Cat Fight

The other day I was privy to a little cattiness on the wall of one of my Facebook acquaintances. My friend, had indicated how excited she was about a guest speaker she was hosting at work, another Facebooker, who shall henceforth be known as Cat Woman, commented:
Before you learned of Shauntay Grants' visit..did you know who she was and what she does?

My bitch meter was automatically alerted and I felt incensed for my friend. Why was this woman trying to take her down, question her intelligence? Why did she find it necessary to take something good, happy and bright and turn it into something hurtful?

Friend's reply:Yes.

Me: and even if she didn't, there would always have been a time in our lives when we hadn't known of her yet.

Cat woman: What???I'm going to only drink one glass of wine and read that again cause it didn't make sense with glasses or maybe it was just the grammar or lack of.

I can't really speak to my grammar, I don't usually have a grammatical filter on my Facebook posts. I am a writer but I need my spell/grammar check function. My grammar, was clearly not the point I was trying to make but I found it amusing that Cat Woman would take the opportunity to aim her venom at yet another woman, one she did not even know.

Where has this attitude of women against women come from? A friend of mine suggested there were some feminists theories about that but after a not very intensive search on the net, I have not found any profound answers.

Today I went to a memorial service for the national day of remembrance and action on violence against women. I had already started this post when I blogged off to attend the service and in the back of my mind I thought, “How can women expect men to respect us and afford us peace if we can not do it amongst ourselves?” I am not saying that catty women justify some male attitudes about violence against women, just that it is, in a small way, not helping the situation. It's hard to respect a group who don't respect themselves.

Women will never all get along but it would be fabulous if we could stop trying to pull each other down. One day an unknown woman pulled her car up next to my house as she was leaving the nearby tourist office. She rolled down her window and called out to me on my front yard, “That hair colour looks really good on you.” “Thanks,” I said.

I try to never miss an opportunity to pay a compliment, befriend a lonely soul, or speak up for people I feel are being denigrated. When I left the memorial service today, preparing to come home and finish this piece, there was a vibrant rainbow encompassing the Guysborough sky. Trite as it seems, it gave me hope that women might start being a little nicer to each other.