Welcome To Female Competition: Find A Reason The Pretty Girls Should Cover Up
Jennifer Lawrence was criticized by feminists -- as if she were some actressbot with zero agency -- for posing outside in what must have been cold weather in a fabulous and revealing dress.

I'd have done it, too in a -- heh -- hot second, and for the same reasons Lawrence did. (More on that below.)

I once joined two very smart (and hot) guy friends for drinks at the bar by my house. I wore a vintage full-length Halston evening dress -- at about 5 o'clock on a weekday afternoon.

There were people in the place in sweats, sure, and my guy friends were dressed as I knew they'd be -- in everyday guy clothes.

My feeling: Life is short. Fashion's fun. Why dress like you're about to clean out the garage?

In The Telegraph/UK, Helena Horton reports that Lawrence gave the feminist sneerers both barrels, calling them "ridiculous".

The actress defended her right to wear a skimpy Versace dress during a promotional event for the film Red Sparrow earlier this week.

While Lawrence wore the strappy gown, which featured a thigh-high split, male co-stars Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons, Matthias Schoenaerts and director Francis Lawrence were all in multiple layers of clothing, and many pointed out the contrast.

Writer Helen Lewis attracted thousands of retweets when she wrote: "This is such a quietly depressing (and revealing) image. Not least because I've been outside today and it's b----- FREEZING."

Peep Show's Robert Webb tweeted: "To all those saying JL 'chose' to wear that dress: fine but that choice has a context. She could have made a different decision but we can agree on one thing: it's not a decision to which the blokes had to give the slightest thought."

...Lawrence responded to critics in an impassioned Facebook post, writing: "This is not only utterly ridiculous, I am extremely offended. That Versace dress was fabulous, you think I'm going to cover that gorgeous dress up with a coat and a scarf? I was outside for 5 minutes. I would have stood in the snow for that dress because I love fashion and that was my choice.

"This is sexist, this is ridiculous, this is not feminism. Over- reacting about everything someone says or does, creating controversy over silly innocuous things such as what I choose to wear or not wear, is not moving us forward. It's creating silly distractions from real issues. Get a grip people. Everything you see me wear is my choice. And if I want to be cold THATS MY CHOICE TOO

This might seem like these feminists care about Lawrence and whether she has goosebumps. However, it's really classic female competition. I write about that in this column:

While men will sock each other in the bar parking lot (and can sometimes go back in and have a beer), women engage in what anthropologists call "covert aggression" -- attacks that are hard to pinpoint as attacks, like gossip, social exclusion, and stabbing another woman in the self-worth. ("Stabracadabra!" -- you're bleeding out, but nobody but you can tell!)

Psychologist Anne Campbell, like others who study female competition, explains that women seem to have evolved to avoid physical confrontation, which would endanger their ability to have children or fulfill their role as an infant's principal caregiver. (Ancestral Daddy couldn't exactly run up to the store for baby formula.) So while guys will engage in put-down fests as a normal part of guy-ness, even women's verbal aggression is usually sneaky and often comes Halloween-costumed as compliments or concern: "Ooh, honey, do you need some Clearasil for those bumps on your chest?"

The tarted-up put-down is a form of psychological manipulation -- a sly way of making a woman feel bad about herself so she'll self-locate lower on the totem pole. And because men have visually driven sexuality, women specialize in knocking other women where it really hurts -- their looks. Like those supposedly minuscule boobs of yours. (Right...you'll have a latte, and she'll just have another mug of your tears.)