During quarantine, I’ve really had time to sit back and think about my career, how I’ve perceived other women in my field, and how that reflects my own insecurities and internalizing of toxic societal behavior. That’s why I’ve made the conscious decision to stop seeing other women as competition, unless they have the same name as me, in which case I’m definitely the best Gabrielle.
Yes, this includes all the famous Gabrielles, who I specifically perceive as a threat.
I just don’t think it’s fair that society pits women against women whenever it gets the chance, especially when none of us signed up for this competition in the first place. To be an active opponent of this patriarchal behavior, I see women as arbiters of change, as pioneers and peers who will help me along the way, and as people whose achievements I should celebrate. Unless they’re named Gabrielle, in which case there is a competition, I am winning it, and they can all suck on that.
I totally understand that some people may seem that I am doing the very thing I hate by placing myself in a made-up competition that doesn’t really exist. It’s not that I think other women named Gabrielle are in an imaginary competition with me, it’s actually a very real competition. You see, everyone will subconsciously compare me to every Gabrielle they know in their head as soon as they find out my name. And I’d like it to be clear and certain that I am to come out on top of that list every time, clobbering every other Gabrielle to her downfall if she dares step in my way. This is my victory; this is my birthright.
That’s why I’m making the conscious decision to let go of all this competitive nonsense unless it’s with a woman that is also named Gabrielle, in which case I will destroy her down to her very core until she has no identity to call her own.
I’m really above any kind of toxic competition between women unless that woman has my name.
