Illana Weizman: ‘Female rivalry is a self-hatred that will never pass through me again’

The thread of my female rivalries begins in childhood. I am a fragile boy of about ten years old when I first start comparing myself with my classmates. Guys don’t seek my company, they don’t send me notes asking if they can become my lover, and they don’t jostle at the gate to hold my hand in line. Plus, they’re not the target of their favorite game: lifting the skirts of girls in an organized gang.

They were adorned with long, straight, blonde hair when I was decked out with the black, thick, textured hair inherited from my parents from North Africa. I harbored increasingly intense jealousy and an inferiority complex.

Ilana Weizmann

gender rivalry

What were actually proto-predatory attitudes under the innocent trappings of childish games were then for me a signal of interest that I wanted to be the target of. I then tried to figure out why Claire and Sophie were these kids’ favorite targets and why I was left out. I probed our differences. They were adorned with long, straight, blonde hair when I was decked out with the black, thick, textured hair inherited from my parents from North Africa. I harbored increasingly intense jealousy and an inferiority complex. At night, I dreamed that a good fairy came to place her wand on the crown of my head to give me the hair I so wanted, and a rivalry was born with my gender mates..

In college, I’m what’s called a “tomboy.” My breasts don’t glow, puberty is late, and I’m not as fit as some of my classmates. I dress loose, exclusively in sportswear, I dream of being looked at and validated by the male gaze without that happeningthen I live vicariously the first love stories of my popular girlfriends molded in the mold of adequate adolescent femininity. We read the magazines Girls, Young and beautiful, Cosmoswho tell us how to kiss well, how to please a boy, what attitudes to adopt, what make-up to put on eyelids, lips and cheekbones and what clothes to wear so as not to be too “pork” nor too “modest”.

male validation

At that moment the hierarchies widen further, there are the good girls, the ugly ones, the lambdas. The boys give us notes : “That’s a shrimp, it’s fine except for the head”, “Body 8/10, face 3/10”. Girls, we don’t exist and we don’t act for ourselves, but to be approved by the dominant male..

The ideal mother is a figure that haunts me, towards which I would like to strive, without success. And all mothers embody a composite monster that crushes me with its size.

Ilana Weizmann

When I become a mother, the competition intensifies at that pivotal moment when women realize their gender destiny in the eyes of society. Around me, friends, women in my family, even strangers come into play the crazy dance of who will be the best mother who won’t gain too much weight during pregnancy, who will give birth without an epidural, who will breastfeed longer, who will enroll their baby in the most exclusive nursery, who will spend more time with their always smiling baby, who will never complain about it role yet often so charged and oppressive.

“The patriarchal system that pits us against each other”

First, I’m part of the problem. I confront myself with the unattainable goal of corresponding in all respects to what is expected of me. The ideal mother is a figure that haunts me, towards which I would like to strive, without success. And all mothers embody a composite monster that crushes me with its size. I no longer see women as individuals with particular trajectories, their own feelings, I see them as threats, as physical proof that I am a screwed up mother. It was later, in my militant approach and speaking, that I would understand everything we share and that it is the patriarchal system that pits us against each other.

” Female rivalry is nothing more than self-hatred »

One of the pernicious instruments of sexist oppression is that it also passes through the intermediation of women who, in order to comply with the imposed norms, in order not to transgress, tear each other apart in female, sexual and maternal rivalries. How I wished, earlier in my life, that I could unravel the threads of what presses us against each other. How I would have liked to see other women as companions, peers, companions. Female rivalry is nothing more than self-hatred. I categorically reject it.

Today I try to get rid of the rivalries induced by living my female friendships as so many places of emancipation, mirrors in which to observe myself, observe my condition and find an inexhaustible empathy for other women, and therefore for myself.

Let’s no longer waste the precious time of our lives in these tears, let’s instead spend it fighting a system that oppresses us collectively.