It is a frustrating thing, too, Skittles. Frustrating as much about the externals as I am with how I respond to them!
And I've been on the receiving end too. Oy. When I think back on my career, the coworkers and one-time friends with whom I had the most difficult time, invariably, were other women. Somebody was always either gunning for my job, or gunning for me, personally and specifically (so in the end, they could take my job). And it was, without fail, another woman. And the opposition had teeth, knives, tactical experience, and in one case, a nice tight short skirt, four-inch stilettos and the face of a goddess. I started getting really frustrated. I'd keep thinking - "WHY is it always another woman in the office who's trying to make my life difficult or play all kinds of political games and psy-ops shit? For Pete's sake, we're all pretty new here. We're all carving out new territory here! Isn't there room for everybody? Aren't we women all supposed to be on the same team? Aren't we all supposed to look out for each other? And it was not so." 
And it's helped leave me jaded, for sure! I think I can understand it and know my way around inside it because I've looked at it from within its crosshairs.
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