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According to new research, women are constantly comparing themselves with other women, from film stars to the girl at the next table. Why are we also so obsessed with measuring our looks against every other female who comes into view?

Women check women out, fact. We size up the competition. We judge whether the blonde in the corner is fatter or thinner than us and we guage if Miss Double D chest has better hair than us or not.

According to a new survey among women over the age of 40 by health magazine 'Top Sante', 80% said they're always judging themselves against stars with super-bodies, and more than 60% said that when they chat with other women they are constantly comparing their wrinkles with hers.

There seems to be a common need, for example, to find a flaw in a particularly good-looking woman we meet for the first time. It's sad to say; that no matter how clever, talented and successful a woman is, all other women judge her on is her appearance.

Why do we behave in a way that may have been appropriate 100 years ago - in an age when the only ambition a woman was allowed was to marry a man of high status - but is totally absurd at a time when we can be prime ministers, proffessors and police chiefs?

The blame could in part be directed at he advertising industry, which plays so well on women's insecurities. Or it might go to one of a dozen magazines that subtly influence the brains of pubescent girls. We might even try to lay the blame at the feet of the entire male sex. But, in truth, while the way in which women compete to be the prettiest, thinnest and the sexiest may play into the hands of men, it is not something they are doing to us, it is something we are doing to ourselves.

Learn more about this author, Lucy Batcher.
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