As the Facebook message pinged on my phone a single glance was enough to make clear I wasn’t the intended recipient.
Sent by a female friend, it offered a thumbnail description of me. Namely that ‘Angela makes a nice living being vocal and opinionated’.
For a moment, I froze. The name on the incoming message had left me expecting something unremarkable. Yet as my eyes lingered over the words, a cold dread coiled in my chest.
This was someone I’d always got on well with. Yet clearly behind her congenial mask lay a snarling contempt for me and all I had achieved in my career.
Why did her words sting? After all, I do make a reasonable living (though we’re hardly talking telephone numbers).
And as for being vocal and opinionated, well, as a writer and broadcaster, it’s my job to debate matters of the day.
Yet although I’m used to strangers taking a pop at my views – it’s part of the turf – I felt a jagged despair reading this misfired message, which had clearly been meant for someone else.
Bad enough that she’d cast me as a hapless fraud, selling out the people I know just to make a quick buck – in the offending message, she had gone on to say that I spoke specifically about the community in which we live – when the truth is that I write about what’s local or personal, precisely because it matters.
Angela Epstein was left feeling stung and betrayed after a ‘two-faced’ female friend made contemptuous comments about her career behind her back
It was the sheer two-faced betrayal that hurt most, the realisation that this malice festers behind a mask of civility.
Though when I’d digested the shock I can’t say I was surprised. For me, this kind of message is yet more proof of a view that I’ve long held. Namely that when it comes to our careers or the battle for power, the ‘sisterhood’ is a total myth.
Quite rightly, in recent years feminist campaigns have championed the fight against misogyny and inequality.
But what’s the point when in everyday life such noble ideals are undermined by mean-spirited behaviour from women unwilling or unable to support one another when one is perceived to have achieved higher status or success?
Women who, because of their insecurity, seize the opportunity to put female high achievers – or, in my case, medium achievers – in their place.
Such cattiness isn’t limited to the covert exchange of bitchy messages. Shockingly, studies show that 70 per cent of female executives have been bullied by other women, often in the name of ‘defending’ their own status.
Once, I was hired to consult for the media department of a large white-collar firm. When my male boss – with whom I had got on well – left, his female replacement took a dislike to me. She sneered at my ‘radio voice’, nitpicked my work, invented problems and ultimately decided there was no need for my input.
But such poisonous situations don’t only happen when high salaries are at stake. Any time the promise of status is on the cards, you see the same kind of ‘Queen Bee’ syndrome.
In fact, I’ve experienced some of the worst female behaviour on voluntary committees as the members jockey for position.
Women have fought admirable battles in recent years, but feminism is a hollow ideal if women are choosy about when they want to flex sisterly support, says Angela
Indeed, anyone who has ever been on a PTA will have experienced the loud whispers about fellow mums.
On one occasion on the night of a charity event, a fellow female volunteer physically pushed and swore at me after becoming overwhelmed.
She offered no apology for three weeks, and during that time the other women on the committee – including those who had witnessed the debacle – either rushed to her defence, implying that I had somehow caused her stress, or stayed silent.
In my mind, this kind of muted response is just as bad as the original bad behaviour.
All this said, I should stress that not all women behave this way. I’m very lucky to have a loyal cohort of female friends, mainly from school and university, who would do anything for me, just as I would for them.
We laugh and cry together, watch each other’s backs and, yes, brazenly tease one another. The difference is that we always do it with love – and never behind one another’s backs.
But if only such behaviour was not only shown by the women who know us best outside of the workplace, but all those we encounter as we forge our careers.
While women have fought admirable battles in recent years, feminism is a hollow ideal if women are choosy about when they want to flex sisterly support.
No one is saying women should be tooth-achingly sweet to each other all the time. I know there are always people who will push your buttons.
But no matter how many battles we fight against toxic masculinity, life will never truly get better for women until every aspect of the sisterhood becomes a reality, rather than a surface ideal.
My advice is to take a little longer to think before you act next time you experience a sense of jealously or insecurity when faced with another woman’s success – and before you send any messages…