A Call to Arms

If women are going to continue to break down barriers and keep the fight of feminism alive, we have got to lay off the girl on girl crime. This is something that affects women of all ages. Several weeks ago in Salon Magazine I read an article by  Martha P. Nochimson, an established former NYU professor and author, take down Katheryn Bigelow simply because she didn’t like her movie. Okay, The Hurt Locker wasn’t her cup of tea, but Ms. Nochimson took it to an extremely unacceptable and unprofessional place by not just criticizing Kathryn Bigelow’s work but Kathryn Bigelow herself. Sadly, the go-to put down of name calling was present, but for me, she also employed a much more damaging approach when she pitted two women (also successful filmmakers) against Kathryn Bigelow in order to prove her point. (A point, mind you, grounded in personal taste) Why take three accomplished women and cheapen their work with these immature tactics?  Do we really need to tear one woman down to build another up? Where is this getting us?

Society would have us believe it’s nature not nurture that makes woman jealous and competitive with each other. I do not believe, not for a split second, that it is inherently in women to be more jealous, competitive (or that deplorable term, “catty”) than men. Not when I’m bombarded with a constant stream of divisive images targeted at women and the blatant undermining of our self confidence from a culture obsessed with female beauty.  It makes me sick when I hear women tell me that they don’t have female friends because they can’t handle the “drama” or the “politics”. It just won’t due and  I keep coming back to that old adage- “United we conquer, divided we fall.”

I feel sorry for Ms. Nochimson, to me, a sign of personal growth and maturity in becoming a woman is in realizing that taking another woman down doesn’t get you any farther. In fact, it takes us as a collective whole an immeasurable number of steps back.

Although the world might make T.V. shows out of our harmful actions and exploit that pain to sell us more products, we as women really do have to stand together and say enough is enough. We’re only as strong as our weakest link and it frightens me that right now a respected and successful women like Ms. Martha P. Nochismson, writing for a credited website such as Salon might just be it.