About a year ago, I read a very enlightening book entitled, "The Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships" published in 2010 by Kelly Valen. In a very honest and straight-forward style, Valen discusses all types of female relationships that young girls and adult women experience from as early as elementary school, and through adulthood. After spending a lot of time in my previous blogs discussing male dominance over women, I think this particular subject is a worthy one, and deserves its proper place when analyzing communication and gender.
Inspired by her own experiences, and those of her four young daughters, Valen, a lawyer, decided to explore why so many females are competitive with each other within families, schools, and in the workplace. She interviewed over 3,000 women from all walks of life that have experienced some type of hurt that resulted from gossip, group alienation, or just down right mean-spirited behavior. I also must clarify here, that the competition Valen is discussing, is NOT the healthy sports/game related type. This is in reference to rivalry that seeks to bully, undermine, degrade, or destroy another person's self-esteem, confidence, and trust in others.
Valen's book brought back many hurtful memories that I witnessed and experienced in school, and as an adult in the workplace. I remember how some females could dismiss one another with just a look and a roll of the eyes, or ones that would try to destroy the character and integrity of another for whatever minor infraction they could come up with. Obviously, there are many facets that go into creating this type of behavior, such as parenting and media influences. However, in Valen's book she states, "Each of us can play a role, simply by practicing daily kindness, tolerance, openness, respect, conscientious role modeling, and as much as anything, restraint and self-control" (Valen 184).
Interestingly, I have always been rather militant about equal rights, and happen to agree with many feminist viewpoints. So, I always assumed that most women felt the same way. I thought that we were all supposed to be in this unspoken club of sisterhood. According to Valen, there is a culture of women in our society that choose to sabotage their sisters, instead of supporting them. Don't we all want the same things? Shouldn't we be genuinely happy for each other when we achieve some sort of milestone in our life, rather than being envious, or even jealous? After all, females have collectively experienced alienation and discrimination in some form during their lifetime, and have been treated as second class citizens by a dominant culture of men for generations. So, why would we want to make separations within our own gender?
By writing this book, Valen begins an effective discourse about female to female relationships, and how to effectively relate to one another in a positive and supportive manner.
