She Ain't Heavy - She's my Sister

A recently released book is blowing the lid off the "sisterhood" scam. The idea being that girls/women aren't actually the BFFs everybody thinks we are. The idea being that in reality as a collective gender we are fiercely competitive, secretly aggressive and constantly measuring ourselves against our fellow females.
You might presume I'm here to insist otherwise.
Not so.
In fact I've said this all along. To myself. To anyone who would listen. Experience is a solid teacher. Can't argue with the truth as it comes to be known to you - firsthand.
Throughout my years as a young girl, I've had girls come into and out of my life. I've witnessed the unspoken rivalries, the insidious way some females have of sprouting claws just before they move in for the scratch and pounce. The supposed best of friends morphing into the treacherous Mean Girls.
It's sad but oh so true.
Case in point. This past month a female friend of mine was invited to her 25-year high school reunion. She immediately flew into a panic. "I have to lose ten pounds, fast," she told me. I assumed it was so that she could look her best for her old boyfriend, aka: the jerk that dumped her three weeks before the prom. Make him wish he'd never let her go. But no. That wasn't it. "Are you kidding? I want to one-up all those snotty bitches that thought they were better than me back then." And by snotty bitches she actually meant her former girlfriends, members of her very own clique.
Ahh celery stalks - here she comes.
As for me - I consider myself lucky now in that my very best girlfriend and I have an honest, trusting and rival-free relationship. But it took decades of drama to reach this result. Kind of like climbing a mountain in four inch heels. Very tricky. Have to watch your step.
Perhaps this new book will serve as a wake-up call. As women we should be a cumulative force of reckoning. We should band together in support of our similarities and not rip one another apart for the sake of envy and certainly not for the sake of a man.
And yet I fear it's more a force of nature rather than conditioning.
We are ladies first and sisters second. As the saying goes: It is what it is.