I last discussed the paradoxical relationship between the Female and the Body.  It was very hard to stay focussed on just “the body” however.  The same could arguably be said for hair texture, skin colour, etc.  Women are constantly adjusting and squeezing themselves into a cookie-cutter mold of “the” Woman.  We do so with a far greater sense of urgency than men do, because of this noxious level of competition we instigate with our counterparts.

You hear it in various aphorisms: a woman’s greatest enemy is another woman.  The Times recently wrote an article branching out to a plethora of links regarding why women leave other women out in the cold.

And for the sake of argument, let’s say all this started in a fight to be chosen for procreation, for survival — that no longer needs to happen!  The majority of us are perfectly self-sufficient, and capable of survival – nay, comfort – in the dynamics of modern living.  The other common excuse of “if a woman had to struggle and do it all on her own, she has no sympathy for women after her in need of a helping hand.” Bullshit.  You of all people know how much more productive you could have been with that help.

CUT IT OUT LADIES.

I’ve always compared this phenomenon to similarities in race-rivalry in Trinidad & Tobago.  Colonialists cleverly pitted African descendants against Indian,  knowing that if we keep chasing each other, we would never collectively realize that through cooperation, we pose a greater threat to the established enforcer.

Women are so busy clawing each other’s eyes out in a male-dominated society, but we’re still baffled as to why we can’t achieve gender equity.

Why should we get this from the Patriarchy, when we can’t seem to give it to ourselves?