Girl hate, the feelings of unhealthy competitiveness and hatred between girls and women, is a social phenomenon rooted in sexist cultural ideas. Girl hate often arises when girls are pitted against each other, whether for romantic prospects or power in a patriarchal society. As feminine people, we all try to survive and succeed as best as we can in a society built to benefit cis white men; however, when our methods to thrive harm other feminine people or the cause for gender equality altogether, problems arise.

Women living at the intersection of woman/feminine and another marginalized identity (such as being a woman of color) have been emphasizing how modern white feminism only benefits white, upper-class women. Social movements must begin to consider how equality for an individual or the privileged group may harm everyone else. Is gender equality really gender equality if only some women are achieving equality?

On an individual, interpersonal level, girl hate reflects how modern gender equality efforts are often just efforts for some people. When girls are pitted against each other, only one girl will “win,” ostracizing the other while simultaneously shattering any sense of sisterhood. 

When reading Emma Dabiri’s Twisted and What White People Can Do Next, Dabiri’s emphasis on community and coalition left a large impression on me. She argued that opponents of racial equality specifically worked to divide marginalized groups so that coalition could not be achieved and the unequal power structure could not be overthrown.

With girl hate, sexist ideas perpetuate how social relationships are worked out. Competition based on beauty, romance, and male validation divide up women and leave men in power. For instance, in a cheating scenario where a woman is left by a man for another woman, the other woman is usually blamed. The man who decided to cheat is often let off the hook. This interaction reiterates that other women are competition and that the man’s sexuality is “uncontrollable” and therefore excuses cheating.

Even in situations where a femme person is involved with a single person, slut-shaming is very prominent. There are all the evils of shaming healthy sexuality and creating sexual extremes for women, plus slut-shaming brings in girl hate. Slut-shaming is done by all genders, but when done by women to other women, it reflects women’s acceptance of sexism and our desire to distance ourselves from “imperfect women.”

This distancing from other women is also represented in the “not like other girls” trope. Attempting to be different from other women implies that being a woman or feminine is negative and reflects internalized sexism. 

These attitudes and unhealthy rivalries were definitely represented in 2000s and 2010s culture and media. However, girl hate’s modern-day prominence should not be ignored. Some competition and disagreements are prone to happen, and not everything is attributed to sexism in American culture. Women are not a monolith and everyone is not affected by girl hate in the same way. However, social patterns and attitudes reflect that women are taught to put other femme people down in order to achieve more gender equality. We need to fix the individualism, white supremacy, and classism in our gender equality strategies. The first step towards achieving that is rebuilding our sisterhood.