When I was a young girl I always preferred to play with the boys. We always had fun and there wasn’t ever any drama. When boys had a problem with each other, they told each other to shut up or hit each other and it was over. Gone and forgotten. It was awesome. Girls always seemed to be mean, never let anything go, too much trouble and too much drama – so I just went and played football with the boys. I always wondered where the drama came from. Where did it begin? Was it taught or just a part of the female DNA. I think I have the answer…I saw it happen before my own eyes.

There I was, humming along with Dylan Wickens and the Grand Naturals (proud to say – a childhood friend that thanks to facebook has re entered my life) and counting RUSK W8Less Plus hairspray for inventory. (I am a HUGE blues fan and missed the blues festival  because I was covering for my PTG (part time girl) so I brought in their CD, next best thing.). I hear the familiar chirp of the door. I look up and say “Hello Ladies! How are we today?” to which I hear “We would be better if she had better hair and my butt wasn’t so big.”. (I kid you not, that is what she said.). A mother and daughter, hating themselves and everything about being a woman. Not only did they continue to pick each other apart, the mother was picking apart women I can only assume were her friends. “Oh my gawd! Can you believe she thinks she can actually get that promotion?”, “Did you see what she was wearing – loses weight and now she is God’s gift – by the way, you could stand to lose a few pounds” and countless other nasty things. I stopped paying attention because I was beginning to lose I.Q. points being that close to such idiotic behavior. Yeah, I said it, IDIOTIC. I mean seriously, what kind of example is that?  The mother may have been in her early 40’s and the daughter couldn’t have been more than 10. As I watched them the way you watch a car wreck, I realized something. We as women need to change.

As women, we need to be raising each other up, we need to be praising each other and celebrating each other’s accomplishments – be it losing 10 pounds or landing that promotion. So me being me, I walked over and asked if they needed my help. I complimented the young girl on her pretty face and beautiful long hair to which the mom barked out “Yeah, but look how oily it is!” to which I responded “Oh, that’s normal honey, all girls have that trouble in their early teens and this shampoo (Senscience Specialty shampoo) will fix it right up, and a dry shampoo (Quantum Invisible dry shampoo) can help too.” to which the girl smiled and the mother scowled.

As Maya Angelou has written, we teach people how to treat us. It’s time to re-educate ourselves and women everywhere. We cannot change people but we can change how we deal with them. When you see a group of women cutting someone down, say something nice about their verbal victim. When you see a woman belittling her daughter, catch the girl’s eye and smile at her, give her a wink and shrug your shoulders – let her know it’s not her and not all women are mean. I know women that are still upset at someone for something that happened in high school – 25 years ago.

Ladies, it is time to let it go. It is time to be nice. It is time…feminists forgive me… to take a lesson from the men. Men confront the situation at hand, deal with it and move on. Doesn’t that sound lovely?