the truth about women and rivalry
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Barash, Susan Shapiro
- Publish Year
- 2006
- Shelfmark
- VS 39 2006
- Thesaurus
- relaties, vriendinnen, heteroseksualiteit, conflicten, jaloezie, voortgezet onderwijs, vrouwenbewegingen
- Description
- Barash finds that women's solidarity with one another is mythical in this treatment of female rivalry, a subject she recognized in previous books but never before focused on in 'a study that would show both the external pressures and the internal dynamics that led to envy, jealousy and competition.' Insufficient options are the root cause of women's rivalry, she contends, arguing that society's limiting, narrowly defined roles for women create a situation in which there isn't enough to go around: hence, competition. Ironically, her study of 500 heterosexual women of varied ages, races, and backgrounds found that rivalry intensified as women moved from 1950s domesticity to the twenty-first-century's expanded options. Pressure to hide such rivalry has grown, too, and is a key to understanding women's urge to outdo each other conclusively, since the combination of concealment and competition is exhausting, especially for those who came of age during the passionate perihelion of -sisterhood-is-powerful ideology.