Women, Can We Stop Shaming Each Other?

I’m so sick of women shaming, judging, and belittling other women. Have we all not had to put up with enough BS in life just existing as women? But some women feel the need to judge other women. Harshly too.

Once again it’s influencers and ‘coaches’ who’ve pissed me off, but anyone who does it makes me irate whether online or off.

These insecure and judgmental girls say things like:

Oh, you’re on hormone replacement? Gosh, big pharma just pushes HRT on women, there’s lots of natural things you can try first. It’s a natural part of life, you don’t need to put unnatural chemicals into your body. (Hormones are natural, Becky and while we’re shaming people for their choices, maybe go do some reading on the effects of menopause on a woman’s body. It’s a discussion for women and their doctor.)

Oh, you had an epidural? I didn’t need any drugs, I barely felt it because it was such a beautiful miracle.

Oh, she’s taking a GLP-1? I could never take a shortcut to lose weight, you have to put the work in. Move more and eat less, it’s not like that’s hard. GLP-1s are cheating. (GLP-1s have other uses besides weight loss but if someone is only taking them to help lose weight, who cares? Also, moronic trainers with little education should talk less about how fat people are lazy or undisciplined and learn something about the endocrinology and underlying issues of weight gain and obesity.)

Oh you get botox and fillers? Not me, it’s a gift to age naturally. (Always said by someone in their early thirties. Sweetie you haven’t even begun to age yet.)

Oh, you couldn’t breastfeed? But every woman can, we’re literally built for it! I had so much milk I donated 86L a week to our local NICU. Breast is best you know.

Oh, you don’t want kids? We’re literally built for that and they’re such a joy. They’re my everything, they’re my entire world, so weird you don’t want that kind of love in your life.

Oh you’re getting a face lift? I believe in aging naturally so I would never. We shouldn’t let society tell us we have to stay young!

Oh, you have a job? I stay home with my kids, I refuse to let someone else raise my kids. It’s a sacrifice but that’s what you do as a parent. They’re small for such a short time.

Oh, you’re a stay at home mom? Good for you! I would be so bored without something to do with my brain.

That’s just a few examples but it seems non-stop.

Shaming women for their choices is anti-feminist. Our mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers and great greats fought and died for our right to be autonomous and make our own choices. Maybe part of the problem is young women don’t realize that women couldn’t get a credit card without a husband’s permission until 1974. I’m sure part of the problem is the younger folks think 1974 was eons ago, but it was only 51 years ago. As a 46 year old, that length of time is just a long blink. I was 8 when women could get business loans in Canada.

Uninformed and uneducated people shaming other women’s medical decisions makes me irritated because that was a decision she made with her doctor and it’s no one else’s business. Commenting on medical topics while lacking nuance, context, and a through knowledge of said medical topic as it relates to someone’s medical history is arrogant and asinine.

I think part of it is conditioning, aka patriarchal bullshit. As women, we’re expected to suck it up, tough it out, push through and handle everything without bothering anyone else (generally men.) Be a good girl and just deal with it. We’ve probably all known a pick me girl at one time or another, too. Or been one! Thankfully, a lot of us evolved, learned why it happens and then we grew up and knocked it off. Other women aren’t our enemies but if the systems can keep us squabbling amongst ourselves, then those systems maintain their status quo. I’ll let you consider who benefits from those systems but I’ll give a hint: it’s not women.

Insecure women compete with other women to feel superior. For some reason, we compete about how easy or hard childbirth was for us, how quickly we bounced back into our old jeans after, how fast our kids hit their milestones, how we do it all and handle everything and still manage to keep a perfect house and go to book club on Saturdays.

None of it actually matters.

Calm down, everyone. We can all get on the podium of the Misery Olympics. Life is hard, we all go through shit, and there is no medal at the end of life for having had it the hardest or putting up with the most shit. So if some women choose to make things easier when they can or do things that make them happy, why would you care? I swear some people are so miserable they want everyone else to be miserable as well. You can drive the struggle bus if you want, but I’d rather not get on at all if I don’t have to.

I don’t think struggling together is a thing we need to strive for. Why can’t we strive for minimal struggle and be happy for each other? I sometimes think the desire for others to suffer hardship is based on religion, where suffering supposedly makes you a better person and more likely to get you into heaven but that’s another post for another day.

The older I get, the more I want everyone to win. (Except for the people who karmically deserve to have things harder than everyone else but I digress.) I want women to choose whatever’s best for them and their peace. If they age gracefully or fight it with everything they’ve got, I’m 100% on board with whatever they choose. I want them to have as many babies as they want, be it zero or 6. I hope birth is as medicated or unmedicated as they want, what matters is that mom and baby survive.

Because yes, women still die in or after childbirth and so do babies. That fact makes whether you had an epidural or not seem a little irrelevant.

I want women to be with men that treat them well, or with another woman, or be polyamorous or happily single for as long as they want and as long as it makes them happy. Have a baby without a partner if that’s what you want. I want women to get any cosmetic surgery they want or get none if that’s what they choose. If dying your hair hot pink makes you happy every time you look in the mirror, please do that. Change careers, move to a new country, start a company. Get filler or Botox or don’t, shave your legs if you want or go au naturel. Explore your sexuality. Change your pronouns. Do whatever makes your heart sing and I would hope every other woman wants that for us too.

I just want women to do what they choose, because it’s what they want. No choice offends me (except choosing to be a dick) or gives me pause because it has nothing to do with me and doesn‘t affect my life at all. I don’t need to feel any kind of way about what other people are deciding to do or be.

It’s a knee jerk reaction to judge but it’s the second thought that really counts so for me. I say to myself (silently, some things are inside thoughts you keep to yourself and social media has made us forget that) something like, “I don’t know if I could pull off (green hair, a facelift, moving to Bali, having a baby at 40, whatever it is) but I hope she loves it!”

Do what you choose to do that makes you happy and leave other women alone about their choices that don’t affect you in the slightest. If you feel inferior or competitive with other women, especially women you don’t even know, go to therapy. Judging them won’t actually solve your self esteem issues. Therapy though can help you confront your internalized misogyny and why you feel the need to stomp on your sisters when given the opportunity.

I want women to make their choices based on what they want, what they need, what makes them happy. Without considering what other women might think, what their friends are doing, what’s trending on social media, what men think, or what society says she should want and do.

Women who post rage-bait, shame other women, and pit them against each other are repugnant.

I’m so glad to be in my forties and past all that silliness. I just smile when women in their twenties and thirties talk about the ‘gift’ of aging and they’re going to be natural and let nature take its course. As they get older, they might change their minds or at least think about it and that’s okay. It’s okay to change your mind when situations change.

What I find interesting is these ‘age gracefully’ women are younger and haven’t really experienced aging but their position seems to focus on aesthetics: wrinkles, saggy bits, loosening skin, grey hair. What about bone and muscle loss? More women find themselves with osteoporotic fractures after menopause than heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer combined in Canada. The ‘natural aging’ club has strong feelings about lip filler but never has concern about the increased risk of heart disease? For comparison, one in 8 women will be affected by breast cancer once she hits menopause but one in 3 will develop heart disease. The brain fog, volatile moods, depression, sleep disturbances, and genitourinary problems also make life pretty fun. Source: http://menopause foundation of Canada

I’m not saying HRT is the way for everyone, but menopause causes more important problems than saggy boobs and facial lines.

Aging isn’t just cosmetic.

The older I get, the more I’ve learned that I should actually experience something before I decide how I feel about it or how I’m going to handle it, which is why I find 28 year old wellness ‘experts’ who say they’ll never interfere with the natural aging process so adorable. Maybe they’ll handle it just fine with good lifestyle choices and nutrition. Maybe it’ll affect their quality of life to the point they want to discuss all the options with their doctor. Both are okay, and so is a combination approach. I hope women don’t let choices become their identity. It’s okay to change your mind, learn more about a topic, or change your stance when presented with new information.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. We’re meant to grow, change, and evolve. Once you do that, you don’t feel the need to put other women down to make yourself feel better.

I’m all for women doing what makes them happy. At this age, I know exactly who I am and what I value. The opinions of others about my life and health choices don’t matter much, especially random strangers or acquaintances. I have a very tight circle which includes my husband and some powerhouse women. They’re all secure, self-assured, and successful women so they don’t feel any need to passive-aggressively knock me down or hold me there. They know whether I’ve decided to shave my head, change medications, or take a few months off in my business’ slow season and do nothing productive, they know I’m intelligent enough to make the decisions for myself that I think are best and support that. I support their decisions for themselves too, even if they’re wildly different from mine.

As for 30 year old women who are emphatic that they’ll never need medical assistance during any stage of life, become ill, or want to do anything cosmetic, I respond to them like I respond to 4-year-olds who tell me they’re going to space when they grow up:

Oh wow, good for you!

Because it doesn’t affect my life at all if they make it or not and if they tell me at some point they’ve decided to be a veterinarian instead, they get the same level of supportive enthusiasm.

Can’t we all just thrive so much living our best lives that we don’t care what other women are choosing for themselves? Some of us are there, some we’re still waiting on to catch up.