I’ve sat in rooms full of women where collaboration flowed freely, ideas passing from one to another without fear. The air was alive with laughter, the hum of conversation, and the sound of pens scratching down thoughts worth remembering. A cup of coffee slid across the table from one hand to another said more than words could.

I’ve been blessed to find those kinds of rooms in my own life, the kind where generosity and trust are not exceptions but the standard. I’ve worked alongside amazing women who are both genuine and sincere. When they offered criticism, it was layered in love and compassion, meant to sharpen rather than wound. They cheered for me in my successes, spoke truth when they saw me falling short, and rolled up their sleeves to help build me back up.

In their presence, I learned that accountability and kindness can live in the same sentence, and that sisterhood at its best leaves no one behind. Still, not every room tells the same story.

I’ve sat at tables where the smiles were polished and the cheers were rehearsed. The air was still, conversations slowed when someone walked away, and glances flickered between those who stayed. I’ve worked in environments where women did not support one another in a healthy way, where curated cliques decided who belonged and who did not. Trust felt fragile, and collaboration was replaced with silent competition.

I’ve volunteered on charity projects with women who praised the coordinator to her face, then cut her down the moment she was out of earshot. This not only speaks to the toxic side of sisterhood, it undermines the very heart of volunteerism. It plants seeds of doubt and discouragement, and it is often what makes good people think twice before stepping up the next time.

I’ve seen it happen in other settings too. I remember sitting in a meeting where an idea was praised in the room, only to hear it dismissed as foolish in the hallway minutes later. Moments like these linger long after the conversation ends, leaving me wondering about the deeper issue at play. Why do women wear two faces?

We do not arrive in those rooms as blank slates. We carry the stories we have been told since girlhood, some spoken aloud and others etched quietly into the way we see ourselves. We grow up learning that there is only so much beauty, attention, or success to go around, so we must claim our share before it is gone.

Somewhere along the way, “enough” became a moving target.

In school, we saw the girl who fit the right mold get chosen first, invited most, and praised often. We learned that approval could be earned, but only if we played the game. For some, that meant performing likability at any cost. For others, it meant sharpening edges to protect ourselves from being overlooked.

By the time we reach adulthood, those lessons run deep, quietly shaping the way we view other women, not as allies but as competition.

The insecurities take root in a soil mixed with comparison, fear, and scarcity. We see another woman’s success as proof that our own dreams are now further out of reach, rather than evidence that there is room for us too. We measure our worth against the highlight reels of others, forgetting that their story has chapters we will never see.

When the fear of being unseen meets the pressure to always be “enough,” the mask slips on before we even realize it.

We become fluent in the language of surface-level cheer because vulnerability feels risky. We guard our own insecurities by pointing out the cracks in someone else’s life, as if their flaws could somehow shield us from our own.

It’s a pattern we’ve carried for years, often without realizing it. Yet it does not have to stay this way. Sisterhood is too sacred to be split in two. It is meant to be a place where masks are not needed, where we are free to celebrate without comparing, to speak without wounding, and to show up without performing.

When we choose to live with one face, the truest face, we create a sisterhood that changes not only the room we are in, but the women we are becoming.

If we could trace back the steps to that little girl we once were, the one who learned to measure herself against the girl beside her, maybe we could tell her there is no finish line and no crown to be won.

There is only the beautiful truth that we rise higher when we rise together.