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In the latest “Oprah’s Lifeclass” episode, Oprah and her new gal pal Iyanla Vanzant discussed all the horrific and terrible things that women do to each other, including betraying each other, lying, gossiping and being competitive.
According to Vanzant, self-hate, the need for validation, unrealistic demands and poor social conditioning, among other things, are the reasons why women tend to betray other women. Oprah agreed and then reached into her mystical bag of intuitive light bulb moments, which I’m sure is some mumbo-jumbo she probably swiped from The Secret, and told us that truly successful people want other people around them to be empowered. Ah, Oprah and her enigmatic laws of attraction. I don’t know about that considering that our entire capitalistic, consumer based system is entirely operated on empowering ourselves at the expense of those countries in the third world – but that’s another post for another day and time.
Anyway, Oprah, who felt that women were the number one perpetrators of gossip, added this bit of insight: “If a person will betray you by gossip they will betray you in any other way if they had the opportunity.”
First off, can we all agree that Vanzant, whose show will premiere sometime next week, is going to single handily save Oprah’s network? Even Oprah acknowledged as much during the episode when she said that Vanzant was one of her biggest supporters, which I think is actually code for ratings generator. I’m not a huge fan of Vanzant, which I wrote extensively before about, but I have to give her credit for knowing how to work the shenanigans we normally see on television into a bunch of random clichés disguised as self help.
I can’t wait to watch.
But back to the issue at hand, ladies, are we truly meaner than men?
It’s no secret that when it comes to building friendships, I tend to lean more to the male persuasion, however I was intrigued by this topic. And you might think because of my previous post that my answer is a flat out yes, women are meaner than men. I will acknowledge that the greatest pains and frustrations in my life have been mostly generated by women. And I will also admit that for me, friendships between women are more difficult to navigate than the ones I have with men. Men are just easier.
For instance, I haven’t spoken to one of my male friends for a good two months, despite his numerous attempts to reach me by telephone. I bet a million virtual dollars that if I was to pick up the phone and call him, he might inquire about my absence but ultimately he will shrug it off and go on to the next topic. No way in hell would that fly with a woman. I’d probably be bombarded by expressions about how my absence hurt her feelings. At this point in my life, I’m just not interested in that.
However, I do feel that the answer to that question about levels of meanness is completely dependent on the person under discussion. I know some women have really good relationships with other women. Likewise, I think that women are probably socialized most around other women, therefore our relationships with each other are all we have to base this comparison on. And for a fair comparison, we would have to have an independent surveyor, someone not aligned to any gender. But since no one ever polls the asexual community and we have yet to make contact with martians, I’m pretty sure that we can never really truly know, which gender is more toxic, bitchy or competitive than the other.
But unlike Oprah, who is convinced that men don’t gossip, I can tell you without a doubt that gossip is not exclusive to women. In fact, two of the biggest gossip columnists are Perez Hilton and Fred Mwangaguhunga of Mediatakeout. Last I checked, they were both born male. But outside of the paid hearsayers, recent research has claimed that men, on average, are more prone to gossip, although the chatter between the fellas tends to bring guys closer, whereas our gossip tends to tear female friends apart.
It should also be noted that not all gossip is bad. As another recent study has suggested, the most common form of gossip involves folks relaying warnings to other people about untrustworthy others as opposed to maliciously gossiping to tarnish someone’s reputation. Sort of like this particular episode of Oprah’s Lifeclass where we had women sharing tawdry stories of betrayal from other women, who weren’t in the room to defend themselves. See what I just did there?
Vanzant went on to discuss how we are mirrors of each other and what we put out there is basically what we get back. There is truth to that, but real karma doesn’t need a cause. Sometimes some folks are just rotten. And sometimes bad things – as well as bad folks – just happen. And no amount of self reflection in the world will fix that. Such as this one guest seeking Vanzant’s council, who opened up about being betrayed by a friend who ran and told her business to a bunch of other people and being in the uncomfortable position of having to answer to her personal matters to a bunch of strangers. Vanzant rightly, and ironically, told her to stop thinking of herself as a victim, but instead to realize that her “friend” had a break in character and to use this moment as lessons on how to teach people how to treat you.
“If you don’t want anybody to know it, don’t tell it to anyone,” Word.
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