What we have failed to see

I spoke with an old friend a few months ago and he brought to my attention something major that we women have been ignorant of. He told me that a lot of us say we do not like hip-hop music, because it is degrading to us, but little do we realize that we degrade ourselves and each other on a daily basis. We nit-pick at our own faults and the faults of other women, we are even quicker to call each other "bitches" and "hoes", and we are quick to hate on a fellow woman seen with the type of man we want. Why do we envy each other so easily?
The only difference between hip-hop artists and women in that the artists display the disrespect shown to women in their videos. Don't get me wrong, I am guilty of watching these half-naked women shake what God blessed them with, so I am not putting myself on a moral high horse. We may not display ours in the media, but we might as well do so by broadcasting the hatred and jealousy that we feel towards someone who is supposedly "prettier" and more successful than we are.
Another example of this is when I was watching the Tyra Banks show. Tyra did an experiment on how men view women and how women view women, but not how women view men. She had a group of men sit down in a room and watch women who had the average body type. The men did not nit-pick at the woman's imperfections so much. In general, they said that they will still date a woman like the ones they viewed on the television screen. When the women's turn came, they had a field day picking out every flaw the average sized woman had. There was one particular comment that came from some ugly, bag-of-bones woman that irked the hell out of me. Her exact words were "Oh my God, put the fork down." This experiment was something I have realized all along, but the realization still dawned on me.
This is one of the reason I choose NOT to have a bunch of female friends. The two I have right are just fine with me. They steer me in the right direction and have done it well for the past four years I have been friends with them. They too choose not to have a lot of female friends.
When will we learn that life is too short to treat each other like shit? When will we learn that if we degrade each other, we are making it okay for men to do the same to us? In general, when will we wake up?! Before we demand a hip-hop artist or any other man to show us respect, we must learn to show it to each other and most importantly, ourselves.