The Importance of Supporting other Women

    Feminism has widely been recognised and labeled as a taboo topic. There is a certain bias that only women can be feminists. I still don’t really understand why. But, recently I have realised that it isn’t always men that don’t support feminists; even some WOMEN don’t support feminism. Now, don’t be quick to judge those women, in fact the main reason that some women don’t support is because they don’t understand what feminism means.
     So I will be quick and define it for you, according to dictionary.com, Feminism is “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” Feminists are advocating for political and social equivalence not advantage. If that isn’t enough to make you a feminist, I don’t know what is. But, I will tell you one thing; the importance of supporting other women is incredibly relevant in today’s society.
​     I think it is extremely important for women to support each other throughout their entire lives mainly because as a high school student myself, going through middle school with other girls who were constantly criticizing each other for the simplest things was really difficult to handle. It was more difficult to comprehend why other girls said such mean things. One of the girls in my math class was criticizing another girl for wearing short-shorts. “Look at her over there, she’s always so showy.”
      I was immediately taken aback, mainly because the girl who made the comment herself was wearing short-shorts. I have two points to make about this comment. My first point is, You have absolutely no right to criticize another girl for the clothes that she wears or the people she chooses to associate herself with.
      My second point is, Why should you bring other women down to make yourself feel better?
    I suppose we all have certain insecurities, some more bigger than others but, nonetheless insecurities. A quick solution to make ourselves feel better about these insecurities is to reassure yourself that you are better than ‘other girls’, smarter than ‘other girls’, prettier than ‘other girls’. After all, as girls we were raised to be different and ‘not like others’. After this competition starts, it never really stops. Immediately, everything that we start to do becomes a competition with ‘other girls’. A competition we know that we might never truly win.
     I have some friends that love and support me and my other friends unconditionally, but when they do; they do so in bringing themselves down. Always trying to convince everyone not to worry because according to her, she is the dumbest, the ugliest, and the meanest. It ultimately becomes this constant battle of self-hate. A war between who hates themselves the most. It seems like society encourages women to hate themselves, and to encourage other women to succeed by putting themselves down.
     What i’m trying to say is: We can all benefit from some love and support from our fellow females. I mean it makes sense why we should love each other. Only one girl can understand what another girl is going through.
     It is difficult, it will be difficult. Because as a society we were always trained to look for the worst in ourselves and other people in order to fix it. But, what i’m proposing is; Let’s love ourselves and others. Because, we all need positivity pointed towards our bodies and minds.     
     So don’t try to make other successful women feel bad about themselves. Encourage them! Let their hard-working spirit inspire you to be the same. Because, you don’t have to be the smartest, prettiest, kindest, or the most funniest girl to be considered amazing. Let’s work with other women, because there are some pretty awesome women out there.

Post written by guest writer Aditi Praveen