An easy way to delude ourselves into thinking we’ve achieved mastery over our lives is to compete with other women. By competing, we place ourselves and others into neat little categories—“I’m a doting stay-at-home mom; she’s a workaholic who neglects her kids” or “I work out four times a week; she’s let herself get out of shape”—that serve to organize our lives and deliver them from chaos to complacency.
