End Girl Hate

Friday 11 March 2016

A couple of days ago was International Women's Day. A day where women from across the globe celebrated how much we have achieved, but also how far we still have to come.
What struck me about IWD this year is the amount women pulled together. No matter which social media site I was using, someone, somewhere was posting a positive message for the women around them. Every time I opened Twitter or Instagram, and even my personal Facebook, there was a strong, passionate, beautiful, kind, fierce, sassy or brilliant women standing up and making her voice heard - sharing her thoughts or simply celebrating the ladies in her life. The more I scrolled the more messages of positivity, love, support, encouragement and remembrance I saw.



All in all this completely filled my heart with joy, why wouldn't it? Women rallying round each other, supporting each other, championing each other - this happens all the time, right?

The love and care and positivity that I watched grow this International Women's Day is something that I wish and dream happened all the time. That these were an every day staple of girl world but I guess you heard the irony in my questions. 
You would have thought that if the film Mean Girls had taught us anything it's that treating other females badly doesn't get you anywhere in life, and won't make you feel any better either. Yet somehow it feels like women didn't get the message.




Girl on girl hate is a problem that just seems to be growing and growing and growing. Whether it's a snide bitchy comment, a looks-could-kill glare, slut shamming, telling someone that they're fat, taking the shit out of that girls sense of style, lying to your friend, laughing because she didn't get the joke or so much more. Everyone knows what it is I'm talking about, whether you've done it, seen it or felt the pain of it, girl on girl hate goes on every day in the little things and the big. Girl on girl hate destroys self esteem, it belittles peoples confidence, it causes anxiety and can lead to other mental health issues, it ends friendships, it shatters dreams.

As Cady Heron in mean girls puts it; Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George's life definitely didn't make me any happier.  

Us humans are wired with the capacity to love and love and love, and that means of course women are too. As I sat and watched the support and joy and encouragement and respect for other women spread and spread on International Women's Day, I ask the question, why does this have to keep to one day a year? What would happen if we all took a step in ending girl hate?


What would the world look like if instead of hate or jealousy, women loved and championed? If instead of looking down on or discouraging, girls supported and stood with each other? If instead of taring each other down, ladies built each other up? 

We were not made to walk this life alone, we are stronger together, let's dream dangerously for each other! Let's fiercely support, defend and champion the fantastic, brilliant and world changing women, ladies and girls in our lives. 

And so in the wake of International Women's Day, let's end girl hate, let's shine some light into a dark world and let's celebrate the successes of the women around us whether it be in the little things or the big. 

x