Women are, by nature, catty creatures. If you have been walking around on this Earth for any length of time, you have probably been on both the giving and the receiving ends of more than a few scratches. Battle-scared and broken, you can probably attest to the meanness of womankind, usually for what can feel like no apparent reason at all.
However, what is the formula in one female that makes others perceive her as a threat? It actually comes down to 10 simple things that make a woman threatening. If you want to fit in, or if you want to delve a little further into the female psyche, read on.
1. Beauty
Whether you want to admit it or not, you are silently judging all of your friends all of the time and much of your judgment is based on your perception of their beauty. Society today places such high standards on appeal that most women feel insecure about how they look, and that insecurity breeds resentment exceptionally fast.
The more beautiful you are, the more other women will identify you as a threat. You might be the enemy in the single’s scene or the temptress who is plotting to seduce their man behind closed doors if you’re a beauty; you have problems with other females. The best advice is to avoid over sexualizing your look when you are with the girls, and let your personality do the talking.
2. Intelligence
Be smart, be desirable and be confident, but do not be a know it all. Overly intelligent people are intimidating, especially to other women who might not be on the same level.
Most people genuinely just want to go out, have fun and leave academia at home. Deep dialogue is fine, as long as you are not alienating your counterparts in the process.
3. Work ethic
You might be that mom who makes every meal from scratch or the career titan who can do no wrong because she always goes beyond the call of duty. Even though your woman pals should suck up their jealousy and rise above, they probably won’t. Give tips on success, but avoid bragging. No one likes a bragger.
4. Mean girls
You should probably also face facts here: some women are just mean for no reason at all. They will find something wrong with you, despite all of your own flawless imperfection.
If you have a friend who gossips with you (or if you are that friend), know that she will also gossip about you, so you should tread lightly and beware. Mean girls are intimidating and usually don’t have many female friends.
More: 5 Things to Stop Telling Yourself
5. Confidence
Like yourself and like who you are, but avoid arrogance and over-confidence like the plague. Women want to hang out with women who are like them and women often bond over their weaknesses. The more over-confident you are, the more intimidating you can be for other women.
6. Clothes
When your girlfriends sport flip-flops and sweat pants and you show up in a tight skirt and high heels, their anxiety will eat them alive. It’s important to dress for the occasion and dress for your body, but don’t try to outdo your friends intentionally. That is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.
7. Weight
This is (pardon the pun) a weighty issue with most women. If you are thinner than your friends, don’t be surprised if they isolate you, or pass you by in conversation.
While it’s not polite for the larger women to avoid you because you are skinny, they do this because they find you threatening, and it might take time for them to warm up to your inner fat girl. That doesn’t mean, however, that you need to chow down on a box of donuts to fit in, but be aware of how your body might make your friends feel, and maybe try on some baggy clothes for size.
More: 10 Secrets of Naturally Thin People
8. Strong personalities
If you are one of those women with a strong personality, you are automatically intimidating to other women. While you might have an opinion on everything and want everyone to know it, this can turn many women off. Any woman who harps on something relentlessly is not only threatening, but also annoying.
9. Competition
Women who have to compete with their friends often find themselves without many friends at all. A little friendly competition on the tennis court is fine, but know when to compete and when to make your girlfriends feel like winners.
10. Money
If you have more money than Scrooge McDuck and you have frugal friends, you will probably be known in your crew as “the rich girl”. Other women will immediately identify you as out of touch with their problems.
They think you can’t possibly know what it’s like to live on a budget and eat macaroni and cheese for dinner instead of your run of the mill filet mignon. If you have an enormous mansion and designer jeans, you might seem like an impenetrable fortress of threat for your girlfriends driving economy cars and wearing bargain basement vintage.
More: 3 Reasons Money Will Never Make You Happy
If a woman is a threatening woman or if a woman feels threatened by another woman, it all stems from personal insecurity. When women who don’t like the way they look, how much money they make or how little they know about politics or lasagna recipes, but have someone around who is a constant reminder of that perceived weakness, she is an automatic threat. The thing is, she doesn’t have to be.
When women can recognize the difference between being threatened and being intimidated and when women can figure out why they are intimidated so that they can get over it, women could truly rule the world. Until that day, however, keep your Gucci heels in the box and get comfortable with ponytails and personal flaws, because all of your best girlfriends already do it, and they are ready to tell you about it over a cheap cup of coffee.1