Feeling Green: How to Handle Jealousy
Maybe she’s a friend, a sister, or a classmate. Perhaps she’s a stranger, someone you see in passing on the way to class or at the gym. She’s the girl with the perfect hair and wardrobe, the one with the killer body, the one who seems like she has it all together. Whoever she is, it feels like she has something you don’t, something that you want, and even if it doesn’t logically make sense, you can’t help but feel jealous of her.
Jealousy itself isn’t inherently a bad thing. It’s just another human emotion, one that everyone experiences due to our natural tendency to fixate on our insecurities. No matter how much we might love ourselves or how confident we may feel, there always seems to be something about ourselves that we would like to change, and unfortunately we’re inclined to ignore all of our positive attributes and focus on what we consider our flaws. One of the many negative consequences of this mindset is for us to harbor feelings of jealousy towards others who seem to have what we want. Although we are free to experience our emotions honestly as individuals, we are all accountable for how we act upon our emotions. This is where envy, if left unchecked, can become toxic in our lives and relationships, especially if we are jealous of another woman.
The first response many women have when they become jealous of another woman is to tear her down in a twisted attempt to level the playing field. I will admit that I have done it. Sometimes if I am with my friends and a woman I am jealous of comes up in conversation, my first reaction is to make some snide comment about how she’s only pretty because she tries too hard or how she’s only doing so well in school because she has nothing else going on in her life. I’m not proud of it, and I always feel awful the second that the words leave my mouth. But I’m not alone in this behavior. A few years ago, writer Samantha Brick wrote an article about how she is discriminated against due to her physical beauty, especially by other women. Ironically, most of the commentary the article received came from other women who called Brick “delusional” or “vain” and claimed that she wasn’t nearly as pretty as she wrote herself to be, thus inadvertently proving Brick’s point. If we bring this negative conduct to light, it’s easy to label as bullying. So why do we do this, and more importantly, how do we get ourselves to stop?
Psychologists who have studied female bullying have offered an explanation for the way women verbally degrade each other. From an early age, girls are taught that they can’t be outwardly confrontational with their competitors the way boys can. If boys are openly hostile or aggressive, they are “just being boys”, but it’s downright “unladylike” for girls to express similar behavior. So girls resort to underhanded, verbal enmity as a way to face others they view as threatening. On the surface, this seems preferable to physical altercations or even louder, more in-your-face verbal confrontation, but anyone who has felt the sting of harsh words knows that they cut deep and last long. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes the go-to way to deal with negative emotions, especially jealousy.
For obvious reasons, it is not okay to tear others down for any reason. But jealousy is one of the worst reasons because our cruelty is the direct result of our own insecurities, which means that the other person is completely undeserving of such treatment. If we let it, envy can create huge emotional rifts between us and other women, and that’s the last thing we need. All of us are in this together, so we should aim to constantly support one another unconditionally. This means we should treat other women as friends rather than adversaries, and those we are jealous of as role models for the positive change we wish to see in our lives rather than threats.
Again, it’s completely normal for us to be jealous of other women. We are only human, after all. However, it’s important that we keep ourselves from using these emotions to fuel any hostility, as we can never know the full consequences of our actions. So instead, try using envy as a tool. Channel resentment into action and implement positive changes in your life to help you overcome your insecurities and become the person that you want to be. Even better, try reaching out to the girl you envy, and perhaps she can help you reach your personal goals. Who knows, you might make a friend out of someone you see as a competitor.