The 61st Academy Awards offered up a lot of exciting drama. “Green Book” surprised many by taking best picture, Spike Lee got his long-awaited first Oscar and Chris Evans received backlash for helping Regina King onstage. However, the internet chose to focus on another storyline from Sunday’s show: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s chemistry.  

While obvious in “A Star is Born,” their chemistry really set the internet ablaze Sunday night after their performance of the then Academy Award-nominated original song “Shallow,” —the song would go on to win the Oscar for best original song not long after the performance— that ended with the pair sitting closely on Gaga’s piano bench and singing its last few lines cheek to cheek.

The general public’s reaction was simultaneous, the audience took to their feet in applause, and the internet live-tweeted about it before, during and after it was over. Cooper and Gaga had seemed to capture everyone’s hearts.

The drama started as the dust of their performance had just began to settle, with the internet questioning what Cooper’s girlfriend (and mother of his daughter), model Irina Shayk thought while watching the steamy performance from her front row seat. It didn’t help that the performance came less than a week after Gaga’s engagement to talent agent Christian Carino was called off.

While the intrigue for drama is understandable (who doesn’t love a good love triangle), the internet’s speculation and efforts to pit Gaga and Shayk against one another are very outdated and disappointing, but not entirely shocking.

Society has been pitting women against one another, claiming that women are incapable of working together or getting along, for centuries. Not only are the accusations incredibly insulting to women, they’re also completely false.

In fact, after Gaga took home the Oscar for best original song and returned to her seat, Shayk—seated beside Gaga— leaned over and gave her a massive, congratulatory hug. Thus proving that while some try their hardest to turn women against each other, the real power lies within women supporting women.

Sometimes, however, society gets away with pitting women against each other. The feud between Nicki Minaj and Cardi B came after about six months of media outlets insinuating there was a rift between the two rappers, and both parties continuously denying it.

However, the public got what they wanted and instigated, when Minaj said during an interview she was hurt over rumors of Cardi sabotaging Minaj’s chances to be featured alongside her and Migos in their music video for “Motorsport.”

Eventually, the feud ended with a physical altercation between the two during New York Fashion Week, and both parties eventually saying they were done with the drama and would be open to discussing the issues civilly in person instead of through sub-tweets. Sadly, there’s been no indication that said conversation happened.

The drama between Minaj and Cardi can be seen as particularly disappointing, as it squashed any potential for the two rappers to ever collaborate on music. An opportunity seen as wasted to some, as their collaboration could’ve been not only extremely powerful and influential but quite grossing for the both of them as well.

It’s easy to revel in all of the juicy gossip the Nicki Minaj-Cardi B feud brought us, or conspire over the drama that a secret affair between Gaga and Cooper would bring us. But it’s important and more proactive, to understand that when women work alongside one another, they are far more powerful than they are alone.

Abigail Miller is a feature writer. You can contact her at [email protected].