… and it has taken me more than ten years to be able to say this. My whole adult life so far has been shaped by this kind of struggle. By reaching for the stars, and having big dreams. By being full of creativity and ideas, and running into walls. And it is a fact that as a pre-menopause woman with skills, competence, and dreams, these walls will likely be women over 40 feeling threatened by you.
Not all of them. Not even a majority. But I am still shocked by the level of manipulation and toxicity that younger women experience by small number of them. As I am 30 now, but am often thought to be younger likely to my quiet and introverted behavior, I noticed that as a pattern. When a director I was assisting at 18 asked me to stand in the corner and stop speaking because an actor had been (jokingly) hitting on me. When a boss in an office job without a dress code forbid me to wear lipstick. And the list goes on. Recently, I’ve had a colleague attempting to involve into a conversation about my attitude her hurt feelings because I had told her that she had bought the wrong material for the task she wanted me to accomplish, and it ended with her yelling through the whole office building how mean I was for pointing out her mistake.
These women try to lure you into being their friend. Although you don’t know each other at all, they tell you about their period cramps and sleeping problems, and then try to make their mistakes yours. Suddenly they cannot concentrate because of your long hair, or because of the sexual tension you apparently caused.
This is not you. It’s them.
I usually get along well with colleagues. But I now and then run into this kind of problem with the same kind of women, and for years I thought I had to work out myself to stop this from happening. But I don’t have to.
If whiny women over 40 give you a hard time in your 20s and 30s, this means that you have a lot of potential and they feel threatened by it. So, don’t let them burn you by the stake, but rise and shine in all your potential! Preferably into their face!