I Hate That Bitch. I Owe Her Everything.

At Tina*’s high school graduation, a teacher gave her the only compliment that mattered: “I love your shoes. And they’re better than Chelsea’s*.”

Tina and Chelsea never spoke outwardly about their long-running rivalry, but it was clear to everyone at their small, private school in Alabama that they were nemeses. “It was just like, OK, the two girly girls who are outrageously overachieving, wearing cute outfits, being annoying, are obviously going to compare themselves to each other, even though in a lot of ways, on paper, we were not that similar,” Tina says. Chelsea was a petite white girl who self-consciously modeled herself on Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods, driving a Pepto-Bismol-pink Lexus and dreaming of an acceptance to Harvard. Tina, on the other hand, describes herself as “a bigger, brown, more cantankerous, boisterous young lady” with designs on Stanford.

In the end, they both got into their dream schools, and they slowly lost touch. But all these years later, Tina — now a 32-year-old interior designer in New York — says she wouldn’t be where she is today without Chelsea.

“Especially in the South, where a lot of women — they say you go to college to get your MRS. degree, and that’s what a lot of our peers have done,” she says. “So I’m really grateful that I had her to compare myself to and to compete against, because if it hadn’t been for that, then I might not have been like, ‘Oh yeah, there is a world in which I can be an achiever.’”

Still, she has mixed feelings. “It was a time in my life where it felt like I couldn’t relax or chill. I graduated high school in 2010, so that was not a time when people were talking about balance or mental health or self-love.”

Millennial women might be the last generation of women to believe they could have it all if they only worked hard enough, a story that fell apart amid the Great Recession, the child care crisis, the pandemic, and the stubborn pervasiveness of racism and sexism in society. Blame the supercharged college admissions race, the rise of the pick-me, the tabloids’ obsession with catfights — competition was baked into their bones. (Remember the days of Britney versus Christina, Tonya Harding versus Nancy Kerrigan, Naomi Campbell versus Tyra Banks, Diana versus Camilla?) Whatever it was, it led many to discover the ultimate superfuel for success: a nemesis.

Let’s stick with Legally Blonde as an example: a delightful classic — and a 2001 document of proto-girlboss feminism. The plot hinges on Woods making personal sacrifices and pulling all-nighters to come out on top; she, too, is motivated by her hatred for a nemesis (in this case, Vivian Kensington, the WASPy brunette her ex-boyfriend has chosen over her). Though in the end Woods befriends her nemesis, at no point is Harvard Law’s workload and competitive culture put under the microscope. What does it matter, as long as Woods won?

“Growing up in the ’90s, we learned the ‘scarcity’ theory early: that there’s not enough success to go around, so you have to take it for yourself,” says Rachel*, a 40-year-old woman who once had a fiercely competitive relationship with another student at her all-girls middle school. “This environment either made people buckle under the pressure or forged them into miserable, high-performing adults,” she adds.

Nowadays, there’s lots of discussion around work-life balance and self-care, and with that, there’s been a collective realization that one-upmanship can be bad for all involved and is a sign of internalized misogyny when it pits women against each other. Why not join arm-in-arm and pull each other up? Or tear down the system, rather than each other?

Well, because there’s nothing that ignites a drive to succeed quite like good, old-fashioned spite. “People are like, ‘Oh, revenge is really unhealthy,’” says Marie*, a 34-year-old art director and writer. “I’m like, ‘You have never really had a nemesis.’”

Yes, you can girlboss too close to the sun. But if you never sip the haterade, will you ever sprout wings at all?

Marie learned of the power of the nemesis after her relationship with a close friend and colleague curdled. “There was a period after we broke up where they tried to get me blacklisted from a bunch of sh*t,” she says. “They were f*cking my assistant in secret. The assistant told me three years later.” Previously, Marie had been insecure about her writing, and her ex-friend’s discouraging comments continually bruised her confidence. That all changed once the friend was out of the picture. “In the process of falling out with someone who does very similar work to mine, I published two books and launched an entire writing career,” she says. “It was never about if I could or couldn’t [do it]; it was almost exclusively ‘I can do it better than you.’”

A relationship that mixes work and play is the ideal crucible for an optimally useful nemesis. Of course, academic and professional spheres provide an inherently competitive backdrop, and helpfully provide tangible metrics — class rankings, promotions, awards — for wagging a rival’s face. A fraught personal relationship only adds rocket fuel to the fire.

For others, it’s all business — like for Emily*, who’s long looked over her shoulder at another woman in her field. “I used to cringe every time I saw her announce a big work win; I could barely even look. I told myself she was a self-promoter and her successes couldn’t be that substantial,” she says. “Then I walked into a job interview, and her name [was on the screen]. She was due to interview for the same job about a half hour after me. It was a totally clarifying moment. We really are rivals on some level. … Now, when I think about phoning it in, I think about how I would feel if she announced a new big project on her social media.”

The millennials I spoke to even felt a little sad at the idea of younger, more enlightened generations missing out on this nasty but ultimately beneficial kind of relationship. Yes, you can girlboss too close to the sun. But if you never sip the haterade, will you ever sprout wings at all?

Tina, for one, knows there was something unhealthy about the obsession with besting Chelsea that helped her get where she is today. “I’m both bitter and also happy about it,” she says, noting that her younger colleagues don’t have the same fire in their eyes that she did. “Half of the time I’m like, ‘Wow, good for you for sticking up [for yourself] and saying what you’re willing to do,’ and then the other half of the time I’m like, ‘Bro, you’re not going to last until 28, if you have this attitude toward work.’”

Not to worry! Gen Zers say grudges are alive and well. “In general life, people are more forgiving and less driven by other people, and there’s less ‘there’s only so much room at the top’ and pitting women against each other,” says Bianca*, 25. Still, that didn’t stop her from securing a nemesis — an ex-friend in the same field that she’s in — and the motivational perks that come with it. Bianca says her desire to best her rival pushed her to act more confident and put herself out there, which led to more opportunities. “Being very online, you’re so aware of other people’s achievements,” she says. “It’s quite fun when you’re posting about something that you’ve done and know that they’ll see it and how they’ll perceive it. And social media really lends itself to the performance of trying to be better than people.”

For some, a grudge is a valid reason to stay on social media at all. “I plan to continue being publicly online so she can see how successful I am,” Julia*, 29, says of her nemesis.

And for many, a nemeship isn’t over until they hit the unfollow button. Take it from Tina, who unfollowed Chelsea in college. It felt good. “I think I won because I stopped having the need to compare myself to her,” she says.

Others, like Marie, have found ways to peaceably coexist with their nemeses — from a safe distance. “I still regard your humanity. I still regard your contributions. I still regard the ways in which you might be able to show up for other people in our network,” she says. “But am I going to sit down and have a drink with you? Absolutely f*cking not.”

*Names have been changed.