August 11, 2025 · 5 min read
Competing through niceness
The most vicious rivalries between women are the ones dressed as friendship. Watch your own hand.
Not all female competition is loud. The most damaging version is the quiet one — the one dressed in compliments, help offers, and I'm just worried about you.
Toxic femininity often competes sideways. It undermines through concern. It shrinks another woman's win by asking a question that reframes it as a problem. It signals allyship in public and reputation-manages in private.
The women who do this are not villains. They are usually women who never learned that another woman's rise is not their loss.
Notice the sentence before you say it. If your kindness has a barb inside it, that is not kindness. That is competition wearing your face.