Ever read Queen Bees & Wannabes? How have you experienced catty, LV pettiness from pickmes in your life?

edwardianemerald · 2022-03-26T11:56:44+00:00

Ugh sooo much.

I worked with a woman who had a great husband who would bring her coffee every morning, but she still lusted after younger men in the office. She would spread untrue office rumors to younger women which they would naively repeat and then be chastised for. She would threaten violence against other women if they disagreed with her, and then if they went to HR, she would take off "sick". If she was feeling particularly petty she would bring her knitting to meetings and knit instead of listen. She advocated for weird weird shit like people to amputate their limbs "just because". Her husband was sort of high up in the organization so she was way more protected than other people who acted the same way would have been. She didn't have the necessary background to have the job in the first place but acted like she did.

There was another woman who insisted that younger women do "extra" things around the office, like figure out office supplies or create itineraries for her travel. She never asked young men or men in general to do this. Those extra things were not related to their job functions at all. If the younger women disagreed, this woman would refuse to take their phone calls or respond to their emails. This made creating a paper trail really tough. Instead, she would insist that they discuss it at the once annual team lunch to "put a table across myself". She also insisted that all of the team buy wedding gifts for her favorite male employees when they got married--- female employees did not get the same treatment.

There was another woman in an ombudsman type role who ran straight to management with anything she heard so that young women could not trust her, despite saying that she was a "trusted confidant".

Another woman who was in a pretty big sorority in college insisted on making disparaging remarks in meetings to women, especially older women in the workplace. She would deny them training opportunities so she could focus on her protege, a young man. Two of the older women quit over this, making this woman look terrible. However she spins it so that it isn't her fault and she doesn't have to take responsibility for her toxic behavior -- instead if she gets pushback on why her team is leaving all the time, it's "the market" or "the economy".

alpinepunch2021 · 2022-03-26T14:02:07+00:00

I remember in middle school, I wanted to join my "best" friend's group but they were a bunch of white girls who didn't want that "token WOC" in their group

I'm south asian and my best friends are south asian too. This didn't happen to me (since I was a grade above them) but in elementary school they would hang out with a couple of white girls and one of them basically explicitly told them she wasn't inviting them to her birthday party because they were brown LMAO. Now she's a SAHM in New Zealand and has a baby on the way with her husband, while one of my friends in that group has been in in a string of shitty relationships (one of which was outright physically abusive) while the other was in a 2 year situationship with a guy who eventually ghosted her and got some white girl pregnant.

So uh, yeah, there was never really any justice.

Also, when I was 10 I hit puberty pretty early (it's a normal thing for south asian women apparently) so I developed boobs and copious amounts of body hair and became way taller than everyone else super early. This east asian girl would constantly make fun of me for wearing a bra (idk how that worked but it's 10 year old logic) and being hairy (which is also pretty standard for south asians). She's the reason I started waxing, though I eventually had enough of it in my undergrad and never touched my body hair again.

Also, endless, endless terrorist bombing jokes from white guys plus multiple brown guys telling me (unprompted) that they could never date someone who's not white. I know that's not in the scope of OP's post, but I figured I'd throw that in there.

thewetdog_ · 2022-03-26T15:13:20+00:00

Wait what

You emailed a guy who used to bully you in elementary school, as he is ready to go to law school?

Sis whaaaaaaaaat

He didn’t block you because he’s scared he blocked you because wtf

I would have blocked you too 🥴

What did you think you would gain from that? Work out your hurt with a therapist, don’t jeopardize your reputation over a childhood bully.

This whole story sounds very immature and resentful and I can’t place how it’s relevant to the sub.

If people have wronged you it’s on you to level up your life and cut them off, but bitterness on the level of going around sending confrontational emails to people who did you wrong in elementary or middle school is just not it. Unless it’s worth reporting to police, there is nothing to gain from this, you just make yourself look bad and cringey.

Did you expect an apology? Did you just want to tell them your piece? Congratulations, you did and now he/they can show everyone your message.

You need to focus on your life and your goals to the point where you don’t need to track people down over email to tell them off. I’m sorry to be so crude, but bitterness is very low value.

And what “karma”? Your angry emails. Sis no. I’m removing this bc it does not fit within the scope of the sub. Feel free to make a post with the book or your lessons learned or whatever, but we’re not going to encourage women making fools of themselves here

MinMiddleEast · 2022-03-26T13:10:30+00:00

Story time!

Around four years ago, I was invited to join a book club by a very good friend of mine. The club was entirely made up of white American expat women, and I was the only non-American WOC expat who had ever been asked to join. In hindsight, I HADN'T been asked to join - my good friend had merely informed the group that she wanted me to join, and since she was one of the original creators of the group, everyone else kind of felt that they had to go with it.

I was still pretty naive back then and joined the group in good faith. I even managed to make friends with a couple of people in it, or so I thought.

It is also relevant to this story that I am a conventionally attractive woman who is rather well-endowed in the chest area, and I also have a penchant for wearing red lipstick and matching high heels.

The digs started small, but SUPER weird. For example, I once showed up to one of the meetings in a really beautiful maxi dress and high heels (I had a dinner to go to after the meeting) and I took my heels off at the door so I could be comfy. A few moments later, I turned around to see the host of the meeting WEARING MY SHOES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION and tottering around her living room in them. I just stood and stared, and when she saw I had noticed, she said, "Is it normal in your country for women to wear stuff like this all the time?"

There was also another larger incident where when it was my turn to host the meeting at my home, a couple of members looked around my very comfortable, beautiful home and commented on how it's just such a lovely thing that South Asians are starting to do well for themselves nowadays.

Things started even getting weirder. A few weeks after the Shoes Incident, one of the founders of the group sent around a form for the members to fill. The form had questions in it such as, "What changes do you think we could make to the group to make it better?"

My answer to the question was that we could ask more WOC to join because we frequently read and discussed a lot of books written by WOC about WOC. I gave them the example of the time we read Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche's 'Americanah' and some of the members of the group turned to ME to explain the finer points Nigerian culture. I'm South Asian. I'm not even black. I don't know jacksh*t about Nigerian culture and will never, ever pretend to be a spokesperson for it. Do I even HAVE to say this?

Sisters, it was like I had collectively accused the entire group of being a bunch of racists (which, it incidentally turned out, most of them actually were) because I had asked for the voices of the very women they talked about while clutching their large, filled-to-the-brim glasses of red wine to be included in the discussions. And we lived in a very diverse city, where plenty of such women could have been asked to join. Hell, I KNEW at least four women who would have been a great addition to a book club.

Moreover, it was just a suggestion that was made after being actually asked to make one, FOR AN UNOFFICIAL, UNREGISTERED BOOK CLUB. I can't stress that enough.

Things got really serious. The lady who had tottered around in my shoes weeks earlier accused ME of trying to add a 'token WOC' to the group (excuse me, wasn't I already the 'token WOC'?). Another woman said THIS is why she had been opposed to letting in a non-American to begin with, because the club had been her home away from home and all these foreigners will come in and just ask for more foreigners to be added in, and ruin everything for her. Finally, it all ended with the Shoe Obsessed Lady threatening to "cut any b*tch who tries to take this group away" from her (which obviously meant me).

I immediately left that group. I only stayed that long because I honestly couldn't believe this was even happening. All of this because I SUGGESTED that we add more WOC to the conversation.

Anyway, some more details that emerged later: apparently, there was a whole WhatsApp sub-group within the book club that was dedicated SOLELY towards discussing me and "what slutty outfit the Paki will wear to the next group meeting". I got sent screenshots of it by a woman who had once been in the group, left it when she realised what it was about, and then felt the need to tell me that the whole group had been trashing me behind my back the entire time for no reason anyway, and the whole adding WOC to the group thing was the excuse they needed to get me thrown out.

Another lady in the group had gotten close to me for the sole purpose of feeding personal information about me to the WhatsApp group dedicated to trashing me. She would hang out with me one-on-one and then come back and report to the group. It was like a real-life Mean Girls playing out, only with serious racism involved.

I could literally write a novel on the things these women did to me. The only good thing that came out of the whole drama was that the friend of mine who had initially asked me to join the group actually DID turn out to be a good friend and is still my friend to this day. She left the club right after she saw them attacking me, but not before she called them out as the bunch of raging racists and bullies they were, and then actually never saw them again. So at least I get to keep one good friend, and a lesson learned.

Edit: Autocorrect changed the 'Adiche' in Chimamanda's name to 'Alice'. SMDH.

Title	Ever read Queen Bees & Wannabes? How have you experienced catty, LV pettiness from pickmes in your life?
Author	Throwawaylikehay
Upvotes	36
Comments	7
Date	March 26, 2022 6:12 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/toicx6/ever_read_queen_bees_wannabes_how_have_you/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/ever-read-queen-bees-wannabes-how-have-you.1108503 https://theredarchive.com/post/1108503

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