It’s not men that women should worry about – it is other women

By Nina Steele 

I came across an old Daily Mail article (published in 2009) entitled: “Why bosses are right to distrust women who don’t want children… by a VERY outspoken mother (and ex-boss)”, and I nearly fell off my chair in disbelief.

The article is scathing about childfree women, and calls them all sorts of names. Every prejudice you have ever heard directed at the childfree are held up as facts, while mothers are all saints and angels, who can do no wrong.

Apparently, every single mother on the planet is full of compassion, is selfless, kind and hard working. Yes you heard. She proudly states: “You cannot be a mother without knowing something about selflessness, compassion, generosity, commitment, fierce loyalty and plain hard work”. So all those children in care are a figment of our imagination.

Women are often other women’s worse nightmares. They judge, they mock, they condemn, all out of their own insecurities. Instead of dealing with their own issues, they find it easier to bring other women down.

Whenever a woman seem happy and content with her life, another woman who is struggling with hers, feels that it is her right to make the other as miserable as she is. That way, no one wins.

I remember a colleague I used to work with. She hated Victoria Beckham with a vengeance. She said it herself. All because Victoria has managed to stay slim even after giving birth to four children. My ex-colleague, a mother of two, on the other hand, has been battling with her weight ever since her first child.

What she hated the most, was the fact that Victoria Beckham gave the impression of being very disciplined when it comes to food, in a way that she could only dream of. It was much easier for her to hate Victoria, than to deal with her eating habits.

Which brings me back to the Mail article. Look closer at the criticism directed at the childfree and you will find that it is nothing more than jealousy. A jealousy that says: how dare you have it so easy while I had to go through all the pain of raising children!

Again, another false assumption that every childfree person lives a hedonistic lifestyle. And the article doesn’t fail to point this out, in the following statement: “It’s not the mothers, for a start, who are going to turn up late and hungover after a night on the razz; they’ll have been up, dressed and alert for hours, having cooked a family breakfast and delivered their children to school. On time.”

Yes men are critical of women too, but more often than not, it is other women who are our worst enemies.