Women hate women who go for what they want.

On r/NYCinfluencersnark, denying your own ambitions, and punishing successful women as a mode of survival.

I find myself very drawn to women who throw a map on the wall, stick a pin on a given destination and move mountains to get there. These types of women absolutely fascinate me. I’m enamored by them.

To me, this genre of ambitious, confident, bend-the-world-to-my-will woman is nothing but superhuman. They have a self-trust and self-belief I fear I never had the chance to cultivate. I feel inspired to champion them, support them, and help facilitate their wildest dreams. It’s likely why I’ve spent the last ten years supporting other female founders as either a consultant, or a second-in-command, as either a COO or CMO to their CEO title.

But as I spent the holidays reflecting on this “Robin-to-your-Batman” mindset, I found myself facing a grimier, more menacing realization around why powering their agency has felt so much safer and easier than cultivating and motivating my own.

As I ate leftover Persian food on my mom’s antique couch in LA, listening to her 3 dogs shriek and bark in rapid succession, I wondered, What has held me back from pursuing my dreams? Why has it felt so unsafe to make my own map, pick my own destination, and bend the world to my will?

I zoned out on a black-and-white picture of myself at a young age, maybe six, that my mom has up on the fireplace mantle. My brother and I always make fun of her for it, because it looks like some sort of shrine, as though I’ve died, and my urn is just OOO for maintenance.

But looking at that photo, I realized that as a child, I absorbed this energy, this knowledge, that people hate women who go for what they want. I have been paralyzingly afraid to go for what I want because I know that it will automatically induce judgment. And then if I fail - which I inevitably will - induce gummy-smile glee from people who have patiently awaited my downfall.

I watched this happen to my mom when I was 18. She was the breadwinner of our family, running a small but lucrative production company making commercials for movies and television shows. As a first-generation American with parents who escaped the Holocaust, she always dreamed of a life beyond her tiny twin bed in the Bronx. And as a wife and mom of two in Los Angeles, she manifested her dream: a home in Brentwood, two kids in private school, a booming business, a vibrant social life, and a Jewish community she could count on.

“At least I still live on the Westside, you dumb bitch. Take this card and shove it up your ugly ass. Enjoy burning in hell in The Valley.”

Or so she thought.

She was the only one of her closest mom friends who had a job. Sheila*, Leila* and Sandra* (names changed, but they’re still c*nts) were supported by their fathers or their husbands, respectively. As soon as my parents divorced and my mom became severely resource-strapped - in large part due to my dad’s ongoing kidney failure and him refusing to go through money-saving mediation, even though he’s the one who cheated - her friends disappeared. One of them even sent her a Rite Aid greeting card formally ending their friendship, to which my mom returned to sender with the note - “at least I still live on the Westside, you dumb bitch. Take this card and shove it up your ugly ass. Enjoy burning in hell in The Valley.” Those who understand the politics of Los Angeles geography will understand. And yes, my mom’s an icon.

Women hate women who go for what they want, and will collectively punish a woman who tries to and succeeds at attaining more than others. And I have the data to prove it.

My mom was bed-ridden for two years. She lost everything. And as for me, I learned two lessons:

1. You can go for what you want, get it all, and then lose it all, by no fault of your own. How scary and devastating is that.

2. My mom being self-made, ambitious and successful did not keep her safe. Making her dream life her life’s work did not keep me or us stable. If anything, I wondered, it generated resentment from other people. The girlfriends she had for decades, then lost so swiftly - they had what they had because of their fathers or their husbands. Did my mom’s success make them uncomfortable? Or secretly feel less than? Why were they so quick to disappear?

I imagine this is where my fear of creative directing my own life began.

Building my first business, this fear only intensified. Living through the “female founder takedowns” of 2020 was like watching a firing squad hunt down your neighbors as you cowered in the corner with a blankie, wondering if you were next. I couldn’t wrap my head around it at the time, and wrote extensively about my observations in my book, which came out in 2021. I accepted then, and still accept now, that the “girlbosses” who were called in and kicked out of their companies were by no means innocent. They definitely exhibited poor leadership and bad judgment, and their employees had negative experience. But having met and heard about dozens of male founders, many of them just as successful, with more deeply engrained narcissism, bad business habits, and tendencies toward bullying and racism, I couldn’t grasp why these female journalists were hunting down and reporting on these female business owners. It felt targeted to me. It didn’t feel like a reckoning for all entrepreneurs to do deep introspection on how they were spending money, treating their teams, investing in diversity, and dealing with HR claims. It felt like a reckoning for women entrepreneurs - only. It baffled me.

Collage and qoute From Elle Canada: “We have an immense appetite for watching women suffer,” says Sarah Drinkwater, investment director.

But all of it makes sense now. And I’m nervous to say it, and don’t think I would have said this in 2021, or even a year ago, but women hate women who go for what they want, and will collectively punish a woman who tries to and succeeds at attaining more than others. And I have the data to prove it.

To me, many of the issues at The Wing, for example - food and beverage workers doing ‘emotional labor’ for paid club members, low compensation for hospitality staff, a disconnect between and lack of growth trajectory for space workers versus corporate staff - could be attributed to the fact that The Wing was a microcosm of the service industry, because it was a service business. There are inherent injustices and inequities within hospitality as an industry - The Wing didn’t create them, and as a young company, could never have fixed them straight out the gate. When it launched, I followed the accountability Instagram flewthecoup, where former anonymous employees held The Wing’s leadership to task, asking for money, free therapy, certain written statements from the company, its founder, and other commitments. I watched as The Wing’s members openly fled and rebelled as cracks in the company started to show. I gawked as the press, and its readership, gobbled up the coverage like homemade stuffing. I completely accept that The Wing is a unique case, where its staff and its members felt the company did not live up to the feminism it so heavily marketed - and there’s no way this deep sense of hypocrisy did not contribute to the company’s collapse. It supercharged it. But it just so happened the company was helmed by a shark of a woman who was beautiful, ambitious, well connected, and successful. Did this part not matter? Was this not a major factor in why The Wing’s slow collapse garnered so many headlines, why it was THE topic of conversation in so many of my group chats, why female journalist after female journalist published piece after piece on every minute update on its leadership changes, tweets from mid-level employees and the latest demands from flewthecoup? Was there not a collective, sick excitement, watching this woman’s empire burn?

I think the exact same thing happened at Outdoor Voices. Strategic, ahead-of-her-time, beautiful and brazen 24-year-old founder successfully launches a brand that challenges the likes of Lululemon and Nike. Founder gets cancelled because a female journalist at Buzzfeed publishes a piece where mostly-female employees criticize her tone (which is entirely subjective), expectations around output, priorities around diversity, grueling hours, fluctuations in HR availability, and company spending. Much like how The Wing’s issues were not specific to The Wing, but rather the service industry at-large, Outdoor Voices issues sound like those of every high-growth startup I know. Are you working really hard and long hours without optimal pay? Yes. Are you expected to do a lot with very little? Yes. Is HR always available? Not necessarily, and even if it is, HR supports the company - not you. Is that a problem? Sure, but it’s the reality of flying the plane as you’re building it, and if you’re joining a startup, you should go in eyes-wide-open on that. Do startups focus more on urgently finding the right candidate than on DEI initiatives? Yes. Do startups often spend way more than they should and lack discipline around profitability? YES! What’s extra interesting to me is that one of the women who complained to the journalist was happy enough to level-up from her contractor role with the company into an employee role when the opportunity presented itself - even after the traumatic incident that caused her to “straight up die inside.” And another complainant stayed at the company for two years after her “incident.” But when the time came to punish the founder, they grabbed their pitchforks and took that journalist’s call.

But as soon as my book was buzzing and about town, she started posting about me to her Twitter, alleging I was a toxic girlboss she hated working for, who had a book out the no one should buy.

This also happened to me, on a much smaller and less significant level. Before I had a book deal, got some solid press for that book, and had a vibrant, buzzy launch campaign in-market, a part-time employee of mine moved onto another role and wrote me and my co-founder a glowing thank you email, explaining how much she learned at the company, how much she respected us and how grateful she was for the opportunity. She had never once complained during her tenure, and the note was a really nice gesture. She was an aspiring writer herself, and took on a full-time role somewhere that fit her career objectives. Sick. Good for her.

But as soon as my book was buzzing and about town, she started posting about me to her Twitter, alleging I was a toxic girlboss she hated working for, who had a book out the no one should buy. Applaud me quietly when I’m your boss, and I’m no one. Punish and berate me when I successfully pursue my goals - a goal you in fact share - for everyone to see. Okay then!

I’m well aware that the founders of these two companies took missteps, and so did I. No one’s perfect. I know first-hand how hard it is to treat everyone right, and please your investors, and hit your goals, and grow the right way, and keep your team motivated, but also happy, and feeling respected and heard. But what happened here - publicly shaming these women, instead of the company and its investors, too, going to the press, taking to the press, creating public Instagram takedown pages, going on-record about ‘traumatizing’ incidents that did not in fact demotivate their employment(!) - this was the collective punishment of specific individuals not just for their missteps, but for who they were (ambitious, pretty, successful, wealthy, high achieving, I’d also argue in 2020: white), and what they represented (going for your goals, and winning).

It’s where Jealous Girls seek comfort and validation from other Jealous Girls that it’s okay they’re filled with vitriol and ill will toward the women they’ll never be.

And this shit is still happening. The r/NYCinfluencersnark community is a living breathing example of women hating women who go for what they want. I was honestly hesitant to link it here because it’s such a cesspool of toxic, misogynistic garbage. It’s a dedicated place to criticize women’s weight, intelligence, careers, life choices, romantic partners and more. It’s where Jealous Girls seek comfort and validation from other Jealous Girls that it’s okay they’re filled with vitriol and ill will toward the women they’ll never be. The women they’re targeting are New York City’s “it” girls, and their brand partnerships, bank accounts and party invites prove it. Sure, I too find influencers cringe from time to time, but I have extreme respect for the hustle of personal brand building and daily content creation. It’s very obvious to me that the anonymous haters camping out in in this community simply hate and cannot believe these women have manufactured real careers off the personas and accounts they’ve built up over many years of grinding. I haven’t read something as dark and shamelessly bullying since Perez Hilton in 2007:

"She’s not and will never be skinny”

“She is so nauseating”

“Im sorry im so over her, her teeth bother me soooooo much”

“I think she is now in her desperate and embarrassing era"

“Have never understood her appeal.... Instagram has elevated a lot of morons”

“Never beating the allegations that she’s actually middle aged”

“She’s so fucking full of herself holy shit”

“Both their hairlines are tragic! A perfect match made in hell 😍”

“But also what’s the “success” she’s talking about??? 😭”

“She’s just so mediocre and ordinary. I don’t even mean that as an insult I just don’t know what she says to herself.”

“Hard work doesn’t lead to success” as she tries to defend her “hard work” in the comments like girl are you delusional?? Or just stupid.”

As I grew more curious about the anxiety around creative directing my own life and moving on from a supporting role to become my own main character, I started doing research on why women do this to each other. Maybe if I came to terms with the fact that I’d eventually have haters - but understand and empathize with their hater behavior - it would make being ambitious and shiny a little less scary.

I quickly learned that hating other women is a survival mechanism. I found an interesting 2013 study that details how girls treat each other in early childhood, and what it teaches us about their survival instincts and drive toward reproductive success. These select quotes had me absolutely floored. They fully reinforce this quiet hunch I’ve had my whole life, that’s grown louder over the last few years, that visible success is dangerous for women, and that it became even more dangerous for women during the pandemic, when hoards of people felt extremely depressed, anxious, resource-strapped and worried about their ability to survive and thrive long-term:

“When a girl has high market value in the community, she is afforded greater protection and can compete more openly without fear of retaliation. Within the female community, girls reduce competition by demanding equality and punishing those who openly attempt to attain more than others.”

“Linguistic researchers conclude that ‘a girl cannot assert social power or superiority as an individual’ without risking other girls’ denigration. By age 3, girls enforce equality. Compared with boys, across diverse cultures girls avoid employing signifiers of high status with same-sex peers, including commands, boasts, provision of information or joke-telling. Another movie viewer study with same-sex groups of four 3- to 5-year-olds demonstrates girls’ dislike of superior girls: those girls who took control and viewed the movies longest were less liked by all their female classmates than those girls who rarely viewed the movies. The opposite was true for the boys.

“Girls denigrate superior-acting girls. Girls evaluate one another in terms of ‘niceness,’ that is lack of competitiveness, whereas boys like high-status, competitive boys. For example, 10- to 11-year-old American girls engaged in activities where everyone played the same role, such as turn-taking games or jump rope, with no winners acknowledged, whereas boys played zero-sum team games, with role and status differentiations, after which winners celebrated. Likewise, working-class 8- to- 15-year-old African–American girls disparaged superior-acting girls, whereas boys continually vied to be superior. Experimental investigation of 6- and 10-year-old children's responses to attaining higher in same-sex dyads showed that victorious girls exhibited more discomfort than boys after winning a game. Most directly, when a same-sex confederate displayed high-status behaviours, such as boasting and bossing, compared with boys, girls rated the confederate as meaner and themselves as angrier at the confederate.”

So what are the key takeaways here?

• Girls reinforce a sense of equality at a young age, preferring that everyone be of equal status.

• Girls punish those who try to openly attain more than others.

• A girl cannot assert social power or superiority as an individual without making other girls feel less than or inferior.

• Girls who take control are seen less favorably by other girls.

• When girls win, it makes them feel uncomfortable.

• When girls boast about winning, girls see them as mean, and get angry.

• Girls proactively avoid showing high-status behavior in front of other girls, such as commanding, boasting or joke-telling.

Reading through all of this not only broke my heart, it also unearthed a dark memory from my own past that lines up perfectly with the behaviors found in this study.

When I was 15-years-old, I had a She’s All That, 90s teen-movie transformation: I was finally off Accutane, the acne I had since age 10 totally cleared, my lips were no longer permanently chapped and flaking, and I got my braces off - all in one summer. It was such a sweeping, obvious change that when my math teacher saw me on the first day of 10th grade, she hugged me and cried. I experienced a newfound level of confidence I had never known existed, and it truly felt like rebirth. For the first time, I felt like when I was talking to people, they weren’t distracted by my oozing forehead puss or staring at the yellow-tinged brackets of my “clear,” but always-grimy braces. I could smile without my bottom lip bleeding from chronic dryness. I felt more fluid and free in my body, and enjoyed laughing with friends, raising my hand in class, and of course, flirting with boys.

We temper our ambition with suffering to trick other women into empathizing with us so as to reduce the impression that we’re a threat to their survival.

One night, I got one of those dreaded 3-way phone calls from my trio of best friends at the time, led by the oh-so-“empathetic” Christine* (name changed, still a c*nt), who essentially rang up to put me in my place. She told me I was too confident, too flirtatious, too “out there,” “too much,” and that everyone was talking about it. I sat on the edge of my childhood bed, dumbfounded, because those first few months of 10th grade were the most rich, nourishing and beautiful of my teens or tweens thus far. I know now that like the girlies of r/NYCinfluencersnark and the resentful employees of successful women founders, Christine was just trying to survive, but in turn gave me some mild version of Tall Poppy Syndrome, which is essentially shrinking yourself to avoid the envy, sabotage or resentment from others. It’s caused by people explicitly cutting you down or “trimming” your poppies, to create that sense of evenness and equality explained earlier in the study. The syndrome can cause a loss of confidence, anxiety, depression, and the suppression of your true desires and goals.

Yes, let’s! Photo credit here.

What did I, and what do we learn from all of this? When we know other women don’t want us to be go-getting, especially if we then win, how do we respond and operate from there? How do we go for gold in a world where our peers, on some guttural, animalistic level, don’t want us to succeed?

We temper our ambition with suffering to trick other women into empathizing with us so as to reduce the impression that we’re a threat to their survival. That’s what.

We say - I’m going for what I want! I may even be a millionaire, or a billionaire. But… I have a mental health issue. Exhibit A: Selena Gomez. Exhibit B: Matilda Djerf.

Or…

Im going for what I want and a capitalist machine, but boys think I’m crazy and can’t fucking stand me. Exhibit A: every other Taylor Swift song. (I’m a swiftie, though, don’t come for me).

Or…

Im going for what I want but on the heels of a devastating divorce. Exhibit A: Chriselle Lim of Phlur. Exhibit B: Alli Webb of Drybar…and many, many more.

It seems like you have to force some sort of equation like…

I’m going for what I want + BUT I’M SUFFERING IN THIS WAY = I’m allowed to be here, and please don’t hurt me.

Men simply… don’t do this. If you re-read the research snippets I shared above, you’ll understand why. Men are allowed to pursue status and be high status with no apology, and this key difference begins in childhood. They don’t have to cushion their ambition with pain to make it palatable for other men. They get to strive and want and execute and bend the world to their will without apology.

Which is what I want to do in 2025. This is my goal. This is the big, bold, beautiful intention I wake up with every single day.

So, what finally broke me?

My friend Jon and I always talk about how when something is kind of mediocre, or not-so-bad, you’ll stay in it for a while and you won’t up and leave, even if it’s not the best for you. For me, this was relinquishing my agency to other people and exclusively putting my eggs in their basket, in their vision. It wasn’t killing me. I wasn’t miserable. But my life wasn’t aflame with joy, or excitement, or an eagerness to be alive in the morning. I was “getting by,” and I got used to that.

That was, until my go-to move of empowering and enabling someone else put me in a bad situation. This person betrayed my trust, took advantage of me, and put my career and reputation at risk. BITCH I SEE YOU and I will HAUNT YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYS! (jk, but not really, but a little bit. onward and upward, angels).

It was then I realized there is real danger in handing over your agency to another person. And that sometimes, the only person you can and should trust is yourself, and your vision, and what you want out of life.

But that danger is always there, it always was.

And that’s why I’m writing to you today. To say that the danger of losing yourself to someone else, or to what other people are doing, or to what you think you “should” be doing - versus leaning in to what truly calls to you - is worse than what any hater, or troll, or mean c*nt will say in the comments section or behind your back.

The danger of holding yourself back is worse than whatever jealous or insecure girl says about you to her friend over mediocre martinis.

The danger of trusting someone else over your own gut, intuition and voice is worse than whatever self-doubt you’ll have to face once you fully bet on - and listen to - yourself.

The danger of shrinking yourself so other women can survive, means you die inside.

So don’t do it.

And to those who wrestle with the impulse to critique, judge, harass, or cut others down for size - I have a message for you, too, which is this: I understand what insecurity feels like. I understand what envy, jealousy and coveting feel like, and they are dark and disturbing emotions that need an outlet. They need a way to exit your body. But the way out is not by putting other people down or reveling in women’s demise and failure. It’s by confronting your jealousy and shame and realizing that you - getting yourself off your ass and taking steps that make you proud of yourself - are the answer. No amount of gleeful reveling in other people’s missteps is going to make you love yourself more. No amount of shit-posting to reddit is going to cure your financial woes, or the fact that you don’t love your body or your job. No amount of criticizing someone that’s trying is going to heal you of the knowing that you’re not.

Okay? <3

Talk soon 🧘‍♀️,

Ali