"The act of stealing between women can be physical or it can be emotional. What is physical is easily replaced. A barrette goes missing, and you buy another one. As we age, we graduate to emotional stealing. But what do we do when we're robbed of our self-esteem? I saw a girl crying in a bathroom once with her arms around her knees, indifferent to the fact that the door of her stall was open. I hesitated before asking if she was okay. She took one scrunched-up fist out of her eye, looked at me and said with drunken candor: "My friend told me my boyfriend was out of my league. She's always making me feel bad."" - Jessie

" It was this pattern of behaviour I found fascinating: the "always making me feel bad." What the sad girl was describing was consistent, low-scale, looting of happiness. Contrary to what Eleanor Roosevelt said, it's very, very easy to make somebody feel inferior without their consent. It's easy, and it's addictive. It's so bold of you to wear that! It's great that you're not worried about your grades! Where do you get your confidence? None of these comments seem devastating on paper, but in person they're a one-two punch to your heart. They make you worry that you don't look as good as you thought you did, that you're not as intelligent as you thought. You go over subtext more than you did for any college English class. You lie awake at night wondering What did she mean? Did she mean that? Am I crazy for thinking that she meant that? Helen Fielding, creator of beloved single-girl Bridget Jones, introduced a similar concept known as "jellyfishing" in 2001: "The thing about Rebecca is, she's a jellyfisher. You have a conversation with her that seems all nice and friendly, then you suddenly feel like you've been stung and you don't know where it came from. You'll be talking about jeans and she'll say "Yes, well, if you've got cellulite jodhpurs, you're best in something really well-cut like Dolce and Gabbana"- she herself having thighs like a baby giraffe—then smoothly move on to DKNY chinos as if nothing had happened." " - Jessie

" I know women who say of Hollywood actresses, "Well, she's pretty, but she's not that pretty," in a tone that is, more than anything else, defensive. If you praise one woman's beauty, it is perceived as an attack on the beauty of another. So they concede prettiness, because they don't want to seem ungenerous. Then they revoke. One step forward, two back. They parse for flaws so intensely, these women. Rihanna is pretty, but. Rihanna has a big forehead. Blake Lively is pretty, but. Blake Lively is all body. It's as though they were thrown into an arena and told to fight for the prize: a single, golden apple of beauty. No sharing allowed. This is part of the damnation of being a woman: We're forced into a false competition for everything: men, beauty, jobs. While men compete directly, we're socialized to compete indirectly. Men fight each other in the streets; they come for each other's throat in public because nobody expects them to stay polite. They say: "We're not friends. I don't like that guy." Meanwhile, women have frenemies, because god forbid we have straight-up enemies. Women are supposed to be nice to each other all the time because what are women, if not nice?" - Jessie

I can not relate to this at all. People like that aren't worth being around. I avoid people who give backhanded compliments. My female friends are straight up and they know I say exactly what I mean. That being said, it's eye-opening to see why a subset of women take the smallest thing and make it more than it is. Of course, they don't come to me directly, they talk to other crybaby women. At least it makes the trash easier to dump. - Anika

I try to avoid people who do the backhanded compliment thing regularly. If it happens once or twice, I may give them a pass. Everyone has a crappy day sometimes. But if every time I'm around them I feel like I'm just waiting for them to say something shitty, or if they get super defensive when they do and I call them out on it, then I try not to be around them anymore. I don't need that kind of drama in my life. - Jessie

Oh yes. I know that I one. The people who try to goad me into saying something when I don't care, then get mad that I don't care are of the same cut. It's very distressing for me to be around people who are used to backhanded compliments. It doesn't help that I can't keep my temper in check when I get, "What do you mean?" I absolutely hate when I give a sincere compliment and they reply, "But...?" There is no but. If there was, I wouldn't have given the compliment. The ones who don't learn there isn't a but, are out of my life. - Anika

Reading the comments now where people are listing the worst backhanded compliments they've received. ""A fellow temp, after I was offered a full time job and she wasn't "That's so great! It must be nice not to worry that you're only getting hired because of your looks." "" "I told a friend the name I had picked out for a girl when I was pregnant: Lily. She replied that only a pretty girl would be able to pull off the name Lily. " WTF who are these horrible people? - Jessie

I'm only half way through reading the comments, but this one's my favorite so far http://gawker.com/once-in... "Once, in highschool, a girl who desperately wanted to become a mean girl but was just a little too insecure to pull it off, "complimented" me on my new bangs, saying something like "Heeey, you got bangs. Cut them yourself, eh?" Since I wasn't aware that she was trying to start shit and naively assumed that she was actually showing interest in my new hairstyle, I enthusiastically replied "Haha yeah, no I'd be too scared to fuck it up! I went to XY to have it cut! You're lucky, you got so much hair, mine is so thin and I always have split ends and [blah blah long monologue about my haircut history.]" She just stared at me blankly, mumbled something unintelligible and turned away, my friends started laughing hysterically and she turned bright red. When I realized what had happened, I almost felt bad for her. But ever since then, my strategy for shutting down bitchy and passive-aggressive behaviour is feigning ignorance and killing the bitches with kindness." - bentley