“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock/The meat it feeds on.”  – William Shakespeare, Othello

“The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.” – Bette Midler

 

In the beginning there was the Devil, an archangel who harbored more than a little resentment against God.  He wasn’t content with the status quo and decided he deserved equal billing with the Big Guy. He got thrown out of heaven for his trouble.

All of us have experienced jealousy, as either the victim or perpetrator, at one time or another. After all, jealousy is an emotion as old as humanity.

When a coworker gets a promotion we think, why?  She didn’t put in the extra hours I did.  She’s obviously just a brown-nosing people-pleaser who didn’t earn her new title.  For that matter, she probably slept with the boss.

Or when the neighbors get a new Mercedes, we tell ourselves that they must have bought it second-hand.  It’s a hideous color, anyway.  And it’s only a C-class.

Women are often the worst offenders when it comes to the green-eyed monster. And we often resent other women the most. Instead of applauding each another’s success, we begrudge it.  We smile tightly and murmur false words of congratulations.  The moment the object of our envy turns her back, we’re ready to plunge the knife in. (See “Mean Girls,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” or “The Turning Point” for excellent examples of feminine jealousy. )

 

Whether it’s on the playground or in the boardroom, women are masters of the thinly-veiled insult, the ‘but-honestly-I-was-only-joking!’ putdown.  Unlike men, who punch each other in the face and then go out for a beer afterwards, society expects us women to behave.  So we become experts at passive aggression.

From the time we’re girls, we learn to be catty, and petty, and verbally vicious.  We become miniature  Queens of Mean.  Instead of telling someone that she has toilet paper stuck to her shoe, we say nothing, and snicker as she walks by.  Or we invite all the girls in our classroom to our slumber party, except for the object of our envy/dislike.

And we make sure she knows she’s been excluded.

Petty?  Yes.  Mean?  Undoubtedly.  And this behavior doesn’t always stop when we get older. According to a recent article in The Independent, if a female boss is at ‘peak fertility’ when she gives an attractive female employee a salary review, the attractive employee will almost certainly receive a smaller pay raise.

It gives “that time of the month” a whole new meaning.

The experts maintain that this behavior is a result of the “hunter/gatherer” mindset women have when it comes to other females.  To attract and keep the fittest males, we’re prepared to go to great lengths to ensure we beat out the competition – in whatever way necessary.

Of course, not all women are guilty of this behavior. Those who are secure in themselves and in their own abilities have no need to be envious of another’s good fortune. Most women are genuinely glad when a friend gets a promotion or loses ten pounds. Her success becomes our success.

When you think about it, envy is actually kind of flattering.   It’s an inside-out compliment, a sign that someone else likes/wants/admires what we have or what we’ve accomplished.

I’ll remind myself of that the next time I field a catty remark or suffer the sting of a back-handed compliment (‘What a great dress, Katie!  Fashions for fuller figures have come a long way, haven’t they?’)

After all, everyone knows that jealousy is so last year…