“You’re so much prettier, he’s downgraded.”

“She’s obviously a hoe, I mean, just look at her.”

Despite not personally knowing her, we’ve all done it. We hate to admit it, but we have. We break up, but we don’t move on. We lurk. Once we find out who our “replacement” is, we bash on the new girlfriend or potential girlfriend. It kills us to know that the person we loved for days, months, years, has moved on…so we take it out on their new significant other. Often times, it’s unwarranted and based only on physical appearance.

It doesn’t even have to be our relationship. It could be our relationship with celebrity’s relationships. When Beyoncé dropped “Lemonade,” an album that rebuilt her confidence as a boss-ass bitch and is rumored to have been created as a way to let Jay-Z know that she was aware of his affairs, the witch hunt began to find the woman who hurt Beyoncé.

Despite the album ending positively with she and Jay-Z mending their relationship, within a few days there was a list of possible bitches: Rita Ora, Rachel Roy, and even Taylor Swift. Without actual evidence and the lack of commentary from Beyoncé, the Beyhive began accusing these women and blowing up their Instagram’s with lemons. Yes, lemons. 🍋

Throughout this girl-bashing, Beyoncé stayed quiet and left it up to these girls to defend themselves. Swift never commented on the accusations, but Ora spoke up in an interview with Vanity Fair. “I find it incredibly rude and disrespectful to women in general [when] we get accused of something that’s basically against the important part — the music,” Ora said.

Roy, who had to cancel events due to the amount of harassment she received from the hive, spoke up as well, saying bullying is bullying regardless of reasons: “I respect love, marriages, families and strength. What shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone, no matter what, is bullying, of any kind.”

Personally, I tend to avoid hating on girls. If my ex were to move on, then I wish him the best in his new relationship. I hope he’ll find what he was looking for, and just because I couldn’t give him what he wanted, it doesn’t mean someone else shouldn’t get the chance. This all comes from one simple belief that I’ve grown up with: You need solid evidence to hate someone. The idea that a girl who doesn’t even know me is out there, stalking my Instagram or Facebook for ammo to talk shit about me, kills. But one thing I have noticed is that this behavior appears absent in the male gender. Guys are so much more supportive of each other, the true ride or die homies.

What happens when a guy cheats on a girl? Girls automatically say things like, “If only I was as pretty as that bitch” or “She’s a whore, how dare she!” and never once places equal blame on the guy. They compare themselves to the other girl, then ask themselves why they weren’t good enough. They feel broken and worthless.

If you switch roles, guys tend to hate on their ex by calling her names like, “skank” or “bitch.” When the girl moves on, they just unfollow or block her, but rarely ever do they blame the guy. Instead, they move on and forget about the girl. Of course, I’m generalizing. This is just my own observation.

But hey, we as girls were brought up to be prettier, better, smarter, and funnier than other women. How can we not declare war when we begin to feel like our ego is being threatened?

Movies such as “Mean Girls,” “Easy A,” and “Bridesmaids” show the uglier side of girl fighting and how ridiculous it is. Yet, these three movies are hit comedies and often quoted with “Mean Girls” being the most popular.
“Boo, you whore” or “Get in loser, we’re going shopping,” or my personal favorite, “She doesn’t even go here” are examples of girl trashing.

The movie plot revolves around two girls and their male friend trying to tear down The Plastics, the most popular girls in school, by destroying their leader, Regina George. They do everything except murder her. Caddie allegedly tried, all because of a war between Janis Ian and Regina George.

So why are these movies so popular? It’s because everyone, men and women alike, can relate to a civil war between females.

Guys aren’t always the cause of these fights. One of the most famous feuds, Taylor Swift vs. Katy Perry, was about a backup dancer. Yet Swift, a self-proclaimed feminist, wrote a song and released a video where she doesn’t hide her intentions and calls out Perry.

Perry did not stand by silently and instead sent out a cryptic tweet comparing Swift to George. Two women, role models to younger girls, created a public dispute that put each other down. Granted, Perry has yet to directly accuse Swift despite the video being released in 2015. Swift, however, directly calls out for a war between her fans and Perry’s. As a matter of fact, the entire video portrays Swift as the victim of a betrayal, rebuilding her strength in order to get revenge.

The dispute went global, making the culture of girl bashing even more common than before. At this point, we refuse to see the bigger problem. All women should work toward building each other up, not grabbing their ankles so they fall hard.

Madonna recently won the 2016 Billboard’s Women of the Year award. During her acceptance speech, Madonna spoke about her difficult past, her haters, and how she’s grateful about being able to be so successful in a misogynistic world. “There are no rules, if you’re a boy. If you’re a girl…you have to play the game,” she said.

She speaks about how females are supposed to look pretty, be funny, act sexy, allow themselves to be objectified, but most importantly, “be what women feel comfortable with you being around men.”

She also remembered that Camille Paglia, a famous feminist writer, accused her of setting women back on the progress they made by objectifying herself sexually.

The moment a woman begins to act the same way as a man, she is accused of setting back feminism. If an adult girl goes out with her friends and gets sloppy drunk and has a one-night stand, they call her a whore. If a man does the same, he’s called a champion. There are so many examples of how society puts down women for their actions that it has become a social norm. If being a feminist means putting ourselves down even more than is already done just to gain a few more rights, then what’s the point?

“Oh,” I thought. “So if you’re a feminist, you don’t have any sexuality. You deny it,” so I said, “Fuck it. I’m a different kind of feminist. I’m a bad feminist.” — Madonna.

Why must we do these things? Do we not already have enough competition with men, such as Donald Trump, in power claiming that women are too emotional and vulnerable to be holding positions of power?

Even when Hillary Clinton showed more emotional composure during the debates, despite having more qualifications than the reality star, she still lost because she is a woman. If Clinton, the most qualified runner in history lost, what does this mean for the future of women?

It’s time to end this petty war of looks and power between the largest minority, women, and build each other up instead. There are enough movies and shows where women sabotage one another in order to see the other fail. We try and fight these meaningless wars with the reward being a statement on social media or public boast: “I beat the bitch.”

There is already enough bashing from outsiders. We need to stand together and be strong. Our gender depends on it.