No Place for Mean Girls

 One thing that has made me feel ‘other’ throughout my life is the fact that I have no interest in competition. Not in some arrogant sense that no one is in my league, or that I don’t think I’m good enough to do well; it’s simply that it doesn’t drive me and I don’t care for the strong negative energies from people who hate to lose or just hate to see others do well. One thing I’ve found most disparaging is how often it affects female relationships to the point where I could never quite convince any female friend that I’m not competing and I won’t; whatever it is, you win. I already win when my friends are happy.

And where I come in, yes, I’m aware of my many annoying flaws. I can be less than tactful when I know I’m right, often in a way that makes people defensive or feel called out. I don’t intend to, but I tend to be a bit rushed especially when there’s some urgency or importance in a subject. Bossy, bitchy, sure; I’m not offended that that’s how I can come off at times. People who know me know I am just protective and caring, just not always socially conscious in my approach.

However, there’s one area that I refuse to be bullied and it’s when it comes to women’s health. I got into it a couple days ago with a couple of young women who used disrespectful language that seemed to accuse me of being unkind and that ‘it’s a good thing I don’t work in female health careers’. Then they mocked me for ‘living in a very conservative area’ (a point I brought up to reiterate that despite often being overly protective about women’s health, even they were not optimistic) and then confusingly for caring at all what women do with their bodies, outright stating I was somehow making a choice for other women.

Needless to say, I warned and then blocked them, because this is my new policy when discerning whether people misspoke or are trying to provoke me with personal attacks. As they clearly were.

The original post was a woman who wanted to get a sterilizing surgery for relief but her boyfriend confusing her, talking about saving her eggs when she’s in her mid 40s and never wanted kids but would have considered it when she was younger. I agreed that this might come with a lot of disappointment, something I specifically discussed with my doctor that said pregnancies after 35 are high risk due to the degradation of most genetic samples and that most women will face enormous difficulty or sterility between ages 35 and 45. If you are unsure, you generally freeze eggs no later than your late 20s but most women don’t have many viable eggs in their 40s anymore so again, much more difficult. IVF can be a very lengthy and heartbreaking process. If you want to have a pregnancy later in life, it would be in a woman’s best interest to check their fertility annually so their doctor can let them know when the window is closing for easier conception or carrying a pregnancy to term.

Naturally, these girls first argument, that I would be terrible at that job made me laugh. If they think a doctor would be gentler about these facts, they’d be in for a rude awakening. Second, the original poster didn’t want kids anyway, so I don’t know who they are accusing me of being insensitive to. My only intention was to help her bring up these talking points to her boyfriend to inform him of the possible disappointments ahead if she did postpone treatment to try to farm viable eggs. The next points that were just insulting and nonsense smelled like a ‘blood on the water’ situation, which is a ‘mean girl’ phenomenon where women who are fueled by self-righteous or cruelty will be empowered to circle where charged words are being thrown around.

And yeah after ha ha, I blocked the first one and the next said she’d probably block me too, I absolutely did. My contributions to that site have led to many women touching my heart by telling me they find strength or comfort in my words and I would never jeopardize that for a couple of petty nonsensical brats who… pretended to champion some hypothetical sensitive women by attacking an actual one, on a group where many are already sensitive and scared? Sure, ladies; nice try, you win! Here’s your prize? 

I’ve had a rough week, healing and learning how to listen to my body. The old me might have torn them to shreds but possibly lost access to a group I am passionate about helping other women in. If I lost that, I’d really be no better than them for losing sight of the big picture. If you care about really helping other women, let the little toothy ones think they’ve won. I don’t take pride in losing things I care about over poorly argued attacks. I know my character. Those who matter do as well. Those who decide not to like you will refuse to see your character and you disparage your own character to potential allies when you lash out childishly in public forums. You don’t ever need to defend yourself when your character speaks for itself.

So yeah, Mean Girls was a great movie; mean girls, however, are a garbage relic of the past. If women are ever going to repair what held us back, lifting each other up needs to be more than posturing.