Looking at your description, I think I am an unintentional Anti-Women Feminist. My best friends are males, and though I love my mother very much, I have much more in common with my father. The only close female friend I have has previously scorned me very badly, and I'm still in the process of forgiveness and learning to trust her again. However, it's not that I don't like women because they are "catty"--I like women, there are plenty of female authors, actors, philosophers, etc. that I admire, and of course I admire many of the people that are a part of this community. However, I think it's because often I find when I surround myself with females in my age group, it's often hard to find people with similar interests to mine. I feel like many girls I've met are products of their environment, preoccupied with primping themselves and borderline eating disorder habits (which I will do whatever it takes to stray from; I've had serious issues with self confidence in the past and it's a hard task to keep them from crawling back!), and I think this deters me from going out and trying to find more like minded females. Even living in a more tolerant area of the United States, I can't tell you how many times I've been given funny looks or been disliked because I prefer discussing current events or politics to other, more popular discussion topics. It's discouraging. I'm not really trying to defend my ideology of straying away from females, though. I can say though that sometimes I definitely wish I did have more female friends; my best friend and my boyfriend are definitely feminists, but sometimes when I try to explain to them WHY a particular movie, book, action, concept, etc. is sexist, they have trouble understanding. I really think, for most people, including myself, it's because they are holding onto something, or some experience, or some stereotype, that they need to let go of. I think your post was very thought provoking and eye opening for me, personally; I've been practicing sexism without even noticing it, and I'm very glad you've helped me realize that.

I don't really think that you are accurately characterizing a class of people. It sounds like you've had a negative experience with someone in particular and are projecting a bit.

I can say that I sort of identify with your villain. I would never generalize and say something like "women are all so catty..." But I can say that I have had TROUBLE in my female relationships.

I don't mean that all women have given me trouble, I have female friends. But I have found relationships with women to be much more tricky than relationships with men. Men have their limitations, but ultimately the relationships are simple to understand.

It seems that a strong woman inspires a very complex reaction from some women. This complex reaction can cause a lot of grief. I am sure that others have been put through similar psycho-dramas as me that inspired them to be wary.

I admit to having been this way. I had a best girlfriend in highschool, and haven't really found a female pal since. I'm 33. I have one I can talk to about mom stuff and some personal stuff, but the no holds barred conversations I hear about from online pals with their own best friends? Never.

The women I meet aren't interested in politics. Or if they are, they're not willing to talk about them. Religion? Forget it. Social issues? Nope. Not unless it's lack of daycare spaces. I would love to meet women who wanted to talk about deeper issues than where to find the best cloth diapers, or how shitty their labour was. But I don't know where they are!

I love this post! I really appreciate your open-minded and loving approach. I also relate a little bit to the people you are describing. Although I do have many women friends, only a handful of them are my own age. I have always related better with women who are older than me, and I've often felt like I was in a different place from women in my peer group.

I'm not really sure what accounts for that, but I'd be interested in hearing other people's experiences. I wonder if maybe the anti-women feminists you talk about actually do have women friends, just not in their peer group.

I think those of us who have or do fall into this category are that way because of two things, bad personal experiences with other women and stereotypes perpetuating the idea that all women are this way. We don't identify with that stereotype, so we don't relate "to women" and then we meet bunches of women who do, and the disconnect just gets even deeper.

I freely admit to being this way most of my life. Only when I started meeting lots of other women who were like ME did I realize how flawed the stereotype was and reject it's influence on me. I am now in a transitioning phase where I realize some of the power men held over me, in that I wanted to be their friend and so was not totally honest with myself in some situations in an effort to please and fit in. I now identify more with women than I ever have before, and less with men.

It's an interesting journey.

i was like that when i was, like, nine. i was always defending my sex but at the same time only hung out with boys. i thought girls were boring and not into the stuff i was into. i grew out of it around puberty when my guys started going crazy and humping me when we rough-housed. i expanded my social circle in a attempt to find people who wouldn't do that and found girls who were interested in the non-stereotypical stuff i was. they were always there, but i just bought into a stereotype that girls didn't like the stuff i was into and i was just weird. i think that's what a lot of girls do who tend to hang out with guys.

"Girls can be so catty and backstabby. Guys are so much more trustworty as friends."
when i hear girls say this i want to lol.

my crowd is made of up guys again. they are just as catty, shallow, and backstabby as any (if not more so) girl herd i've run in. it annoys me so much when women go off on how guys are so much better friends than women. they're the same as far as i can see except i don't have to deal with as much misogynist comments, double standards, and general sexism in a girl group. the girls i knew who would go off hardcore on how much better guyfriends were, weren't as close as they thought with those dudes. they either were interested in her so they were super nice when she was around or she was one of their buddies' girlfriends and treated her super nice just out of respect for their friend. i did know this one girl who was a total guys' guy and they treated her like one of them (although she wasn't exactly feminist and talked shit about their girlfriends and participated in their sexist talk) but once she hooked up with one of them they totally disowned her. it was messed up.

i also agree %100 that women who go on and on about women being catty tend to be the cattiest of them all.

I love you for this.

When I was a big younger, I said the same thing. That while I would date girls, I couldn't be friends with them, because of XYZ.

Then I realized what a gigantic buttchunk I was being and I stopped.

Unfortunately, I still have trouble making female friends. My interests are in horirbly male-dominated areas (like video games and nerdy crap), and there aren't as many girls to meet that I actually share interests/chemistry with. The ones I do meet have the awful "gamer girrrrrl" mentality, which means that they liked being the sole woman in the group and all the attention they got, therefore hating on any other possibly female person that appears. You meet them all the time and that was part of the reason I decided girls weren't worth being friends with.

But I met a few pretty awesome feminists at university, so things are working out :D

Thank you for writing this. And it's good to know that I'm not the only one who made this mistake.

My issue with having women as friends is that I havent found any that have the same intersts as me. I had one female friend in hs 3 years ago and we hung out with all the guys at school and did the same things they did. we had very little intrest in doing the stero-typical girl things(still dont have intrest in them). Would i like to have female friends sure but im not going to change just so i can be one of the "girls". I would rather have guy friends that i can have fun with and deal with the "girl friend" but that a diffent topic.

sorry i rambled a little

Eh, so now it's "anti-woman" to prefer guy friends? The female equivalent of the situation where a guy with mostly female friends is called a pansy - but I guess we don't have an epithet for "anti-woman" women yet. Quick, think one up!