Page 32 - MidWeek - Oct 20, 2021

32 MIDWEEK OCTOBER 20, 2021
I got a boob job two years ago. My best friend, see- ing the results, wanted
THE SCIENCE ADVICE GODDESS Amy Alkon
When Your Best Friend Has Venus Envy
one, too. When she realized she couldn’t afford it, she started making snide com- ments about women who get them. Recently, a guy was hitting on me at a party, and she started flirting with him and asked, “Do you think I need a boob job?” and told him I’ d gotten one. I was shocked. I’d like to say something to her, but she’s the louder part of my friend group, and I’m unsure how. — Disturbed
ducking mean remarks. Many people have a roman- ticized view of women as the sweet, ever-nurturing “better angels of our nature.” That’s a major myth, but it continues to have traction due to the na- ture of female rivalry, which is much like slow-acting poi- son gas. (It’s often hard for a woman to recognize she’s been dosed ... till she’s writhing on the floor like a goldfish sucking
She believes women evolved to compete this way to avoid physical harm that might have damaged their ability to have or care for children.
you, performed the vital public service of informing him your bodacious boobs are, in fact, siliconey islands.
rior, even accidentally,” she is guilty of a crime against the rest and “faces social exclu- sion.” This carries through to adulthood, with the thinking (summed up by Benenson): “Nice women don’t try to out- do their female peers.”
fronting this woman about what she did might be problem- atic. Additionally, research by evolutionary psychologists Ta- nia Reynolds and Jaime Palm- er-Hague suggests your stand- ing up for yourself — telling this woman her behavior was out of line — could be por- trayed by her (to other women in your circle) as your victim- izing her! Thus, putting a big stain on your reputation!
Self-defense for men is karate or maybe Krav Maga. For women, it’s more like
Men tend to prefer natural breasts (though their eyes go boi-oi-oing! at the big, pert fakeuns). Your “best friend,” spotting that a guy seemed into
“Should a girl appear supe-
That’s one reason why con-
in its last desperate breaths.) While from boyhood on, guys tend to relish competi- tion and are openly aggressive (like when one socks another in the jaw), psychologist Anne Campbell describes female aggression as “indirect” and “covert” (sneaky and hidden).
Common sneaky ladywar tactics include weaponizing a group of women against a targeted woman by spreading nasty gossip about her and rallying the coven to ostracize her. In the presence of a man or men, one woman will try to undermine another woman’s mate value by revealing her supposed hussyhood or trash- ing her looks.
Why would she do this? Well, unbeknownst to you, you violated an unspoken rule of female society by amping up your appeal to men via Boob Fairy, M.D.: openly compet- ing with other women. It’s the “openly” part that’s the prob- lem. Psychologist Joyce Ben- enson explains that, in contrast with “the constant male strug- gle to figure out who is better, faster, smarter or otherwise more skilled,” girls and wom- en enforce “equality” among themselves and resent and punish women who stand out.
Of course, women do com- pete. But, Benenson notes — per interviews with hun- dreds of women by various researchers — women deny they compete with one another, even to themselves. This sub- conscious self-deception — “a woman’s honest belief that she never competes with other fe- males” — allows her to do just that without any pangs of con- science getting in her way.
Compared with “tradition- al forms of gossip” (the sort readily perceived as catty and mean), women’s disclosures of a friend’s hurting their feel- ings (kindness “violations”) get a pass, Reynolds and Palmer-Hague observe. They are “relatively trusted and ap-
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