"how to be friends with other women" cough cough @ Clare and Irene

In the essay, " How to be Friends with another Women", I think its very important for us women to help each other out and stop being competitive. Gay says that we should abandon the cultural myth that all female friendship must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. Women should not tear each other down or make others feel bad just because they are having a bad day.

This essay kind of connects back to Passing, in the fact that Irene and Clare are competitive with each other when it comes to seeing who is passing the best as either white or straight. Clare is the most competitive one because she wants to be the best in everything and have the best life even if it means leaving her heritage behind. Clare is willing to harm others around her to get what she wants and that is not right. I think that Clare went about her life all wrong and should not have hid her identity. She should not have broke away from her heritage instead she should have accepted who she is. She could have done so much better with the help with her fellow community of black people. Maybe Clare would not have died in the end instead of trying to pass as white and had gotten along with Irene.

Irene also competes with Clare because she thinks that her husband and Clare are having an affair. Irene tires to keep her husband away from Clare by trying to avoid her every time she sends a letter Irene avoids it. When Irene sees that her husband is dancing at the ball with Clare she gets mad and that leads to probably calling Clare's husband to the party to expose her for what she is. When Irene sees that Clare is not phased by her husband finding out that she black and smirks. It leads Irene to pushing Clare out the window by "accident". Irene is then that she has knock out the competition and has her husband all to herself in order to counsel her homosexuality.

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