Self confidence and women supporting women

[Guest lydiahardwood]

Got some pretty deep thoughts going on in this little head of mine today. I'm fortunate enough to have a very close group of girl friends, all whom I love dearly. We gass each other up, pay each other compliments and remind each other how much we mean to each other. People who know us always comment on how nice it is to see women supporting each other. But my experience of friendships with other women haven't always been this healthy.

How many times have you heard "she loves herself too much" or "she's beautiful but my god does she know it"? How many times have you said something similar?  I know I have been guilty of this on more than one occasion. So where does this stem from?

For me, I think it could be a combination of the following:

- The patriarchy pitching women against each other from an early age and encouraging us to see each other as competition

- Advertising and companies profiting off of our insecurities, leading us to be jealous/uncomfortable if someone doesn't show the same insecurities 

- Lack of diverse representation resulting in making someone think they're not beautiful just because they're not "conventionally attractive", leading to insecurity

- Genuine craving of attention and not wanting other women to receive the attention we want

Secondly... how do we get over this? For me I had to unlearn this kind of narrative against other women. Every time I felt myself disliking a confident woman for seemingly no reason (Anne Hathaway is a classic example - I can't think of a reason I didn't like her other than she's pretty and comes across as innocent) I had to stop and ask myself why I felt that way. For me I think they had what I lacked - love and appreciation for their authentic self. This is when I stopped covering up my "flaws"; I ditched the hair extensions, stopped fake tanning twice a week (yes, TWICE A WEEK), embraced my natural hair colour and stopped obsessing over my weight. Now I am very happy in my own skin (I had to fake it to get there) but funnily enough I now get people mocking me for my confidence. Funny, hey?!

Anyone else care to share some insight into this? Do men experience this issue too?

 

[OldandNerdy 1304]

Men most definitely experience something like this as well, just in different ways.

 

*Generally* men don't have the same dynamics together that *generally*  women do.  I'm using the terms generally here because I'm talking about the overall population here in the area I live, as well as what we see in media.  

 

Men won't necessarily "tear down" other men based on the way they look, but often will for things adjacent to that.  Things like height, athleticism, and that sort of thing.  It also takes a different form where there's lots of "shit talk" going on in a group of friends and for the most part it isn't taken to heart.  

 

Where it does seem similar to what you're talking about, has a lot of the same roots, how people are portrayed in media, and over the last decade, social media.

 

The idea that a man needs to be tall, strong, have not only a good paying job, but also an interesting job.  We have to also be handsome and masculine, but at the same time loving and caring, but not too loving and caring, and be outdoorsy and rustic. But don't forget well groomed and smell amazing, be confident, but also be humble, etc etc.  This is what media portrays, and it hits hard when you aren't particularly tall, or handsome, or your job is a bit odd (or in my case shrouded in mystery and smothered in secret sauce).

 

Overall I think we all face the same sort of insecurities.  We all struggle with how we look, while at the same time have preferences in how our partners look, which may be at odds with each other.  We all look in the mirror and obsess about the "flaws" that we see.

 

I think the big difference is that while women are more open to talk about it with a close group of friends, like you described, and they will help lift each other up, while those sorts of discussions don't happen as often in a group of male friends.  It's rare for a dude to tell another dude "Man!  You're looking hot tonight!"

 

I'm somewhat rambling at this point, my mind has been pretty distracted lately due to, well that doesn't matter, but my main point is. I don't think this is an issue that impacts a particular gender more than others, but I do think the personal recovery options are quite different depending on the gender.

[Guest lydiahardwood]

1 minute ago, OldandNerdy said:

I think the big difference is that while women are more open to talk about it with a close group of friends, like you described, and they will help lift each other up, while those sorts of discussions don't happen as often in a group of male friends.  It's rare for a dude to tell another dude "Man!  You're looking hot tonight!"

THIS.

I do see more of this happening amongst the younger generation of men these days, which I find refreshing. But yes I agree that there's a lot of pressure on men to be "masculine" and not talk about their feelings, especially with each other perhaps? Which more than likely goes hand in hand with mental health issues and high rates of depression/suicide amongst men. 

And don't worry about rambling - exactly what I was doing 😛 

[OldandNerdy 1304]

This may also be an unpopular opinion to actually state, but hey. I've never been that popular anyway! 

 

If you're a single guy, and don't fit the ideal mold of what a guy should be according to the ones who control the various media empires; online dating, online profiles, tinder, POF, etc are the bane of your existence due primarily to the law of supply and demand.

 

There are many more men on these sites looking for whatever, as compared to the number of women on them.  Women can afford to be more choosy of who they are going to spend time with.  This amplifies the self-hate culture, and starts bringing out the worst of the personality traits among the "rejected" masses of men, and why you see such a huuge number of complaints about "creepy dudes" online.

 

This means that the newer generation of women are being told at a young age to expect it.  Where in previous generations, women needed to be careful of some creepy dudes in public, now they need to be wary of 10^X creepy dudes online who are so desperate for any sort of attention that they start off aggressive and have their finger poised on the "Send Dicture" button on their phone.

 

The self hate and desperation just gets worse, the guys feel worse about themselves and lose all semblance of decorum and just keep digging themselves into a deeper hole.

 

Then there's me. I'd like to think I'm not creepy, I'm just not particularly tall, not particularly athletic, and I can pass for "cuteish " on a good day, but in many cases, I would get automatically lumped into the "creep" category online, and more and more in person because of my age, solely based on not meeting this media centric ideal of what a "guy" should look like.

 

Like I was saying before, similar to what women face, just with different twists.  Men are just starting to catch up over the past few years to what women have been facing since at least the 1950s, in trying to adhere to that ideal media centric woman.

 

Ok I'll stop talking now, I ramble way too much these days.  Old man rambling even.

[NotchJohnson 214136]

I like to remain in my circle of friends(men and women) who are confident people and feel well in our bodies.  A lot of what you are saying Lydia is thought at a young age.  My parents always told us to respect others the way you want to be respected so don't judge, don't discriminate and don't laugh at someone else's flaws. 

I had a friend tell me once that he was jealous of me....I asked why and he said that I had everything going my way.  I presented myself well and that people listen to me when I spoke and I had a gorgeous wife and lots of money.  We sat down and discussed everything that he said made me better.  When we were done he looked at life differently, I made him feel like he was better then me and that I wish I was in his shoes.  All we get in life is what we are looking for.  You want to be famous, do something to make yourself famous etc...

Yes, I was a firefighter and for whatever reason people look up to them(sometimes) but I risked my life doing this for living.  I don't do this anymore because of a bad accident that happened about 10 years ago, I decided to change my life and that was my decision.

I think you get the idea...