What are Alpha Women?

Guess which one's going to jail.

(The following is a re-print of an article on CountryCouples.co.uk.)

We have all heard the term Alpha Male – Alpha as we all know is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and is used to refer to number one, therefore the alpha male is the number one male in a group of males.
An alpha female is therefore the number one female in a group of females. The term is probably most commonly used for the leading female in a pride of lions.

I am therefore a little curious how all of the females in a group of females can be referred to as alpha women.
When you talk of human alpha females most people would think of strong women such as Margaret Thatcher or Condoleezza Rice, women that got out there and did it rather than sit and talk about how they can if they want to. Alternatively you could consider alpha women to be like Princess Diana or Joan Collins, women that understand their beauty and make men work hard for their attention.

By definition alpha leaders are strong, aggressive and confident or they are forced from their place by an underling.

I was therefore intrigued when I came across a website yesterday called alphawomen, it is an attractively designed website, the site itself is well written and it has a number of interesting features. I feel sure it will do well and sincerely hope that it does, however there are four reasons I will not be joining:

No 1. Contradictions:
In the about us section it states “being a member of AlphaWomen.com means that you’ll never have to read the article ‘Ten Tips on How to Impress Your Mate,’ again.”
This is the comment on the site which fueled this post, to me it effectively says to stop caring about your relationship and concentrate on yourself …. no thanks, mine is very important to me and as a strong independent confident woman I am happy to take time to please my man and he is happy to take time to please me ….. that is why we call it equality.

On the same page it says “AlphaWomen.com allows women to create their own blog posts to share content (including pictures and video) and then link back to their own blog. This drives the right traffic to your blog.”

My blog is about relationships … oh yes and tips on how to impress your mate!!

No 2. Their Definition of Alpha Women
The site states “An Alpha Woman is a strong, independent woman who is successful in her everyday life. Though she may not be the CEO of a company or make several million a year, she is confident about who she is as a person and where she is headed in the future. She is a decision-maker who has goals and aspirations; she is opinionated and not afraid to speak her mind. Most importantly, she is a woman who is comfortable in her own skin and who strives to get the most out of every single day.”

My response is I am a strong, independent successful, confident, opinionated, decision-maker that knows where I am going in life … so why do I need to huddle in a corner with other supposedly alpha women to remind each other how strong and confident we are? Why can’t I discuss politics, religion, relationships, etc with anyone I find interesting and knowledgeable? I run my own business, travel the world, write articles and two blogs all without the aid of a label or group hug …. although I would be lost without my laptop.

I find it more than a little patronising that as an “alpha woman” it is felt that I should necessarily gravitate to others of the same ilk. Good luck to those that need the support but surely that defeats the point of being an alpha woman?

3. Marketing
“AlphaWomen.com was conceived around the realization that a place on the internet did not yet exist for strong, modern women to talk about issues that are relevant in today’s society.”

Well BlogHer has been going since 2005 and Blogs by Women has a list of over 5,600 women bloggers (I note with amusement that alphawomen.com is listed). These are all strong independent women who discuss, on the open internet, issues that would make my mothers hair curl. Where are our strong female voices being stiffled? Women have been blogging for years so how could a platform for women not exist?

If I may use an Americanism. ladies … get over yourselves, we don’t need to complain about how downtrodden we are because being strong independent women we don’t allow that to happen to us.

Man bashing seems to be the latest female sport and quite frankly it is more than a little nauseating, we women hated life when men constantly put us down so why are we trying to stoop to their level to prove our worth? Ladies, women will attain true equality when you stop desperately trying to prove to yourselves that your equality exists and just get on with life.

Trying to reinvent womens lib in a day when women in the west are already liberated seems to me to be trying to reinvent the wheel, at worst pointless and best a clever marketing ploy.

Of course in my mother's day there was no internet but the ladies still had coffee mornings where they could discuss issues with other women …. perhaps the internet simply needs it’s own ladies coffee mornings?

As a strong independent woman I shall simply sit quietly, run my business, enjoy my equality and freedom to express myself through my blogging (which by the way already exists).