Whatever your gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, body type, income level, or favorite pizza topping, chances are you have either personally experienced infidelity or know someone who has. There is a multi-million dollar industry comprised of books, seminars, podcasts, and advice columns about preventing cheating in the first place or recovering from cheating, and now there's an online forum and website that helps women deal with infidelity, aptly (and dramatically) titled, "Women Scorned."
At first glance, the site freaked me out a little bit with its ominous tagline: "more than just revenge." Yikes! What does that even mean?! I was also wary of a website that could be construed as a passive affirmation of the stereotype that men are "programmed" to cheat, and that women are always the innocent, collateral damage. Human relationships are far more nuanced and complex than all that, I believe.
After actually clicking through Women Scorned, however, my opinion quickly changed. Not only does the site offer thoughts from a variety of useful experts and advice columnists, including a sex therapist, career advisor, lawyer, etc, it also provides a refreshing dissection of "the other woman" archetype, which helps alleviate "women are the enemy" kind of thinking that only perpetuates sexism.
While not all women want a vast online community to vent to after their partner decides to go rogue, it's nice to know that it's out there for those who do. Cheating is still unfortunately viewed as the victim's "fault" sometimes, so certain women might not want to share tales of unfaithfulness to their inner circle, for fear it reflects poorly on them. In these cases, and for women who are in need of quick, free legal or relationship advice, Women Scorned seems to be a solid resource.
According to founders Jan Griffiths and Jo Welch, (who banded together after both experiencing infidelity in their lives), the site is visited by over 130,000 people each week from 158 countries, which suggests how very necessary it might be.
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