There’s something I fundamentally don’t understand about girls who say they hate other girls. Don’t they realize that they’re girls too?

The thing is, I used to be one of those. I used to say I liked my guy friends better, in general, because they were “more chill” and had “less drama.” By this I meant that they thought I was pretty and were therefore nice to me.

It took me a while to figure out what was wrong with this whole paradigm. The root of the problem was not that females are weak creatures who are capable of doing nothing but being bitches to one another. The problem was that 1) some of my girl friends were weak creatures capable of doing nothing but being bitches to one another, 2) I had applied these characteristics to an entire half of the world’s population, and 3) my girl friends probably only acted this way because society had forced them into it.

I was sort of bitchy too. But that was because I didn’t like girls anyway.

That girl’s rule #1: Can’t we all just get along?

It’s not uncommon to hear a girl talking loudly about how much she prefers her male companions. It seems to send a number of very desirable messages -

  1. “In saying that I don’t like most girls, I am removing myself from their category, so all of these horrible things that girls do are not things that I do.” This is usually patently false.
  2. “Boys like me.” This might be true.

Now, at risk of sounding like Tina Fey, why can’t we all see that tearing each other down is not going to make us any cooler? Calling the other girls bitchy didn’t make me nicer. That makes exactly zero senses when you think about it for more than a minute. I had to take a step back and realize my friends were supposed to be allies, not competitors (and for what? Social capital? The gaze?). What an idea, right? Cray!

Of course, some girls are still bitches. Some guys aren’t all that nice either. People can be great and people can suck and one must pretty much figure these things out on an individual basis. Writing off an entire gender because you feel uncomfortable with some of them is a silly thing to do.

That girl’s rule #2: Use your critical thinking skills, please.