Girl love

Dear lovelies

Let's talk about these incredibly complex, beautiful, powerful and undefeated creatures we call women.

We are badass, I know! Yeah, badass IS one of my favourites words.

On a daily basis some of us manage to balance a successful career, family life including children, housework and somehow find the energy to keep our men happy too! Aaaaaall of that whilst dealing with continuous insinuations or outright reminders from society that hey - we are considered inferior. Here is where I need and want to give a special shoutout to women of colour - the real MVPs. They have it the hardest and don't even try to deny it.

So, with all of the hardship and BS that as women we have to deal with one a day to day basis, I often struggle to understand why it is that we do not love, respect and empower each other more.

Some of the most sexist people I have met in my life are... women. I have seen women judge, ridicule, criticise and be jealous of other women sometimes in harsher terms than men do. Why, sis!?

You'd think that with all the crap we have to face from the rest of society, women would have each other's backs - always. You're probably thinking: Ilinca, the answer is obvious; for years we have been programmed by society to compete with each other in terms of... everything. It is difficult to break the restraints of continuous societal indoctrination.

Or maybe you're hoping that I would just shut up and move on. Spoiler alert: I won't.

But it is true. For as long as I can remember, my achievements, looks or life in general has been assessed through comparison with fellow women of my age. So, yeah, it isn't a shock when we adopt that behaviour and use it to be extremely harsh against other women.

For some reason, this becomes uncomfortably obvious in *drumroll* gyms' changing rooms. Oh. My God. There are no limits in that environment. No such as thing as "good enough". Of course, this is not all women, but... too often I hear the following:

She should do more cardio because I'm assuming she's here to lose weight.

She's really skinny and she's trying so hard to get a butt, always doing squats.

Her issue is the back fat, she should do more upper body exercises.

She's pretty, but she should lose a little bit of weight.

I saw her yesterday; did you see what she was wearing? It's obvious she does it for the attention.

Trust me, the list goes on. Sadly, I am pretty sure I've been guilty of one the above at least once. So, I make a conscious effort to make sure that I keep my unconscious bias in Check!

Gyms' changing rooms are just an example, but you really don't need a gym membership to witness the above. Just look around you... when you walk down the road. Why do we give each other dirty looks? Why do we not smile more at each other and instead give that judgemental 'up and down' look that does my head in?!

Ladies, I love y'all So much, but can we please stop with the hate already?!

I just want us to realise that we have absolutely nothing to gain as individuals from belittling and disempowering other women. But we all win if we have each other's backs...

Speaking about having each other's backs. Let's talk girl code.

One of the reasons I sometimes wish we were more like men is the way in which they treat the bro code. I mean... sometimes it feels like the bible, Quran, hinduism scriptures, the Tanakh put together have Nothing on the bro code. (If I've missed out your religion, please see this as a sign of my own ignorance and educate me - no sarcasm, I'm being serious.)

Now... the girl code... Hm! You WOULD think that in a world where we get tripped over and stabbed in the back whenever we aim to achieve Anything that we would not do that to each other. And yet... we do. A lot.

I am tired. Tired of hearing women call each other hoes. Tired of women showing more loyalty to a man who is mistreating their girl friend than they show That exact friend who needs it the most! Tired of women gossiping behind each other's backs and failing to have true friendships.

Sis... What do you get from tearing down your girl and the way she chooses to live her life? What do you get out of blurting out secrets that a woman has told you in confidence probably because she felt that you would be able to relate? What do you gain from kicking to the ground the one person who understand best what you have to go through every day?!

Nothing. That is what you gain. Absolutely nothing. For the love of God, stop already... Stick to the girl code for a change. Be unconditionally loyal to your girl for once. Show your girl the devotion and love that you may show or may have shown in the past to a man who has abused it. It didn't stop you from blindly sticking by his side, did it? So, why won't you do the same for your girl, sis?! We bounce on our own over the smallest thing and sometimes, for no damn reason. That just needs to change, period!

I'm aware that this is slowly becoming an angry rant, so I'll just leave it at this.

There are very few things that are more satisfying in this world than knowing that no matter what type of poo life throws at you, you can always count on your girls being there for you. No matter what. I am lucky enough to have a tribe of independent, badass (yeh, yeh my vocabulary ain't that diverse), opinionated, stubborn, STRONG women! I can count on them and they can count on me... for anything. At anytime.

Who said you only get one ride or die and most importantly... who said it has to be a man?! Look around you, sis. You could have a whole village of ride or dies. You're blessed.

Love

Ilinca xo