it’s almost an innate instinct for women to get jealous, see one another as threats, compete, and take each other down. How else do you explain a middle-aged woman attacking a twenty-something colleague behind her back for superficial, empty reasons in front of their co-workers? This recently happened to me, and I still can’t explain why. And it goes both ways.

Like Gigi Hadid mocking Melania Trump at the AMAs last night. Honestly, what was that?

This is in our control. So why aren’t we controlling it already? Are we that afraid of positivity? A few years ago, I breathed a sigh of relief entering the real world, naively thinking that I’d seen the end of the cattiness after I outgrew high school and even college. But here I am, a grown woman at 25 years old, living on my own, fully immersed in the workplace, and still experiencing getting shamed by fellow women.

When is enough, enough?

Women can act yay ra ra and united on the surface. As much as I would love for that to reflect the reality of the minor acts that carry on in our day-to-day lives, it just doesn’t. When I first relocated to Los Angeles, for example, I was in an office surrounded by women who didn’t know me. I was cordial, kept to myself, and tried to make small talk every now and then. What I got back was seclusion while being whispered about for no apparent reason. How old are we, seriously? I shouldn’t have felt like I had to defend myself or even worse, be over-the-top nice to get validation. I clearly did absolutely nothing wrong. So I did neither.

And I know it’s not just me experiencing this.

My best friend Alexa texts me, discouraged over the same thing she deals with at her office, 3,000 miles away in New York. Different cities. Completely different offices and positions. How else do you explain that similarity?

As much as I would love for this to end, I fear it’s not as realistic as I wish it was.

It seems to be one giant, toxic cycle. Women don’t do anything to warrant nasty behavior from other women, be it a side eye or getting thrown under the bus at work, which I talk about in the video above. In turn, it makes us hurt, defensive, and almost ready to not only dislike other women, but ready and on the defense.

But it’s plain and simple:

If we don’t manifest this energy into supporting one another, how are we expected to get ahead?

You could argue that men compete with each other in the workplace, too, and that’s true. But do they whisper about each other? Talk shit on the other’s outfits when they leave the room? Maybe I’m speaking in generalities here, but I highly doubt it.

There’s room for all of us. So we need to take the gloves off, and compete in a healthy way.

Because the day a female walks into a room of new women, and says she doesn’t feel at all insecure, wrongfully secluded, stared at, or threatened, is the day this ends. You can choose to take a selfish approach or hope to better how women generally treat each other. Either way, know that cheering women on means they’ll cheer you on in return. We’ll all get to where we want to be, and live in the peace we deserve.

So ask yourselves: Why can’t we just help each other already? Is that one little dig at a female you’re threatened by worth it? How do you feel when the roles are reversed? And mostly, what can you do in your daily life to change this once and for all?

Because I don’t know about you, but I refuse to take this anymore. None of us deserve it.