So it’s no secret that girls can sometimes be shady and messy with one another. It’s been evident all throughout history the interaction of female quarrels. You don’t need to take a human chemistry or psychology class to know that the female population can sometimes just be:
Especially in college!
You would think that at a time in our lives as young women, with all the opportunities to elevate and grow, so would our maturity. No.
Even if you don’t have the pleasure of being the wrath of someone’s side eye or slick comment, you can still see the communication around your campus with girls. Just past by one on the sidewalk chatting it up with her friend; you’re bound to overhear some type of drama going on in her life. “OMG! Like, she’s just sooooooo messy, I can’t even deal.”
The real question is, why do we do this ladies? Understanding and answering this question is how we can realize that girls compete, but women empower.
Now logically, technically we are competing in college. The girl next to you in your major class going for the same degree and jobs as you will be your competitor in the career world someday. Even while you’re here in college, competition can be found in everything from student organizations to other leadership roles on campus. It doesn’t stop there; from future cars, to future houses, to future spouses, and even future children, it’s always a competition to see whose where and who has what in life. That’s the world we live in unfortunately, but what if we could change our perspective on it?
Did you know we get more done when we actually collaborate instead of competing? Check out this example of a scenario:
“Jasmine and Amber are best friends in college under the same major as RTVF. They both want to pursue something in the hollywood film industry. They both join the film club on their campus as freshmen and sophomores, and learn a lot together about their field of study as members. Eventually though, like with every organization, the presidents and exec board members graduate, and need the latest members to take over in those positions. Now Jasmine knows that it would be great to have a resume that says President of the film club in the future, and pitches the idea to Amber to run as her Vice or another exec board member. Amber however feels that she would also make a great President, and wants to run up for it as well. The girls stress that they don’t want to let the competition break their friendship up and want to make it a fun experience for themselves. It’s all fun and games until it starts to get serious and real though. Amber has always been the more outgoing personality with a lot of popularity among the other film club members. She’s a hard worker, but she more so makes everyone comfortable and relaxed in an environment. Jasmine has always been reserved and quiet to the members. She’s also a hard worker, but tends to do a little bit more when it comes to her work, because she’s focused on that instead of forging new relationships with the other members. As they both go for the presidency title, popularity has its hand in the elections. It seems like Amber is getting all the attention, and Jasmine starts to feel a big of resentment towards her friend. She distances herself, and when Amber’s not looking decides to bribe the members for their vote, and even starts to spread gossip about Amber that only a best friend would know. Eventually word gets back to Amber, and obviously a rivalry has begun. There’s tension between the once two friends. Now, even if whoever wins President of the organization, there will always be drama among the members which doesn’t help for the mission of the organization at all.”
Now you can say a lot about this scenario, and have two opposing sides, but the truth of the matter is, competing like this only causes a downfall. Try to think of yourself as an organization, and think of Amber and Jasmine as your angels and demons. We know that as women we can sometimes feel little pangs of jealousy for other women. We might believe that we’re more qualified for anything (relationships, leader positions, opportunities, beauty, ideas) but we cannot just show those insecurities because we feel that way.
Jasmine and Amber could have easily saw their strengths and weaknesses as leaders, and ultimately it is the members who decide which strength should hold the office of presidency. When you realize that collaborations work for you, and competing works against you, you can overall achieve more than you thought possible by yourself.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the girlish gossip, and end up resenting your counterparts during “friendly” competition but keep this in mind ladies:
“It’s not about the titles or the position. It’s about empowering and the mission.”