Stop Comparing Me to Other Women!!!! Says Gwyneth Paltrow
As soon as Caitlyn Jenner revealed herself on the cover of Vanity Fair earlier this week, the world started comparing her to other women. Jessica Lange! Geena Davis! Renee Russo! Was she hotter than Kris? Her body better than Kim’s? Jon Stewart called it “comparative f**kability,” the thing that completed Bruce’s transition from male to female. It’s one of the many ways in which our society repeatedly proves its misogyny and it’s goddamn annoying.
“We want to give a woman a compliment here, we just need to make sure another woman gets taken down a peg in the process,” Stewart said. “It’s how we maintain the balance.” How exhausting.
Gwyneth Paltrow, who has maybe been more subject to this than any other woman in the public eye save Jennifer Aniston, is sick of it. When asked if she checks out Blake Lively’s lifestyle site Preserve, or Reese Witherspoon’s newly launched Draper James, the Goop founder told Time magazine, “This is a very interesting question, because I wonder if George Clooney would be asked about Puff Daddy’s ancillary liquor line…I’m fascinated how the media in particular are so confounded by entrepreneurial women doing something outside of their box.“
The 42-year-old actress makes a good point, one that’s been made time and again but clearly still needs making: why doesn’t anyone compare men? No one was asking how Bruce Jenner’s athletic prowess measured up to his contemporaries. He was excellent at what he did, and that’s all anyone cared about. Women are always forced into the context of other women, as if we can’t understand them for what they are on their own.
Paltrow points out that her business has literally nothing in common with Jessica Alba’s. Goop wants to sell you a $200 bobby pin and guide you through a detox. Alba’s shilling organic diapers. The fact that they’re both female founders is literally the only thing they share. But take Snapchat and Instagram for example, both hugely successful social media platforms with more in common than Goop and Preserve, but founded by men. Have you ever read an article wondering how Kevin Systrom really feels about Evan Spiegel? Has a headline ever asked if Spiegel’s living up to the techie profile established by Mark Zuckerberg? No. Their companies might be pitted against each other, but the men themselves are left alone.
Here are just a few headlines pitting Paltrow against her alleged competitors:
Washington Post: Preserve vs. Goop: How Blake Lively’s New Lifestyle Site Measures Up to Gwyneth Paltrow’s
Vanity Fair: Will Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James Unite Blake Lively and Gwyneth Paltrow?
New York Post: Blake Lively’s Vapid New Lifestyle Site is No ‘Goop’
Breitbart: Common Woman’ Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Site Faces Stiff Competition from Reese Witherspoon
Entrepreneur: How Reese Witherspoon’s New Lifestyle Brand Stacks Up Against Goop, Honest and Preserve
The vitriol bleeds through; it’s like the Hunger Games. Only one will survive! But seriously, can we at least entertain the idea that there’s room for everyone? And that even if there isn’t, if Goop goes down in flames it’s because there’s obviously a problem with Paltrow’s business plan and not because Lively got in the game or Alba landed the cover of Forbes. Is that too much to ask?
Related: Caitlyn Jenner and the Prison-House of Perfection
