It's 2022, But We Are Stuck With Belief That Women Are Each Other's Sworn Enemies

Growing up, at some point, we're told that women are each other’s sworn enemies. Hence, every time we witness two women fighting, we have a short-sighted conclusion readily available: Women are women’s worst enemies. We seldom realise how drawing that inference is just us being lazy and avoiding introspection. Internet, social media and the anonymity it grants the users intensifies the dilemma when you are either trolled or are debating online. Indeed, it is an unpleasant experience to be trolled, especially by another woman but does that warrant us name-calling women and saying that women are rudest to each other? Have we ever wondered where did phrases like these come from and why do they exist?

Actor Disha Parmar, who is currently seen on daily soap Bade Achhe Lagte Hain 2, unfortunately, had a brush with female trolls who left distasteful comments for her. Expressing her concerns, frustration over the episode, she wrote on Twitter with an expletive, “Why is it that women are actually rude to one another (even on social media) than Men can ever be! Like! Relax Lady!”

Actor Disha Parmar asks Why is it that women are actually rude to one another?

The tweet garnered attention from her fans who left positive comments while her husband, actor Rahul Vaidya, left a comment for his troubled partner. Replying to his comment, the actor went on to say that it was just her observation; she also added that most of the trolls who said negative things about her were women and “not a single man”.

No one is immune to trolling in the age of the internet where people have a platform to express their opinions—even if unsolicited, especially celebrities whose lives are publicised ever so often. While her concern over being trolled was not misplaced, it is the unwarranted comment that came along with it that was problematic.

How so? Because of the way she worded her post. Undoubtedly, people irrespective of their intersectional identities can be mean; but the underlying thought that it is only women who are the rudest to each other is very patriarchal. We have entered the third decade of the 21st Century yet we are still stuck in the same old loop.

Suggested Reading: No, Women Aren’t their Own Worst Enemies, Patriarchy Is

Women were given very little space for self-expression in a patriarchal society where the skewed status quo benefitted the men who wanted to assert their dominance. Adages as such are the result of the internalised misogyny that women were fed to maintain the skewed power distribution.

Feminist Mary Daly termed such persons as “token torturers” in her book Gyn/Ecology. According to Daly, the ‘token torturers’ are those women who have internalised society’s norms to such an extent that they are unable and unwilling to reflect on the fact that they are relaying the similar injustices that were once perpetrated against them.

And it is what happened in this case wherein some female trolls wrote distasteful comments about the actor based on the dos and don’ts—prescribed by venerable men—they internalised. And her further “observation” was a continuation of the vicious cycle.

Continually falling for this age-old phrase—without questioning its origin—will only result in loosening the threads of universal sisterhood that women across the globe have been weaving over the years. Although we have been conditioned to believe statements as such since we were young, it is not impossible to unlearn them.

The distrust of a woman towards another was a cultural design and not one’s intrinsic quality. When will we stop seeing other women as our enemies and mobilize instead? When will we realise that we have other women we can lean onto? Why do we find it difficult to support other women? Why are we so eager to pin the blame on the issues we squarely face on other women?

The views expressed are the author's own.