Catfight: Rivalries Among Women--From Diets to Dating, from the Boardroom to the Delivery Room: Written by Leora Tanenbaum, 2003 Edition, (Reprint) Publisher: Harper Perennial [Paperback] Paperback – 31 Aug. 2003

A very few books discuss the unspoken issue of women's rivalry and even less from a feminist point of view because collaboration between women is it's cornerstone so ironically we tend to talk about it lessz let it develop subtlety which is exactly the way society forces women away from competition and aggression (those are male qualities) and therefore brings on the covert aggression that in school time is reflected in cliques and queen bees (a great book on the sociological side of the issue on the matter is Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons) but continues into adulthood: we just don't talk about it because whereas some women have to help their daughters survive the school (and cliques) years, everything from media to narrative and old fairy tales has taught men to compete on the basis of skills, but women that everything is personal. Lora brings very good insights and examples, the second half of the book though (work but motherhood especially) is dedicated more to a feminist read of the contexts than the actual issues of competition. It's great to know the context which fosters this rivalry but more direct examples on the rivalry issue would have been more on point.