Women 'not getting along'

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I often hear the stereotype about women being 'catty' towards each other and not liking other women.

But as a guy in my honest opinion women actually get along better than guys do. They may bully each other (as if us guys don't do the same thing to other guys...) but women aren't slaughtering each other in wars the way men always are for one thing. Even when women serve in the military (in the countries that allow it) they are typically focused on fighting other men during war, not other women.

In my opinion it's all these damn alpha males who are territorial and can't stand being around other men who they perceive as a 'threat' to their dominance that truly hate each other.

What are your thoughts on this?

I disagree - competition inside the same sex can get just as ugly and ruthless on both sides. It depends more on the individual(s), how threatened they feel and how low they're willing to get. I'm one of those who think that when it comes to human nature there's not much difference between men and women: either can be just as great and get just as horrible as the other, even if the methods and ways of expression might differ.

Anecdotically, I have a close friend (a woman) who suffered significant physical abuse at the hands of her father and first husband. Once she told me that she's still more afraid of women as the damage they inflicted was longer lasting and harder to fight against than the beatings. YMMV but it's a perspective worth taking into consideration.

Last edited by BenderRodriguez on 03 Jul 2019, 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

First of all people are people so people will agree or disagree with each other. And war is an extreme, more of a national thing. One female soldier could shoot another female soldier in a war - they represent the state rather than a specific gender and the same for the guys too. Thatcher was hardly a peace lover.

But in general, from what I've observed as general patterns, yeah I think you're right.

It's sad that the closest a guy can get to complimenting another guy (if they're straight or don't want to be seen as flirting) is to say he's 'all right'. Or very rarely he's a 'legend'.

Women can compliment each other all the time and society doesn't even think they're gay necessarily, or that if they are that they're necessarily flirting, even when they're calling each other beautiful.

I suspect it contributes to the male suicide rate. It's the same way with guys hugging - they don't unless they want it to be a romantic/sexual thing.

This is all generalisation but it's what I've observed. In fact, I mix mostly with men and they interact by insulting each other. They know I'm not into them and I get the sense they'd be doing that even if I wasn't there. My stepdad says that they would be and says that my mother doesn't understand that this is just 'how guys are'.

My mum had a friend like that though. A frenemy. She used to put people down subtly, very NT and also very nasty. She had subtler jabs than a guy would use and in a way that made it worse as it was harder to respond. She didn't do it to me and my mum's friends/my mum are all NT so mum said 'drop it'. In the end though, mum 'broke up' with her as a friend as it was all she would do.

I like childhood type friendships where if you care about someone you can call them your best friend or even say you have a few best friends and because it's all pre-romantic feelings, it's obviously platonic. It's a shame we can't codify that way as adults, I would find it easier in knowing who my friends were and weren't. The frenemies mum's had, she has formally broken up with but that's not the done thing in platonic friendship.

I think teenage girls are 'cattier' because they're more boy obsessed. By adulthood, the scope of guys available is wider and not everyone (even straight women) wants one, and some people are already settled down. The gay scene can be catty because everyone's dated each other locally so everyone's after that one new girl (or guy)...

Warning: Sweeping generalizations of a sexist nature follow.

The female 'cattyness' you hear about is just as real as the male 'posturing' you also hear about.

People seek to dominate other people, and most people will pick someone like themselves or weaker to dominate. People will prey on each others' sense of inclusion -- women for fashion and style, men for toys and accomplishments (generally speaking).

I see these things going on every day. Women suggesting that each other's sense of style is out of fashion ("Nice shoes ... Wal-Mart?"), and men suggesting that each others' competence is not up to par ("Nice try ... Drugs?").

The trouble is when you've grown accustomed to the behavior of one side, the other side's behavior seems even more bizarre than your own.

I think that's what's going on here.

Quoted for Truth ^

Also, some women have been suffered significant physical or psychological abuse at the hands of other women.

For me, this basically ends the thread

Short and to the point - captures the essence of the problem.

Sure, the two are not mutually exclusive - for either gender.

I'd also like to add that as an Aspie it took me a while to learn to identify and understand some passive-aggressive or more subtle methods of psychological abuse. Taken out of context some of these things might not look like a big deal.

Aww, dangit! There I go, making sense again ... I kill more threads that way.

So it's all about dah dominance which both men AND women crave!

That wrongly assumes most of my friends are female, they're not.

I think what's going on with me is that most of my interactions with another woman come with my mother. Who 1 knows I'm socially anxious and 2 is my mother so would be unlikely to goad me anyway.

In my experience with guys it isn't all around intelligence anyway. A lot of it is around people's mothers or what makes them different to the other guy, usually something about age, nationality (we're a mixed crowd) or appearance. Someone goading someone's intelligence would easily get laughed at as a geek.

When I was a teenager again it was about people's mothers and it was also about who 'owned'/'pwned' who.

But yeah when I read my mum's texts with her mates (she lets me) they're all full of 'today is a bright beautiful day' and 'you go girl' type messages. It would get sickly after a while though, I bet most of it is fake.

What my friends don't do and my cousins' friends do is decide they're not talking to so and so for a bit then go back to talking to her and ditch someone else... They don't even speak about it, it just becomes an unwritten rule. Mum said she was glad I was a tomboy because it meant I avoided all that.

Yeah, I'm not so sure. My wife says women can be the worst. Critical, judgemental, backstabbing or even psycho to each other. "B*tches, man." (from the movie Say Anything)...is what she said when I told her about a group of them ganging up on a woman at work and then after the woman left work early because she couldn't take anymore, the group of bully women sat and talked about the woman behind her back, literally for three hours.

I think we should agree to saying between men and women: they're capable of the same level of nastiness they just go about it differently.

In the workplace, after working over thirty years now, I will say in my experience guys generally get along. If two guys aren't compatible they just leave each other alone. I have witnessed countless times where women have been nasty to other women mainly with gossip, snide comments and talking and whispering behind the woman's back. No different than in grade school.

On the war aspect. Historically, you're correct. I believe that unfortunately women are just as capable as men toward evil. Just because there haven't been female dictators doesn't mean there won't be any in the future.

Last edited by Magna on 03 Jul 2019, 7:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well... I gotta admit when I joined a Wiccan/Pagan community on Facebook (a religion that actually appeals to a lot of women) I was appalled at all the drama and bullying that went on. A bunch of the female members ganged up on me like a bunch of grade school bullies with rude insults and chased me out because I dared to critisize some of ways self-proclaimed wiccans do things.

I mean they said some VERY nasty and hurtful things to me.

But at the same time I still remember being a little kid in school and I remember how I got bullied by a lot of others boys simply because I was different. And like I said there's that whole mercilessly-killing-each-other-in-wars thing that makes me question just how well guys supposedly "get along".

I’ve had a couple of very close friendships with women when I was a young girl. They were more like sisters than friends. I was even in the delivery room when one of them gave birth. It was...beyond special. I had lots of wonderful memories with her that I haven’t had with anyone else.

Anyway, I think people make catty friends when they want specific friendships to attain a particular social status. It’s like wanting to hang out with the popular crowd instead of finding people who are positive and supportive. If a friendship became unpleasant for any reason, I wouldn’t put effort into preserving it. I haven’t had a lot of experience with that, though.

Most of the closest friendships I’ve had were with girls I knew from church from when I was very young.

Honestly when I was a kid I got along better with girls than I did guys. But as I got older I started making more and more guy friends who were very close friends.

Of course all my friends are on the internet. I have no friends in real life.