I recently came across behaviour that I can only describe as female competitiveness. Like everyone in business, you have “competitors” and I really dislike that word. I prefer to call them “colleagues”. In fact there is a group of “colleagues” that I really enjoy speaking to and catching up with. Yes, we’re all in the same industry, but we all do something different within that industry.
Ok so back to this person. It’s someone that I had vaguely heard their name before, but nothing more than that. I like to take the approach of putting my blinkers on and doing my own thing and not getting caught up in what others are doing. I’m not going to say exactly what transpired, but I received an email from this said person flat out accusing me of something. I decided I wasn’t going to email back but call them instead to see what was going on.
From the sound of their voice they were very surprised. She used the word “competitor” a lot. After this conversation I honestly did think, f*%$ what a bitch. Why are people like this??? And then I just left it.
Then she took it to the next level. She decided to tweet cryptically about it, I think with the sole purpose of people asking who she was talking about. Again, who does this?? One quick look at her feed, told me, well she does this…a lot. And about everything and everyone. I won’t take it personally, it seems to be her personality.
My question is though, why is it so hard for women to acknowledge that there are other women in the same field that are also talented at what they do? And why do they feel the need to compete? For me, I left my competitive days on the netball court. ?
There is a really great website http://www.bitchinthecity.com/ that explores the intricacies of female competitive behaviour.
Remember, when women support each other, incredible things happen.
