Juliane Wurm Instagram – Why I struggle cooperating with other women (yet). . Competition is about comparison, about rankings, numbers, about quantifying one’s performance and I very much internalised that concept. I constantly compare myself with women my age. It is something I’m not at all proud of and that I don’t like about myself. I competed with women around my age in climbing, so this has become my group of comparison. I compare myself inside this group in climbing – be it a boulder, a route, but also outside climbing – in school, professional success, knowledge, other sports… I rarely compare myself with men. I often climb with other men, my brother, my roommate, friends from the climbing gym. During these sessions I have approximately zero ambition. I try the easiest boulders, if I fail, I don’t care. I don’t feel any urge to make up an excuse. If I climb with other women, I try very hard, I’m focussed, I want to be the first one to get up a boulder or a route, I want to be stronger on training exercises. It is so deep inside me that even if I want to turn it off, I usually can’t. I make up excuses if I fail, emphasise that I don’t care and haven’t trained much lately, that I have lots of other stuff to do or in my mind. . I developed that behaviour in climbing, but I also carried it into other fields of my life. I’m often fine with other women my age being good at things, I usually just want to be a tiny little bit better. For years now I’m aware of this concept not being very sensible and if often disgusts me and makes me feel ashamed in front of myself. I’m aware of it being arbitrary since the day I’m not competing anymore. Why don’t I compare myself with people who invested as much as I did, who care as much about a certain thing, be it men, women, people who are younger or older,…? Rationally seen I want to build a team with other women, I want us to support each other, I want to support other women when needed and be able to accept support when I need it and compete from time to time to increase our performances when we care. . While thinking about this I’m always wondering, if this is only my personal problem or if this concerns (female) society as a whole?