During my skype call with Margot she spoke about her journalist friend, Ann Friedman who came up with the 'Shine Theory' … "I don't shine if you don't shine" I decided to do some further research and found the article really insightful and true! and really relevant for my dissertation. The whole basis of the theory is that as women we see often see other women as our primary competition. It can be war - but what we have to realise is at the heart of it, its a war against ourselves. When women hate on other women we perceive to be "better" than we are, we're really just pointing out what we think we lack within ourselves. The practice behind Shine Theory is that hopefully everybody should be doing it. I would say Shine Theory is directly correlated with Feminism and Sisterhood. Not only does it reinforce the importance of women supporting one another, it reminds us that somebody else’s success does not diminish our achievements. The article goes...
Shine Theory
When you meet a woman who is intimidatingly witty, stylish, beautiful, and professionally accomplished, befriend her. Surrounding yourself with the best people doesn’t make you look worse by comparison. It makes you better.
I’m not immune to that icky feeling you can get in the pit of your stomach when you meet a woman who seems so together. But I confess that I was always pretty good at quashing it. Still, I didn’t actively seek out powerful women as friends until many years into my career. “I don’t shine if you don’t shine” is a lesson I learned from my best friend Amina.
Approaching and befriending women who I identify as smart and powerful (sometimes actively pursuing them, as with any other crush) has been a major revelation of my adult life. First, there’s the associative property of awesomeness: People know you by the company you keep. I like knowing that my friends are so professionally supportive that when they get a promotion, it’s like a boost for my résumé, too, because we share a network and don’t compete for contacts. Also, it’s just plain tough out there — for all the aforementioned reasons about the economy and the dating scene and body-image pressures. I want the strongest, happiest, smartest women in my corner, pushing me to negotiate for more money, telling me to drop men who make me feel bad about myself, and responding to my outfit selfies from a place of love and stylishness, not competition and body-snarking.
True confidence is infectious. In my experience, if a woman seems confident but mostly has the effect of making others feel bad about themselves, you can rest assured she’s faking it. The most toxic female relationships of my life have been with women who were deeply unhappy with their lives, and frequently compared them to mine. Contrary to deep-seated theories of female competition, I don’t think that competition made either of us any better or happier.
Whereas with male peers we can use sexism or other factors to explain why they’ve found success in ways we haven’t, other women present a more direct comparison. Powerful women have long held the belief, if only at a subconscious level, that there are a limited number of spaces for them at the top. Have you ever seen a campaign ticket or a boardroom that’s more than 50 percent female? There’s a deep-seated belief that there can be only one — or two, or three at max. I’ve confessed that I’ve occasionally enjoyed being the token woman in the room.
This isn’t just something that afflicts insecure sorority girls. Feminists, ostensibly united by their shared desire to advance gender equality, should be those who are most supportive of their peers’ successes. But as long as there’s been a women’s movement, there’s been a tendency to tear down its most prominent figures. In a 1976 essay on “trashing” among feminists, Jo Freeman quotes her fellow feminist Anselma Dell'Olio as saying that "Achievement or accomplishment of any kind would seem to be the worst crime ... You are immediately labeled a thrill-seeking opportunist, a ruthless mercenary, out to make her fame and fortune over the dead bodies of selfless sisters who have buried their abilities and sacrificed their ambitions for the greater glory of Feminism."
But in reality, we’ve all been both of the women in this scenario, the idealizer and the idealized, often simultaneously. Foregoing the internal ranking system in favor of being your best self and helping your girlfriends do the same was a revelation to me.
I’m not immune to that icky feeling you can get in the pit of your stomach when you meet a woman who seems so together. But I confess that I was always pretty good at quashing it. Still, I didn’t actively seek out powerful women as friends until many years into my career. “I don’t shine if you don’t shine” is a lesson I learned from my best friend Amina.
Approaching and befriending women who I identify as smart and powerful (sometimes actively pursuing them, as with any other crush) has been a major revelation of my adult life. First, there’s the associative property of awesomeness: People know you by the company you keep. I like knowing that my friends are so professionally supportive that when they get a promotion, it’s like a boost for my résumé, too, because we share a network and don’t compete for contacts. Also, it’s just plain tough out there — for all the aforementioned reasons about the economy and the dating scene and body-image pressures. I want the strongest, happiest, smartest women in my corner, pushing me to negotiate for more money, telling me to drop men who make me feel bad about myself, and responding to my outfit selfies from a place of love and stylishness, not competition and body-snarking.
True confidence is infectious. In my experience, if a woman seems confident but mostly has the effect of making others feel bad about themselves, you can rest assured she’s faking it. The most toxic female relationships of my life have been with women who were deeply unhappy with their lives, and frequently compared them to mine. Contrary to deep-seated theories of female competition, I don’t think that competition made either of us any better or happier.
Whereas with male peers we can use sexism or other factors to explain why they’ve found success in ways we haven’t, other women present a more direct comparison. Powerful women have long held the belief, if only at a subconscious level, that there are a limited number of spaces for them at the top. Have you ever seen a campaign ticket or a boardroom that’s more than 50 percent female? There’s a deep-seated belief that there can be only one — or two, or three at max. I’ve confessed that I’ve occasionally enjoyed being the token woman in the room.
This isn’t just something that afflicts insecure sorority girls. Feminists, ostensibly united by their shared desire to advance gender equality, should be those who are most supportive of their peers’ successes. But as long as there’s been a women’s movement, there’s been a tendency to tear down its most prominent figures. In a 1976 essay on “trashing” among feminists, Jo Freeman quotes her fellow feminist Anselma Dell'Olio as saying that "Achievement or accomplishment of any kind would seem to be the worst crime ... You are immediately labeled a thrill-seeking opportunist, a ruthless mercenary, out to make her fame and fortune over the dead bodies of selfless sisters who have buried their abilities and sacrificed their ambitions for the greater glory of Feminism."
But in reality, we’ve all been both of the women in this scenario, the idealizer and the idealized, often simultaneously. Foregoing the internal ranking system in favor of being your best self and helping your girlfriends do the same was a revelation to me.
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