Female Insecurity and Competition

between and insecurity among women is often mistaken for male oppression. They all seemed perfect, these girls. Or were they almost women --tight shorts, skimpy skirts, halter tops, thin arms and long legs? Yet, there was a sense of insecurity in the air, the kind of insecurity that is only felt in female bathrooms -- a sense of mutual comparison, evaluation and endless competition. It was this competition, I suppose, that moved these girls to constantly fix their makeup, to brush their hair up to expose their long necks, to dance better, to show more skin and to drink with ease. To say the least, I was not at all prepared for the scene in this club, which seemed more like a Melrose Place filming than a place to dance and hang out with friends. Questioning why I paid five dollars to watch these girls flirt with undeserving, slimy guys, I felt trapped, as did my friends. The three of us stood in the corner most of the night. To say the least, we felt uncomfortable in this aura of pseudo-glamour created mostly by perfume and hairspray. But I also felt pity mixed with silent awe at the effort these women were making to be noticed, to be seen and admired. Of course there had to be some reasonable explanation for the way they were acting -- they were probably all jobless, high school dropouts with little going in their lives, except for maybe a marriage prospect or two, right? Wrong! Of course, few men see the preparations that go on beforehand. Unfortunately, I did -- watching my roommate perform the weekly ritual of squeezing herself into her tightest pair of jeans, curl her hair, run around with friends, begging for advice on make-up and borrowing blouses. But why? I could no longer use the excuse of having little going in their lives of these seemingly intelligent, Ivy League women. By all standards they had active lives: one was involved in a sports team, another occupied a leadership position in student government. Yet, they had more in common with the club girls than they would ever acknowledge. Once again, it was that particular sense of insecurity mixed with competition. The same insecurity that probably moved my roommate to join a sorority. And the same insecurity that made her and many others dress up and proceed with all of the sorority functions. These functions began every weekend with sorority visits, done in the inevitable attire: a long, dark skirt, high heels and a blouse. What went on during these functions I can only piece together from overheard conversations, mostly coming from dissatisfied hopefuls: "Oh, and you have to smile and talk and you have ten minutes to meet each sister, and then they decide if they like you. And next weekend we are having a sleepover, and we have to bring our favorite stuffed toys . . . " All sorority functions seemed like charades. Their use escaped me then, as it escapes me now. They definitely do not provide a comforting environment for girls -- what comfort can one derive from being scrutinized by others in order to be accepted? Serving to keep these girls busy can also be safely rejected as a purpose -- between classes and extracurricular activities most Penn girls are hardly idle. Sororities are also far from amusing -- whose idea of fun is it to be judged and criticized by others? The only apparent purpose sororities serve, then, is to give girls a chance to compete with each other. The same competition that forced the club girls to act the way they did, and the same competition that encouraged my roommate to religiously follow the fraternity party scene. So why is it that more than seventy years after being given the right to vote, thirty years into the feminist movement and twenty years after Row vs. Wade we still cling to the same stereotypes that annoyed our grandmothers? We are not stupid, yet we buy Glamour magazine just to find out what to say on a date. We are not completely void of common sense, but our dining hall preference is still the salad bar, and we still declare ourselves to be "stuffed" after munching on low-cal Italian with some lettuce. We can hardly be called insane, yet we spend ten hours a week exhausting ourselves at the gym, only to obtain those "abs of steel" we see on TV. All this in pursuit of some unattainable goal. No, it is not the ultimate womanhood. Nor is it happiness, for happiness does not begin with landing the most desirable date at a frat party. Instead, it is peer pressure that extends among all females: sorority girls, club girls, girls with Glamour subscriptions and newest diet plans. We are all caught in this endless competition, without pity for each other. Pretentious, we are prepared to do everything to get ahead of another female we see as a potential competitor: we follow the latest trends not hesitating to backstab if necessary And if one of us sticks out and dares to reject the stereotypes we create for each other, be it Hillary Clinton or Madonna, we are quick to judge and to condemn, so that no one wins in the end. So, next time you hear another woman claim that she is suffering under male oppression, ask yourself if it is really male. Or could it be something that we, women, project on each other?