Don't Hate Her Because She's Beautiful

"It all starts with the eyes. Before we speak to a woman or are introduced to a woman, we visually size her up, assessing what we like and dislike about her." That's not a snippet from some woman-as-horseflesh feature in Details or Maxim. It's Tamara "Taj" Johnson-George—member of the R&B trio SWV and wife of retired Titan Eddie George—writing in Player HateHER: How to Avoid the Beat-Down and Live in a Drama-Free World. Women, according to Johnson-George and co-author Katrina Chambers, waste too much of their lives envying and criticizing each other. Player HateHer is part self-help manual, part manifesto in their "stop the hate" campaign to end the sniping and foster female solidarity.

"Player hater" is a slang reference to competitiveness between style-obsessed alpha males, so-called "players." Chambers and Johnson-George extend the notion to the catty, spiteful attitude women take toward each other, coining the slightly precious "Player HateHer." They define female player-hating as "a syndrome suffered by most women that attacks our egos without warning, causing us to lash out at other women for the smallest of reasons." Backhanded compliments, gossip-mongering and put-downs disguised as constructive criticism are all manifestations of the problem, which Chambers and Johnson-George insist is pervasive. A little time spent observing behavior wherever women gather, from nightclubs to church services, bears them out. No matter how much we hate to admit it, there's probably not a woman alive who hasn't found herself feeling instantly hostile toward someone younger, prettier, richer or hotter—after all, it's not men who support the Britney Spears media feeding frenzy and GoFugYourself.com.

What sets Player HateHER apart from other pop culture post-feminist bromides is its irreverent tone. The book is written in the first person, with its two authors alternately giving funny, dishy testimony from their own experiences. They both have reason to sympathize with the woman who finds herself raked over the coals by other women. Johnson-George's high-profile career with SWV and her marriage to an NFL star have put her on the receiving end of some awesome female venom. Chambers runs her own entertainment management firm—Eddie George is a client—and her involvement with celebrities makes her fair game as well.

At the same time, the pair admit to being haters themselves, describing it as "one of our favorite pastimes," which they even practice against each other. The difference, they say, is that they do it knowingly, with affection and humor that defuses its power to hurt. If it's done in the right spirit, they say, hating can even be a source of bonding between women. For example, at Johnson-George's 2004 wedding to Eddie, jealousy among the bridesmaids—including Chambers—was getting out of control. Instead of denying the problem, the women decided to take the ball and run with it. "Tamara Antrice ain't shit" became their collective mantra, followed by "BUT...you gotta love her." They even repeated the chant to Johnson-George's face. It was the perfect antidote to bad feeling: "We all laughed hysterically," writes Chambers about the night they created the ritual. Then they went back to making chocolate penises for a pre-wedding party.

Chambers and Johnson-George are both African American, and Player HateHer is clearly targeted to a black readership, but in an interview Johnson-George insists that "when we wrote the book, we didn't have a particular race in mind.... White, black or purple, everybody hates." Chambers agrees that envy is universal, and says that hating is "definitely learned behavior," unwittingly encouraged by adults who teach children to make superficial judgments based on looks and wealth. The resulting prejudices and insecurities are carried into adulthood, and the cycle of hating continues.

The bond between Chambers and Johnson-George lends credence to the ideas in their book. Chambers is an Army brat from a stable family, while Johnson-George had a childhood best described as chaotic. She endured an abusive relationship as a young woman, which led her to focus on domestic violence issues through Visions with Infinite Possibilities (VIP), the foundation she heads with her husband. In spite of their different backgrounds, the two women have been inseparable for more than a decade. Johnson-George's marriage and motherhood don't seem to have put a damper on their friendship, as so often happens between women friends. They refer to themselves as sisters, and Chambers, who currently lives in Maryland, is planning to relocate herself and her business to Nashville since, as she puts it, "I'm here all the time" to see Johnson-George.

Although the book is joyfully pro-woman, Johnson-George wouldn't call it feminist: "It's not just women that we talk about." Indeed, the universality of envy makes the topic ripe for serializing. A second book directed at men is already in the works, and there may be a children's version as well. Chambers too makes the point that the problem afflicts everybody, but she points out that it does particular damage to women. Asked whether she'd call the book's message feminist, she says, "Yes, in the sense that, united, women have more power. Player hating is something that divides us. We're losing our power and our muscle because we're divided."