Time and time again there are news articles about the inequality women face within the business world as well as general life. Women are paid less than men on average, an alarming number of women report sexual harassment of some degree in the work place and women are judged should they choose to pursue a career over staying at home to look after their children. Whilst some of these situations do arise at the hands of men, the sad reality is that other women contribute more to the problem.

Take a look at magazines that are popular amongst females. For example, ‘Heat’. The majority of the employees there are women, yet print headlines such as “Is Kelly Brook fat?” This is beyond shameful, yet the blame shouldn’t just be put at the feet of these individuals because who is that actually buys these magazines and keeps the company in business? Women, of course. So many females, whatever age, seem to thrive on putting other females down; whether they be in the public eye or not. You wouldn’t see a men’s magazine print things like “Is David Beckham getting too many wrinkles to be considered attractive?”, so then why do women seem to love reading such disgusting stories?

Not only that but in everyday life, women are just general backstabbers. You may think that talking about somebody else behind their back is harmless but think about it like this: If the person you are talking to so openly says negative comments about another person, do you not think they do the same about you? Obviously whatever you’ve said about this female, whatever the topic, is going to get back to her. Do you not think this is going to massively impact her self-esteem? For this reason I believe that women have an inbuilt distrust of other women, which is very problematic for any kind of movement that wants to bring about equality.

The media, business and other climates are set up to encourage women to betray each other and “fight”. All you have to do is look at shows such as ‘The X Factor’ and ‘The Voice’ to see this. Every week there’s a new “exclusive” story about the female judges falling out and having arguments back stage, when in actual fact this genuinely isn’t true. Take for example this year’s ‘The Voice’. The media incessantly portrayed the sole female judge Jessie J to be a “diva” and constantly whinging about whatever she could think of. Obviously I don’t know Jessie J personally but I do know people who have worked with her. They say she is nothing but a lovely young woman who is very passionate about her job. Even with this year’s ‘The Apprentice’, other women were loving the negative attention runner-up Luisa Zissman got. Why was this? Because the media printed pictures of her when she was 19 and that was seen as “unacceptable”. Let’s be honest here. The majority of women hurling abuse at her do not give two hoots about how “acceptable” certain things are in business and were actually just jealous because she is a very attractive woman. That’s what it boils down to, jealousy.

Now I’m not saying every single female has the same mind set but a large percentage do when put into the right situation. What happened to Girl Power? Did Destiny’s Child teach you nothing, ladies? Before gender equality is reached, the bigger picture needs to be looked at. Whilst there are males who do actively discriminate against women, women are never going to win their ongoing battle if they don’t learn to love one another and unite.