Charming article this weekend in the Seattle Times by the Associated Press’s Kathy Ritchie called The Catty Syndrome.

...As I got off the train, I remember thinking, “Yeah, she has fabulous hair. But she doesn’t have it all. Her butt and her thighs are way bigger than mine.”

When I first started pondering the meaning of “chick-hater,” it occurred to me that while most women may not fit the textbook definition — feeling threatened or simply flat-out hating another woman based on her beauty, career or relationships — we may be engaging in something that is just as insidious: chick-hating-lite.

“I don’t think there’s anyone out there who hasn’t had a negative feeling about another woman,” says Elizabeth McDaniel, a therapist in New York. “You’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t acknowledge that.”

When I ask McDaniel about my chick-hating episodes (yes, there have been several), she tells me that, for some women, self-doubt can translate to self-hate — that women manifest their insecurities into anger toward other females. When I prod her further, she suspects that, despite my insecurities, the fact that I know who I am and who my friends are may make me a chick-hater with half the calories than a regular one.

As I would soon discover, this is all only part of a larger problem among us sisters.

Read the whole thing here.

Ritchie places herself squarely in the Patriarch’s Lady’s Auxiliary by attempting to place the blame for “cattiness” squarely outside women’s control: on men.

“Women don’t have real authority to direct their anger against men,” McDaniel tells me. “Directing our anger against other women undercuts our power — we aren’t cohesive.”

...

So what gives? Why are so many women essentially anti-woman?

As I thought about it more, I began to think about women who have clashed with other women over what essentially boils down to power — who is in control of the situation.

Think Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds. Princess Diana and Camilla Parker Bowles. Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. And my personal favorite, Cinderella and her wicked stepmother?

“Psychically, it’s clearly insecurity,” McDaniel says. “This culture doesn’t want women to be empowered. ... By creating conflict between women, you certainly keep them in their place. If you fight amongst yourselves, if you are so broken up and can’t unite, you’re certainly not going to be able to pose any threat to the majority.”

Translation: We live in a world still very much dominated by men, and society praises women who can’t sustain relationships with other women…

Note: Even if both clauses of the last sentence were true it would still be a non sequitur. (And speaking of clauses, we could reverse the two and see what kind of unrelated-but-implied causality emerged: “Society praises women who can’t sustain relationships with other women, and we live in a world still very much dominated by men!”)

I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that society praises women who cat out. Or if it does it’s not orchestrated by men and I wish people like Ritchie would leave men out of it not because men aren’t responsible for all sorts of inequities. Goodness knows we are, whether intentionally or unintentionally! Instead it’s because men aren’t responsible for people like Ritchie’s and McDaniel’s choices to construct themselves as helplessly competitive, and men sure as hell aren’t responsible for Ritchie and McDaniel’s decision to try and persuade other women that cattiness is, in fact, out of their control.

...And one needs only to walk past a newsstand to see exactly what McDaniel means.

Everywhere we look, there are the big, bold cover lines on celebrity magazines: “Angelina vs. Jen.” “Paris vs. Nicole.” Rarely do we hear about the men fighting it out — I certainly don’t recall seeing Brad Pitt and Vince Vaughn grace the cover of a weekly with a headline that read, “Brad vs. Vince: it’s on!” Apparently, two dudes fighting it out simply isn’t as hot as A-list chick-haters.

Of course, it’s easy to point the finger at the men. But women participate, too: They buy the magazines, dish about the stories, participate in the scurrilousness.

But Ritchie isn’t pointing “the finger at the men.” She’s waving a big red cape and shouting “Toro, Toro! ol&eacu;!” The wise bull ignores the cape and goes for the matador.

But I digress…

This is all actually about a post by O of Eros, Logos about why women (and, I’d argue many men) blog about sex.

Those are some personal reasons for me to blog anonymously. Here are the political, that apply to us all:

My anonymity means that I am like that girl you fuck from behind, the girl whose face you never see.
Who am I? I’m one of many, many women.

I could be the girl next door.
I could be your ex-girlfriend; I could be your best friend.
I could be your doctor.
I could be your librarian.
Maybe I’m your sister; maybe I’m your co-worker.

Or maybe I’m your wife.

I could be any woman; and this forces the reader to realise that I could be speaking for every woman. Maybe you read us and think we’re an aberration; maybe it makes some (men, especially) more comfortable to think that. That way the spectacle of female desire can be ignored or dismissed.

See O’s whole excellent post here.

Wow that just totally resonates for me — I think it’s one of the best reasons to blog anonymously.

But then in response an anonymous commenter says

I won’t presume to speak for your female fans, who are obviously legion, based on other posts. Clearly you are appreciated by boys and girls, men and women, and probably many in between. But I’ll try to speak about the women who might read you but who might not feel that you speak for them.

(I think there are probably many women who do read you and think, “Ah, this is me, these are the thoughts that I would speak if I had the courage to speak them.”) And then there are some women who read you and think, “Oh please. Who the hell does she think she is?” There are probably lots of women who flip back and forth between these two positions.

One might say of the women who take the latter position, “Oh, how sad. Insecure women who can’t handle the spectacle of O’s intense and beautiful sexuality.” There’d be more than a grain of the proverbial truth in such saying. Yet I can’t help but wonder if it doesn’t go beyond the simple jealousy of the plain girl that the boys never look at for the girl who is visible, and thus alive. It might make you feel good to write it off that way (and I realize that I’m being presumptuous in using that “you”) as indeed it makes me feel good to say, “Who the hell does she think she is?” But beyond these reflexes, perhaps inscribed in us by a (dare I say it?) patriarchy that makes male attention the coin in which female power must circulate, I wonder if there isn’t some sort of utopian space in which plain girls and pretty girls could get together and talk without it being about who’s more luscious to the boys.

At least, I’d like to think so. But in order for that to happen, we’d all have to stop being threatened by me. I’d have to stop being threatened by your sexuality, and you’d have to stop…wait, you’re not threatened by the women who don’t want to be your friend, are you? Does it matter to you one way or the other?

And there I think we have it?

A.a.a.a.n.n.n.d while both Ritchie’s reaction to the fair-haired stranger, or O’s anonymous commenter’s remarks are sort of outside my preview (in the sense that I dispute that only — or even especially — women feel that way) I do feel comfortable talking about self-esteem in general and to that…

Boy oh boy do we set ourselves up for failure! And here’s now we usually do it:

We cast our gaze upon someone else (or someone else’s text or other artifacts) and see that they are taller or more athletic or wittier or wealthier or healthier or wiser or more fashionable or a “better” age than we. And in order to measure up we must be taller and more athletic and wittier and wealthier and healthier and wiser and more fashionable and a better age. And if we’re not, we tell ourselves we’re just complete losers.

And no, Ritchie and Anonymous’s protestations to the contrary, this trait is linked to humanity, not gender.