Reflected pain
Every time you look at a woman and feel “less”
Less beautiful.
Less young.
Less accomplished.
Less sexy.
It’s not envy.
It’s a wound, a very fine crack that says a lot.
A deep, ancient wound, hidden under layers of unspoken words and avoided glances.
Envy is a human feeling like all other emotions we experience, and it must be heard, it has a function!
Let’s learn to transform this feeling in a constructive way.
We’ve been taught to look at ourselves through the eyes of others, not our own.
To measure our worth with a dirty mirror, a distorted reflection of constant comparisons.
A mirror that doesn’t reflect our essence, but only the competition that was imposed on us.
When you’re measuring yourself against another woman, it’s not rivalry.
It’s not a threat.
It’s a mirror of what we were often forbidden to be.
If you judge because she is free, maybe it’s because you don’t feel free.
If you envy her because she dares, maybe it’s because you were not allowed to.
If her voice bothers you, maybe it’s because yours has been silenced for too long.
Seen from this perspective, it all becomes personal.
It’s not hatred.
It’s reflected pain.
A pain that has settled into our bodies, our fears, our insecurities.
And it’s not our fault,
it becomes our fault only when we become aware of this reality and do nothing to change it.
It’s the legacy of a society that has always feared the power of united women.
They pitted us against each other, not to create strength, but to extinguish it.
To divide our power, fragment it, make it easier to control.
The union of many women can be frightening, because in that union lies enormous power.
There is the strength of those who have chosen not to compete anymore, but to rise together.
We weren’t born to look at each other with suspicion.
We were born to recognize each other, to take each other by the hand, to lift each other up.
True liberation begins when we turn off judgment,
when we stop measuring our value based on others,
and begin to see each other as allies and not as rivals.
Because our beauty, our strength, our femininity, never run out when shared.
But what I’m talking about is not chasing toxic femininity,
the kind that pushes you to compare and compete with another woman to feel “enough.”
It’s not that endless search for validation, for glances, for approval.
I’m talking about something constructive.
I’m talking about that kind of femininity you can admire in another woman,
that strength you can learn from her, without feeling threatened, without feeling less.
Because true femininity is not a trophy to win.
It’s not a beauty contest, or a race in career or popularity, these are banal clichés from a small-town mindset.
It’s a path of personal and collective growth, made of authenticity, respect, and care.
Toxic femininity is when:
• A woman harshly criticizes another woman’s appearance or choices to feel superior.
• Gossip is spread and rivalries are built based on envy and fear.
• The “divide and conquer” strategy is enacted among friends or colleagues, with subtle comments that wound but are never said openly.
• One tries to please others, especially men, at the expense of oneself.
Healthy femininity is when:
• You can look at another woman and say “Wow, I can learn something from her” without feeling diminished.
• You celebrate each other’s successes without fear that it reduces your own value.
• You support one another through hardships, creating real and tangible support networks.
• You respect each other’s life choices, even if they differ from your own.
This femininity the real one can transform competition into collaboration,
fear into courage,
judgment into curiosity.
It’s the one that makes you say:
“I’m happy for her, because her light doesn’t dim mine it illuminates it.”
The crucial point lies exactly here: not feeling inferior or superior to others.
The society we live in is a system much bigger than us, bigger than any individual man or woman.
It’s not about blaming all men, because there are good men, men who fight by our side, who support and defend women every day.
The problem is the patriarchy, an ancient and deep-rooted structure that has shaped society in a way to maintain a certain balance of power.
A system that, often without intending to, taught us to see each other as rivals instead of allies.
It’s not about men versus women.
It’s about a system that, in order to survive, needs to divide us, make us doubt each other, keep us apart.
That’s why it’s important to look beyond the face of individual people and see the bigger picture.
Like when you go to a museum, if you only look at the frame of a painting, you will never understand the true essence of every detail of the artwork. You have to get closer.
Because only in this way can we stop being pawns in this game and become the true protagonists of our story, united.
Once we understand this, we can choose to build something new.
A place where solidarity is not an exception but the norm,
where men and women collaborate, support each other, and grow together,
freeing themselves from old patterns and opening the way to a more just and human future.
Female solidarity is not a fantasy or a distant ideal,
but a daily practice we can bring into our lives but this is up to us.
And you, whose side are you on?