The Wicked lie about female rivalry

Opinion

We are not destined to be rivals. Think carefully about what you need to unlearn. Be intentional about challenging a culture that routinely holds women to impossible standards.

The collective cringe surrounding Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s Wicked press frenzy underlines an inability to see women as anything other than rivals.

Women are hardwired to hate each other and must be “rivals”. So entrenched is this narrative that mainstream media brands simply don’t know how to respond to true sisterhood when they see it.

Wicked is a marketing masterstroke on every level. Yet it is the humanity and intensity of the relationship between Erivo’s Elphaba and Grande’s Glinda that has captured fans’ hearts and minds.

Mutual respect and an unwavering promise to look after each other are the foundations of the two women’s relationship. Yet post-premiere front pages of The Daily Telegraph, The Times and the Daily Mail all featured a head-to-toe image of Grande on her own. Anyone with even a fleeting knowledge of Wicked knows that Elphaba is the main character. Misogynoir remains rampant in the UK press.

Then came the predictable false narratives and leading questions that uphold the myth that existing as a woman in the public eye automatically puts you in competition with your female peers. Do Erivo and Grande like each other? Why do they hold hands? The truth, bubbling under the surface, is that we find such a supportive and mutually respectful relationship between two women weird.

When faced with two women at the top of their game who truly love and support each other, rather than celebrate the relationship many media brands have instead sought to shame it and sabotage it. That shifts the lens from what should be the true source of our shame: that such an example of solidarity is so rare.

Calling a truce

Breaking this toxic cycle of rivalry isn’t easy.

Women can and do internalise patriarchal messages that women are not as strong, competent or capable as men. Women in our industry who have faced the sharp edges of sexual harassment and maternity discrimination have learned the brutal truth that women aren’t always on your side. Or, worse still, women are complicit in the cover-up.

Just look at the Greg Wallace debacle. Our collective sympathy is rarely focused on the female victims. Media platforms routinely shame women for speaking up, when we should celebrate their bravery.

At a time when the orange face of Donald Trump, the world’s most famous misogynist, is about to take another turn around the presidential sun, the need to challenge this toxic narrative has never been more urgent. Women’s bodies are under attack. Yet not only do we collectively look the other way, we wage a never-ending war of judgement against each other.

Ask yourself how often you have heard these criticisms: too direct, too emotional, too demanding, too difficult. Then ask yourself how often you have heard them from another woman — a woman simply reloading a misogynistic washing machine of biased feedback. This rinse-repeat cycle of misogyny risks one generation of women paying forward the misogyny they experienced to another.

It’s time to call a truce. We are not destined to be rivals. Reject misogynistic media narratives and biased feedback. Consider your own role in perpetuating and paying that bias forward. Because let me be absolutely clear: if you talk negatively about other women more than you talk to them, you are part of the problem.

Professional jealousy

It’s OK to be jealous of other women. Jealousy is a natural human emotion. But it is not OK to punish other women for it.

We need to take the shame away from professional jealousy. Learn to listen to your envy; it is simply telling you where you want to go. Celebrate the women blazing the trail. Use your privilege and platforms to amplify women doing the work. Learn to credit, not copy, the women who inspire you. Normalise everyday amplification of women’s voices.

Think carefully about what you need to unlearn. Be intentional about challenging a culture that routinely holds women to impossible standards. All of the best editors I have worked with have been routinely described to me, often by other women, as “difficult”. The world and the media industry desperately need the talent and tenaciousness of difficult women. So speak up for them when they are not in the room. Advocate.

Let’s commit to building a culture in which women don’t have to endlessly prove themselves. Stop stereotyping young women as “snowflakes” because they don’t think harassment is “banter”. Recognise that the expectations of young women today will raise the standards for everyone, if we only take the time to listen, learn and raise them up.

Help the next generation up the ladder

So many young women in the media industry are locked in a state of perma-burnout, stumbling to the end of the year feeling spent. It is tougher than it’s ever been to get a foothold in the industry. In London, tenants spend over half of their wages on rent.

Research from the Young Women’s Trust suggests that nearly a third (32%) of young women reported their hopes for the future had got worse over the past year. Over a quarter (26%) have stayed in a job they didn’t enjoy because they couldn’t afford to leave.

In such a hostile environment, we cannot afford to keep pitting women against each other. To always make other women the villains in our story.

Let’s be intentional in shedding the insecurity and jealousy that leaves us disconnected from each other. There is a huge under-utilised collective power in taking pride in other women winning. We need to learn to compete with each other, not against each other.

You don’t need to be able to defy gravity to defy the expectation that other women are the default competition. At the end of a long day, when I unpack and repack my daughter’s school bag, it is always filled with little notes of love and support from her crew: BFFs forever. I think you are amazing. You scored all the goals. You are brilliant. Notes that remind me we simply aren’t destined to be rivals.

When we back each other, we can win together. I am always on your side.

Nicola Kemp has spent over two decades writing about diversity, equality and inclusion in the media. She is now editorial director of Creativebrief. She writes for The Media Leader each month.