“There’s a place reserved in Hell for women who don’t help other women.”
–Madeleine Albright
Name-calling, rumor-spreading, and cyber bullying are all things which encompass relational aggression, a special type of aggression which is most often utilized among females. When I see or hear these things, women oppressing women by insulting or intentionally causing emotional damage to each other, I can’t help but cringe. How are we to escape the pressure we put on ourselves to look and be “perfect” if we scrutinize each other so often?
The way I see it, it’s a vicious cycle. One female feels unhappy with herself, so she calls another female “fat,” “ugly,” or a “whore” in order to feel more comfortable with herself. I feel like a lot of females do this, draw negative attention to another female, in order to divert possible negative attention that may come their way. It’s incredibly sad, honestly, that any female should feel so awful about herself that she feels the need to put down another, and what’s even more sad is that the female she puts down often times believes in the unwarranted and hurtful comments that come her way.
What on earth are we doing? All people are incredibly beautiful. Some are scarred, some are hurt, some have been severely affected by adversity, but we are all unique and that is beautiful.
I thought I’d take the time to stress the importance of empowering each other.
First of all, I went for a run the other day in downtown State College, and I saw this written on the sidewalk: 
Why don’t we see this everywhere? Why aren’t messages like this all over social media? Why is it so acceptable and natural to call someone a whore or a slut, but it’s almost uncomfortable or unheard of to say “You are beautiful”? Why is a female considered conceited if she says, “I am beautiful,” or walks around with her head held high?
Ladies, we need to empower each other. Lift your head up and smile, and if you see a girl with her head down, or if you sense a girl feels as if she isn’t worthy or good enough, let her know otherwise!
I follow a ton of people on Twitter with mindsets similar to my own, and I noticed that one of the women I follow just made a blog post which mentioned her previous struggle with an eating disorder. At first I thought, “Oh, sweet! Another recovery story!” But what made this one special is that this woman is a social worker, and she shared her struggle for the first time on her blog.
(You can view it here: progressnotperfection.co.uk )
After posting her blog, she tweeted this:
Shared blog on Facebook for the very first time! If it makes just one person more aware it’s worth it #recovery #openness #beingreal
This is the mentality that we need– that sharing our stories and our wisdom is worth it if we can positively affect just one person by it
Marilee Fritsch 