http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/opinion/sunday/why-women-compete-with-each-other.html

"A good amount of research has been done on female competitiveness, both in condescending and eye-opening ways. A literature review by Tracy Vaillancourt in 2013 found that women by and large express indirect aggression toward other women, and that aggression is a combination of “self-promotion,” making themselves look more attractive, and “derogation of rivals,” being catty about other women."

"Instead of openly hating women, I used hate’s sneaky little sister and told myself that I pitied women who worked hard to be conventionally attractive, who had jobs that utilized their feminine wiles, who were “too girlie.” “Poor her,” I’d cluck at parties, “wanting attention so badly. I wonder who hurt her. Let’s discuss this art rock band I saw last week.” Self-promotion: check. Degradation of rivals: check."

Sounds about right to me, and very in line with RP. I've seen this happen with younger girls here at work all the time and it's very irritating, but since it is so under the radar you can't really call them out on it. I also knew several girls who do exactly as she described - put down more feminine/attractive ladies in order to make themselves look or feel better. A smart, pretty, kind girl makes some REALLY uncomfortable.

That's not to say that this is strictly based on gender.. as a whole I see plenty of instances of people putting down others in order to justify their own life choices. But with women in particular, there is that shift from childhood to adolescence, and that weird relationship between others of the same gender.