Jessica Brinton has a brilliant article today in The Times about female friendships, female jealousy, and Professor Shere Hite's new book The Hite Report on Women loving Women. All of us have know what jealousy and envy feel like, and some of us know about it more than we care to admit. While it's perfectly natural to feel jealousy when our friend, say, wins an Oscar or gets loads of attention for their fantastic new haircut, far too many women let this jealousy spoil their friendships instead of just going with it. Brinton says that Hite's book explains that if only women spent as much time on their friendships as they did their romantic relationships, more female friendships would last for longer, and fall out less.
"Hite says that there is an underlying tension in relationships between girls that makes us compete with each other rather than get along. She thinks that if we could only overcome it, we would be all set for a new kind of 21st-century female power, one that relies not on trying to be sexier than one another, but on helping each other out."
How many female friendships do you know of that have been spoiled by jealousy? Far too many, I'm sure. I really do wonder what would happen if we all put a little more effort in to our friendships with other women...