The greatest enemy of women

I have to go to my daughter's softball game today and I am petrified. Not because I worry she'll be hurt, or that they'll lose. Nope, those are but minor fears. I am petrified because with softball games comes parents. More specifically, other mothers.
Oh fellow women, why the hell are you so scary?
In 1920 women across America banded together and fought to secure our right to vote. I can guarantee that even during that historic time, women who stood together in picket lines, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, still found the time to gossip as soon as they had the chance.
It baffles me, the ways of women, and I am one. I have never understood our need to tear other women down in order to build ourselves up. Everyday as women we face constant battles for equality, for fairness, for safety and security. We struggle with our own self-worth, our personal demons and our place in the world.
With all of that, why the hell are we adding to our own pressures by attacking each other?
I'm 5'8, 135 pounds, blonde, and heavy chested. The combination of those things means that women who don't know me will be mean to me. It isn't the exception, it is the rule. It doesn't matter that I laugh from deep in my belly, that I am loyal to my friends, protective of my family, honest to a fault or that I love with my entire heart.
I am simply a threat to those who don't know me. And it is ridiculous. I bake cookies, I knead bread, I quilt. I play online video games, I love sports. I'm a dork. I tell dirty jokes and I cry at everything. I am so not a threat.
I take myself out to lunch and I watch tables of women together, laughing and sharing and enjoying being together and I sit on the outside and die a little inside. The envy that I feel is deep and it is profound and it tears at my heart and rips away my self-worth.
I want to sit at the table, I want to be let in. I want shoulders to cry on and women to call when I am lonely, when I am afraid, when I am joyous or proud. But I have none.
After years filled with gossip and lies, dirty looks and shuns, I have given up. I am afraid of women.
And still I just want a friend.
We, as women, should be each others strongest supporters. We should be the ones celebrating each other, celebrating our beauty, celebrating our victories.
My strengths are not your weakness. My strengths, or her strengths, every women's strengths, they are yours too. They are your victories as well.
I am not your competition, I am your cheering section.
My daughters have been taught to compliment other women whenever they can. To notice a beautiful smile, to appreciate the beauty in others, to see women for their worth.
Life isn't a contest. There is no winner, no losers. There are only people, feelings, friendships and love. There is enough for everyone. What I have doesn't lessen what you have. What we have together only makes it bigger, stronger, better.
I am not your competition. I just want to be your friend.