One of the phrases an influencer is most likely to spout is “women support women” but if you take a second to think it through it’s a deeply flawed slogan that isn’t helpful for society.
It’s basically a way of saying women shouldn’t have an opinion and should stay in their lane. We don’t ask men to support men, we ask them to question, argue, discuss, investigate and challenge each other.
Rosie Ramsey has recently started spouting to her 400k+ followers that women should support women in an outburst against the forum tattle life. This was posted after joining all the instamums, including brummy mummy of 2, for a book launch. Users were quick to point out the hypocrisy as Rosie was until recently recording herself mocking the instamums that she now appears to have joined sides with. Rosie made a grid post that was deleted after a few hours about tattle life that was calling users dicks, while also saying you need to be kind to everyone.
Why should you support someone just because of their genitalia? Who does that help?
Social media female influencers use women support women to mean “you women should support me, while I try to sell you stuff”. This support is not reciprocal from the Instagram sellers, all they care about is being paid in cash and gifts (that aren’t taxed by HMRC) to try to make other women part with their cash.
For influencers it’s not actually women supporting women; It’s influencer supporting influencer. You come to my book launch and post about it then I’ll go to yours and post about it. Using the word book with an influencer is pretty generous as it’s mostly nothing more than merchandise that people buy because someone has online fame rather than any literary prowess.
Its big business on Instagram as an account with 50’000 followers are making 6 figures a year. Can you imagine if a business publically berated people for not buying their products?
Lots of these influencers are damaging as they show a wholely unrealistic and unachievable life. They can only afford all these holidays and high end products as they are advertised to sell to you and me. It’s not as easy as just saying unfollow as that doesn’t stop the culture of unrealistic expectations existing.
A viewer left a comment on the Gleam Futures signed tallent Inthefrow that they felt suicidal after watching Victoria Magrath on her gifted holiday to the Maldives. Victoria replied to say she’s sorry someone feels like that and they should unfollow, but does that really stop the culture of in your face prevalent advertising from people pretending to be your friend?
Women on social media are #GIRLBOSS and #BUSINESSWOMEN until the moment they receive anything other than gushing praise for their business. Then it’s called trolling, bullying and plays on the damaging stereotype of a weak defenceless woman. The women on instagram get away with it because people are constantly told women should support women.
Lydia Elise Millen is often calling for women to support women, her content is mainly high-end brands and holidays that she’s been gifted along with showing her million-pound Northamptonshire bungalow. She also has a home account called @lydiamillenhome which is very effective for getting high-end appliances and other furnishings gifted tax-free in exchange for a post.
However she’s often found criticising brands and people that don’t support her, while always calling for people to be kind and support each other. A tattle life user penned this response to her after one of her public posts that caused her followers to target someone.
Do influencers support their followers? They seem to do the opposite as their job is to shrill products from multinationals for people to buy with money they don’t have. It’s very common for people to get into debt and have feelings of inadequacy due to all the selling on social media from women that mascarade as a friend.
The suicide rate for both men and women has been increasing in recent years. I think as a society we would all benefit from supporting people that need it.
If influencers want 100% positive comments they need to stop putting themselves in the public eye for attention and lock down their profiles to just family and friends.
It’s very easy to be at the top of the pyramid and then tell everyone beneath you how to behave. But are they doing it to benefit themselves rather than society?
Should you support women that have been convicted of heinous crimes? Where do you draw the line over someone that shouldn’t be supported? Do men have to blindly support men?
I’ll support whomever I want to, you won’t automatically be my ally because we share a gender.
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Please let me know what you think of this post about “women support women” in the comments below and anything else you think I’ve missed.
I agree with everything you have to say. What I do want to add as as something to think about is that although more men do take their lives over women, when you look at the statistic for attempted suicide, men and women just as likely as each other. Men are more successful (for want or a better word) at their attempts than women are.
People need to support people and speak truth to bullshit. Being kind all the time isn’t natural. We need more compassion and openness to others opinions and what they are going through in their own lives. Humans aren’t perfect and they never will be.
Bloody brilliant. I would make every crap flogging influencer read this. All they do is pull the wool over the eyes of the gullible masses. Heaven forbid you comment in a way that challenges them, you get deleted and blocked in a heartbeat and called a hater and a troll. Women support women my fat arse. As you say, that only goes as far as influencer support influencer. If I see another one having a heavy period, having a bad day and blubbing I’m gonna lose my shit! Thanks for such a well reasoned article. I support you 😘😂
I agree with everything you have said, I’m sick to death of these dam ‘influencers’ making a fortune off of the back of hard working people.
New laws need to be brought in, but of course they won’t.
Influencers are allowed to buy followers, delete any comment that even slightly asks questions of them.
Is it really any wonder why the suicide rates are up & will continue to grow unless this culture stops.
We should be supporting ANYONE that needs support, weather they be male or female.
I can’t believe there is an influencer who lives in a million pound house who gets gifted holidays and reviews high end shopping experiences. Who is this aimed at exactly? Surely the people who are able to afford this lifestyle don’t need inspiration from her on how to spend their cash? Which means as I suspect that it exists for the sole purpose of making people feel shit about their lives, careers etc. It’s abhorrent.
The influencers who use “women supporting women” are usually awful people who don’t like getting critiqued by other women for being awful women, so they use the phrase to make their legitimate critiquers feel bad about themselves.
While there is much truth in this piece, reducing the definition of a woman to their genitalia seems somewhat inappropriate.
This is spot on. What I am becoming increasingly concerned about, especially with the new “be kind” agenda, is that no one is going to be called out on bad behaviour and any criticism is going to be labelled bullying and trolling, thus allowing everyone to act without impunity.
A breath of fresh air. People need to be held accountable whoever and whatever gender they are – but not do I agree with the ridiculous “cancel” culture. Everything these days is so extreme. We should be inviting conversation, debate and challenging each other’s views – not just shutting them down with a cancel button. As a 42 year old, I can only hope for the best for our vulnerable young generation.