Following on from our recent guest post by Lisa Pearson, Stop slagging of your sister, Clare Macnaughton from A Modern Military Mother has added her thoughts on the crazy culture of women berating other women.
I have to confess that I don’t really understand the unspoken rules of Girldom, and I pay heavily for getting it wrong.
A friend said to me that she thinks it’s because my mum died when I was 2 years old. I wasn’t raised by a matriarch but instead by a man, who raised me as a boy. I don’t have the same insecurity radar that, I think, girls pick up from their mothers, or even, that instinctive spidey sense, for social situations. I am definitely a bit thick when it comes to reading the signs. The “Why are you kicking me under the table, Hagar?” But as I get older and focus on raising my family and shaping my future, I realise that it isn’t as important as it might have appeared in the past.
I believe that women should look out for each other but I don’t think that all women feel the same. This is when they draw handbags, stick out their claws and let the bitch-fest begin. In the mummy blogosphere there has been a bit of handbag bashing and hair pulling. I don’t know the details but what I can tell is that there is female power struggle going on about who is head hen in the henhouse.
In the military aka “Milly” community, it can be a hair pulling and scratchy place as well. It’s full of cliques and girl gang-uppery. In my own personal circles there is a group of Millies who look down their nose at those who live on patch (the married patch aka military quarters). I see this often in the UK Milly community, whereas I think in the US they have a greater sense of community than we do here in Blighty. I think it’s because the US serving do longer deployments of more than 12 months.
The days of Raj are over and I think the dependent wife, who filled her day finding out which butcher provided the best cuts and wearing her husband’s rank on her sleeve are phasing out. However, as the tempo of ops increases, there is a need for greater solidarity amongst the community and the Millies.
I don’t want to be Queen Bee. I am not looking for a gang. I am not looking to lead the push. I just want to write my blog, hopefully unite the community a little and help people understand our lives better.
We do need to unite the community better because the reality is this: we are all doing more with less (less money, less time, less government support for troops) and we need to look out for each other more.
We women have enough to contend with, with just being, raising kids, living with men and managing our lives without other women getting all bitchy and stabbing us in the back. It’s a lonely path but now that I am older, I can handle the solitude. At least I know in my heart that I am doing the right thing. However, if you have the girl rulebook sussed and you would care to share it with me then I would genuinely love to know, because it is a mystery to me. If the rules are:
1.) You have to agree with everything I say,
2.) You have to love everything I wear,
3.) You have to love everything I do,
4.) You have to be insincere and tell me what I want to hear,
then like the dragons on Dragon’s Den, I am sorry but I am out.
Have you ever had an experience of another woman stabbing you in the back?
Clare Macnaughton — A Modern Military Mother
Clare Macnaughton started the blog A Modern Military Mother to help explain life from the other side of the British military. There are so many mis-conceptions about military life that she felt it was time to put the record straight. Her husband over the next 2.5 years will be deploying on several occasions to Afghanistan. The blog is the voice of that journey and also to some extent the marriage that has gone before. Clare writes a bi-monthly column with Wiltshire Life magazine as A Modern Military Mother and ghost wrote a battlefield memoir, called ‘Immediate Response’, in-conjunction with a serving Royal marine Major, which was published by Penguin, in September 09, and in the second week of sales entered at number 9 in The Sunday Times hardback non-fiction top 10 bestseller list.
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EmmaK
Monday 30th of January 2012
I have not really had any experiences with women stabbing me in the back as friends. But working with women has been truly ghastly especially in the PR business, I have met plenty of female back stabbers there and I am so glad I am out of the corporate rat race!
Mummy Whisperer
Monday 30th of January 2012
I bet it is really difficult in the military world, much more so in other groups of women.
Funnily enough I'm still thinking through the reaction that my post had and today wrote something about friendships and whether we have to be friends with the same organisations or friends as our friends .... as I felt that I've come under pressure in the blogging world (gently) to pick a group and stick to it. But I'm not really like that, so I was wondering if that made me disloyal or sensible ;o)
Hope you don't mind me adding a link to it here: http://mummywhispererblog.com/2012/01/if-your-friend-has-fallen-out-with-them-should-you/
A Modern Military Mother
Saturday 28th of January 2012
I was ridiculing not joking. I was also being honest. 1.) she does have a big nose 2.) she is misogynist. United doesn't mean we step away from our sense of ethics and moral boundaries. To err is human and to forgive is divine. I am human and she is an asshole. If Katie Hopkins said or did something that I agreed with then I would support her.
AWPS
Friday 27th of January 2012
Bit of hypocrisy going on here. Your last post on your blog was calling Katie Hopkins a big nosed misogynist. Isn't that slagging off another girl? Or doesn't it count because you were 'joking'?
A Modern Military Mother
Friday 27th of January 2012
Thanks - I think the root of the problem lies in the fact that women generally have to like someone to support them. Also women are genetically programmed to be competitive over men because we want to bag the best one to sire our children and so that makes us territorial and not cohesive. Once we have children we become more cohesive because we realise that we need community to protect and raise our offspring.
The gender then divides again: children v no children bottle v boob SAHM v GTWM single v married
etc, etc, so we become factionalised and not united. Hence why I believ we should have women's political party - that men can join but the primary focus would be to completely re-design the operational mechanics of the male dominated world we live in
Whereas the brotherhood will tend to support each other because they are men. They are very loyal to their gender and tend to stick together. There conflict are more group orientated - territory, sport or gang, etc. They battle as a collective.
in order to unite we need to understand our instincts and use our emotional intelligence so that we don't respond with emotion but with consideration. Easier said then done.