From the time that little girls are born, society expects them to fit into a certain mold, a particular role and possess certain characteristics. The characteristics that are expected of them are assumed to be natural and inflexible. Little girls are always instructed on how they should look, how they should behave and how they should feel. Little girls should be beautiful, dainty, neat, polite, nurturing and well-behaved. When she deviates from the identity given to her by society she becomes disillusioned about her self-worth and role in society. This is the root of self-hatred and low self-esteem for many women. Women envy other women who society perceives as being more beautiful or physically attractive than other females; no matter how educated, successful, wealthy or intelligent she is.

Women compete with each other at a societal level, the criteria for winning is usually set by others and the results are subjective and intangible. Women are usually judged by characteristics that they have little control over; something that they did not create, and that exist outside of themselves such as their physical appearance. Her success is based on subjective, biased, external validation by others. She can’t see how to beat her rival because her rival is in no more control of the outcome than she is. How can a woman really be more beautiful than another woman, when the decision is nothing more than someone else’s opinion of beauty?

Women compete with each other for male attention and compliments as if it feeds their self-worth and self-esteem. Women try to dress sexier and have shapelier bodies than other women. Women are so busy competing with each other for male attention that they do not have the psychological, intellectual or emotional insight to change the social climate that is causing them to suffer from low-self esteem.

Women think of men as being promiscuous, unfaithful, lying, cheating dogs. But what most women need to come to grips with and understand is that research shows that a man is most likely to have an affair with a woman’s best friend, relative or neighbor… a woman whom she trusts, loves and respects. One of the reasons that men who cheat are so successful at it is because women allow them to because they are in competition with each other.

Women believe that they are superior to other women if they are physically more attractive. In a commercial for a diet pill a woman bragged, “I am now smaller than the woman my husband left me for.” This statement leads me to believe that she felt that she deserved her husband’s infidelity when she was overweight. Her motive for losing weight was to be physically smaller than the other woman that her husband left her for.

She viewed the other woman as competition more so than feeling betrayed by her husband’s disloyalty. The wife’s motive for losing weight was not to improve the status of her health or increase her self-esteem but be smaller than her competition__ the other woman. The weight control commercial is blatantly telling women that they need to look a certain way in order to earn their husband’s love and fidelity.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you cook his meals, raise his kids, and support his dreams… what matters most in a relationship is whether or not you are physically attractive enough to keep your man at home. There is an assumption that it is natural for a man to cheat on a woman who he feels is no longer sexually appealing. Many women believe that it is their fault when their husband or boyfriend cheats on them because they are not attractive enough to keep him faithful.

A woman’s perception of self-worth is validated outside of herself from others and this affects her internal psychological concept of her own value as a human being. Women envy other women because they have not learned how to recognize and channel their internal desires, feelings and goals into physical, tangible realities that are uniquely their own. Once women learn that they cannot control or live vicariously through their children; their body image or the man in their life; they will stop envying each other and focus on their individual unique gifts, talents and assets.