When Women Turn on Women

What We’re Losing in How We Treat Each Other

©Joaquín Corbalán via Canva

I had decided not to publish this. It’s more female-focused and more lecture-ish than I’m usually comfortable with. But then this morning, yet another post landed in my feed: same two women, same public teardown, authored—like all the others—by another woman.

Not thoughtful reflection. Not fair examination. Just commentary that feels presumptive, dismissive, and at times, needlessly cruel.

So I’m sharing this anyway. It might ruffle feathers. It might help fewer people than it upsets. But I’m willing to risk that if it presses pause, even briefly, on the growing instinct to turn a woman’s darkest hour into spectacle.

---

More and more, women are turning on each other—publicly, mercilessly, and often in the very moments when charity and goodwill should come easiest. We recast pain as production, read silence as confession, and treat humane gestures like coded signals to be analyzed. And in doing so, we send a destructive message into society: there is no safe way to fall apart—especially in the presence of other women.

The instinct to protect each other, particularly when someone is vulnerable or exposed, is being replaced by an impulse to police and pile on. We aren’t showing up with softness. We’re showing up with suspicion and contempt.

This isn’t just disappointing. It’s dangerous. Because when we withhold basic decency from one another, we don’t just cause harm in the moment, we forfeit something larger: the credibility to ask for better from anyone else.

Somewhere in the churn of public opinion, a woman is grieving. Her loss wasn’t quiet or private—it was visible, violent, and impossible to contain. And in the weeks since, her sorrow has become something else entirely: material. For comedy. For headlines. For speculation. What should have been sacred is now scrutinized. What should have drawn silence or solidarity has instead invited callousness.

Some experiences should be off-limits. Grief is one of them. And yet, we’re treating the most personal expressions of loss as something to interpret, react to, or pick apart. She’s either too gutted or not grief-stricken enough. Too unpolished to be dignified, or too composed to be real. Her agony doesn’t look how we think it should, so we dissect it. And instead of meeting her with grace, we meet her with critique.

We analyze her body language. We question her sincerity. We reduce her despair to symbolism. A far cry from empathy, something much closer to extraction. We’re not making space for her suffering; we’re mining it for meaning we can use for our own use.

When did we forget that tragic loss—no matter who suffers it—ushers in an uninvited undoing? Bereavement doesn’t follow rules. It doesn’t present pretty or palatable. And it should never—not for a second—have to answer to strangers’ expectations.

When we reshape another woman’s heartbreak to fit our own comfort, we don’t just miss the point; we send the message that mourning isn’t real, welcome, or justified unless it’s easy for us to witness and comes with our permission.

But a woman grieving doesn’t owe anyone a particular kind of composure. And no one should have to perform their devastation to make it easier for the rest of us to witness.

In these same conversations, another woman’s story is being predicted and prescribed before it’s even begun.

Although we have no firsthand knowledge of what unfolds behind closed doors—no complete picture of another couple’s marriage—that hasn’t stopped us from filling in gaps, assigning motives, and deciding how a relationship ends before it’s had the chance to play out.

We assume betrayal. Anticipate humiliation. And because we’re certain the story we’ve concocted is true—and just as sure she’ll stay—we get ahead of it, shaming her now for decisions she hasn’t even made.

We call it concern. Solidarity. Even defense. But more likely, it’s insecurity: ours, not hers.

The picture before us stirs something unsettling: old fears, quiet doubts, questions we haven’t faced and answers we haven’t yet found in our own lives. But instead of sitting with that discomfort, we redirect it through judgment, speculation, and humiliation. We trade gentleness and humility for certainty, not because we understand, but because it’s harder to sit with what we don’t.

And that’s what makes it so harmful. We’re not standing beside her while owning our own shit. We’re standing over her while pretending ours doesn’t exist. We measure what we think she should tolerate. How quickly she should leave. What her silence must mean.

We tell ourselves it’s empowerment. But there’s nothing powerful—or freeing—about it. It’s pressure, dressed as progress, delivered in the language we’ve come to associate with feminism.

That’s not care; it’s posturing—short-sighted at best, dishonest at worst. And it reveals something troubling about where we are: so focused on signaling virtue and awareness that we’ve lost our tolerance for complexity—for choices we wouldn’t make, timelines we don’t understand, and responses that don’t mirror our own.

Even when the betrayal exists only in theory, and even though the story was never ours to shape, we still expect her to carry its consequences.

It’s just as absurd as it is unfair.

But she’s not the only one paying the price. When we treat each other this way, we’re not just harming one; we’re undercutting the collective whole.

We ask for better—from men, from institutions, from the culture around us. And we should. But when we turn on each other with mockery, judgment, or casual cruelty, we don’t just discredit the messenger; we damage our message.

We can’t expect to be treated with respect and reverence while treating each other with disdain. We have to act with dignity toward each other—when it’s inconvenient, when it’s unpopular, and especially when the woman wouldn’t vote (or parent) like we do. Because if compassion only extends to those who reflect our preferences, it’s not compassion. It’s control, dressed up as conviction.

But this isn’t just about credibility. It’s about influence.

Historically, women have set the tone, anchoring the emotional and moral center for society. We’ve created safety, modeled decency, and shaped homes, communities, and generations. Perhaps most importantly, we’ve influenced how care is offered and received. When we abandon those instincts, we forfeit the very qualities that have long made our presence essential.

If we want more from the world, we must lead first and set the example. That’s how influence is earned: not by what we demand, but through what we demonstrate.

And if we want to shape the culture around us, we have to live the values we keep asking for. That work doesn’t start out there with someone else. It starts here—with how we show up for each other.