Jessica Chastain vs. Jennifer Lawrence? Why It's Best to Stop Pitting Women Against Each Other for No Reason

Chastain had to remind people, three years later, that she doesn't hold a grudge against J.Law

Who doesn't love a juicy feud, a war of words, a back and forth...

A catfight, even?

It can be most entertaining when two or more celebrities go at it, sometimes in person but more likely, these days, via social media. Perhaps, while scrolling your Twitter feed, you even root for the posturing to go on just a little bit longer, in order to allow you more time to come up with the perfect pithy tweet or to just feel more blessedly removed from the obvious hassle of being famous.

Admit it, you dig a little drama. Don't we all? Especially when it has nothing to do with us.

But what's with all the eagerness to create drama between celebs—and particularly female celebs—where there is none? Especially when there are plenty of "Miley, what's good" moments to go around. And if it's a slow week…

Just sit tight, something will happen. It always does.

But only today, we had Jessica Chastain having to shut down the idea that she's been harboring a three-year-old grudge against Jennifer Lawrence stemming from when J.Law won the Best Actress Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty star Chastain went home empty-handed.

Even as actresses, singers and other celebs have been increasingly vocal—especially over the past year—about supporting each other and the overall need to stand strong as a united force against gender inequality…

Be it Lady Gaga vs. Madonna, Jennifer Lopez vs. Mariah Carey or Taylor Swift vs. Nicki Minaj, the rest of the world seems to prefer a good fight. Even a fake one if there isn't a real one at hand.

For instance, does anyone watch The View anymore except to take the temperature of the room, to discern whether Whoopi Goldberg is shading any of her co-hosts with her eyes or to see if one of the hosts really digs into a guest?

Of course, The View may not be much of an example of a situation in which the media were making something out of nothing, or in which the stars don't know exactly what sort of vibe they're giving off on-camera. But Goldberg, onetime co-host Rosie O'Donnell and everyone else caught up in feud rumors over the years have publicly insisted that the verbal sparring you've been privy to on air never translated into off-screen vitriol the way it was reported.

Then there was the hype/hope last summer that occasional America's Next Top Model colleagues and soon-to-be FabLife co-hosts Tyra Banks and Chrissy Teigen were feuding—because they're both pretty, duh. Tyra called the rumor "ridiculous," telling E! News, "That doesn't make sense…People just want to do that because I'm a retired model, she's a model. I'm the EP of the show, I don't beef with people that I hire."

We shouldn't really be surprised that the world that gave us Team Aniston and Team Jolie T-shirts is always out for blood, but surely we all know that rooting for other women not to like each other helps no one.

The world has pitted actresses against each other since the dawn of Hollywood time (oh, the tweets Joan Crawford and Bette Davis would've sent…), but the days of even Shannen Doherty vs. Tori Spelling in the 1990s seem most quaint now that an errant subtweet or Instagram post is apt to launch a dozen feud rumors with one click.

As we mentioned, plenty of times the beef is real, with Nicki Minaj really taking issue with Miley Cyrus and vice versa for all the world to see, or Taylor Swift seemingly swiping back in song form at a perceived slight from Katy Perry.

So why whip up drama where there isn't any, since there's so much out there already?

Sometimes the two-way struggle is real, but there are also the more one-sided incidents, such as Kendall Jenner being the target of other models' sniping at New York Fashion Week. And then there are just all the not-famous people who pile on celebrities (and each other), with female Twitter users being much more likely to body-shame, slut-shame and shame-in-general a fellow female. It's a fact: Bullying is more prevalent among guys overall, but girls are often the ones who get into it with words and on social media—and we know how harmful such things can be.

As the recent conversation about the discrepancies between what women have to go through to get ahead—or at least to get to where men already are—in life has reminded us, it's best when women just generally have each others' backs.