Yard-sticking: Do you do it?

Marie Claire asked me to write a story about adult peer pressure, and why many of us continue to act like high schoolers, crushingly insecure, looking to each other for cues on everything from what clothes we should wear to who we should date. It's not that hard to do in this age of Facebook and Twitter, when so many of us are busy posting pictures of ourselves on pricey vacations, at a cool parties, or with our  beautiful and perfectly well-mannered kids. We at the magazine decided to call the phenom yard-sticking, borrowing a term used by Rutgers University developmental psychologist Jennifer Tanner.

Do you do it?


Call it yardsticking. Experts use the term to refer to the impulse many women have to measure themselves against one another in order to determine their own social standing and self-worth. In rich urban centers Like New York and San Francisco, these measuring sticks are notched with things like how many times you’ve been to St. Barts, how long you can hold a crow pose, or how much Ralph Lauren cashmere you have in your wardrobe. Elsewhere in the country, competition and one-upmanship still exists, although of a less conspicuous variety and only among those fortunate enough to have their basic needs met, needs like food, shelter and access to decent healthcare that not all of us find so easy to come by when unemployment remains at record highs and economic growth comes all too slowly.  

It’s not the only paradox in play.  In a time when women are more empowered than ever—we make more money, have greater personal choice and enjoy more gender equality—we’ve also become increasingly enslaved to our own insecurities, constantly looking over our shoulders (or logging on to Facebook) to see who has the better job/boyfriend/kids/handbag and tailoring our lives accordingly. And while the pressure to conform (or compete, depending on your personality) may not seem terribly pernicious—there’s nothing that wrong with us all liking printed jeans, for example—it can have a profound effect on one’s sense of wellbeing, not to mention credit rating and relationships.