Can't Think Straight author Kiri Blakeley on professional jealousy

I liked this column by Kiri Blakeley on professional jealousy, such as bookstore placement of Rachel Shukert's books (my sex column tomorrow is on jealousy regarding relationships) - it's funny because I'm jealous that her publisher got her video of her reading at In The Flesh posted on Barnes & Noble while Amazon basically has ignored my Passion video that I had recut just for them. But then I tell myself that the two are unrelated, and that it's true, there is literally not a thing I can do about that, except choose whether or not making book trailers is worth it financially in future. Here's what Kiri had to say:

When it comes to other women, however, I merely ask myself the questions. I don’t have the answers. Why one person gets something that you don’t is entirely out of our control the vast majority of the time, and there have been plenty of times I have accomplished something that other writers haven’t. Somewhere, some woman might even be thinking, “Why does that Kiri Blakeley get to rant on Forbes and I don’t?”

Women, however, are not supposed to be jealous of other women. It’s petty, it’s immature, it’s damaging to the notion of sisterhood. Men don’t get jealous of each other—men give each other jobs. Men don’t get “jealous,” they get “healthily competitive.”

But I say hoo-ha to all of that. Let’s call it what it really is.

“Jealousy, if channeled positively, can do wonders,” says Hannah Seligson, author of New Girl On the Job: Advice From the Trenches. Seligson, for example, was jealous of people who got their bylines in the New York Times (the newspaper of record also seems to be the newspaper of bitter envy). So Seligson made it her goal to get her name in there too. Eventually, she became a regular Times contributor.

And if you missed it, you can read my interview with Kiri Blakely at SexIs.