Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry

by Susan Shapiro Barash Narrated by Shelly Frasier

Overview

Tripping the Prom Queen is an investigation of the dark secret of female friendships-the deep vein of female rivalry. Based on interviews with women across the social spectrum, Susan Shapiro Barash has exploded the myth that women are generally supportive of one another. In fact, the competition between women is more vicious precisely because it is covert. She tells us: Why women can't and won't admit to rivalry. How women are trained from an early age to compete with one another. In which areas women most heatedly compete. How rivalry is different among women than among men. The differences between competition, envy, and jealousy. When competition is healthy and when it isn't. Why women find it irresistible to trip the prom queen. Useful strategies to stop the competition and forge a new kind of relationship with other women. Tripping the Prom Queen is an engrossing exploration of bad behavior that all women will identify with, and a beacon of hope for a better, more promising future.

Editorial Reviews

Gender studies scholar Susan Shapiro Barash interviewed over 500 women while researching this groundbreaking book about female rivalry. Tripping the Prom Queen demolishes what remained of the theory that women are generally supportive of one another. In fact, Barash notes, competition between women is more vicious precisely because it is covert. She describes how women are trained from an early age to compete with one another, and she pinpoints the areas in which they battle most heatedly. The book contains treatment as well as diagnosis: Barash shows how women can develop useful strategies to stop unhealthy competition and forge healthy relationships with other women.

Kirkus Reviews

Lightweight report on how women's relationships are marred by competition, envy and jealousy. Barash (Critical Thinking and Gender Studies/Marymount Manhattan Coll.) posted flyers in YWCAs and health clubs soliciting "tales of female envy, jealousy, and friendship." The resulting interviews with some 500 women of diverse backgrounds brought forth bleak tales of betrayal, throat-cutting and anguish. The author found that while women are reluctant to admit to feelings of rivalry toward others of their sex, when probed, many reveal a dirty little secret: Such feelings are pervasive. Men may compete in the workplace and on the athletic field, but women, she reports, compete with each other over appearance, social approval, children, men, careers-you name it. Their competition is not just with colleagues and friends, but with their mothers and daughters. To make the point, Barash has included a superabundance of excerpts that tell, in the interviewees' own words, of mean-spirited acts done to them and by them. She also turns to the entertainment industry for more illustrations, citing dozens of movies and TV shows that explore both female bonding and the fault lines in female relationships, from Working Girl to Legally Blonde, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Desperate Housewives. Padded with repetitive anecdotes and media examples, the text falls short on analysis. Barash only briefly considers the destructive nature of competition, rivalry and jealousy in female relationships and offers very few ideas about more positive ways in which women relate to one another. Mediocre fodder for women's-studies classes and book clubs.

From the Publisher

A must-read.” —Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees And Wannabees

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170685905
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	03/17/2006
Edition description:	Unabridged

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