Okay, personally I don't buy this "women are just catty" business at all because in my experience guys are just as bad, except when they do it, we say "omg men are pigs!" or whatever and dismiss it. Some of the worst blows to my self esteem have come from guys saying the same kind of catty stuff girls would; the girls were more polite about it. Either they said it behind my back and let it get back to me later, at which point I could deal with it, or they said it to my face and then stuck around so we could argue over it or duke it out like (wo)men. The guys? Generally walk/drive past just quickly enough to say something really awful and then run/drive away before I can even defend myself. That's every bit as bad, if not worse.
Anyway, having gotten THAT out of my system...
There probably is something about the image you project that makes that many people not like you. Oh yeah, I said it. It doesn't make other people horrible by default (some of them, for sure, 'cause some people regardless of gender are just angry and judgmental). But like in my case, some girls can walk in looking perfectly made up and my gut reaction is "Oh wow, she looks really nice, I wish I'd spent some more time before class/wherever-I-am getting ready too" or "Nice eyeshadow/lipstick/whatever!" or "Nice jacket!" etc, and then other girls can walk in with the same sort of look and my gut reaction is "Wow, she doesn't look pleasant at all. I hope I don't have to deal with her." It's a gut thing, and I can't tell you what the difference is, although I've tried and tried to analyze it and figure it out myself.
There are various possibilities here. One is that it's nothing you can fix because it's some kind of inherent thing that's just widely misunderstood. Some people make misleading faces when they talk or think. When my dad's really deep in thought, he looks terrifyingly pissed off, and as a kid I'd frequently go "WHAT DID I DO?!" in a panic, only to have my dad say "What? I was just thinking. What are you talking about?" Some people squint or furrow their brow when they talk, making it look like they're being abrasive when they're really not. The list goes on. Some of these are things you can maybe train yourself to change, assuming that's what's going on, but it isn't easy to not do something you didn't know you were doing in the first place.
Or it could be something you CAN fix, but maybe you won't want to. Maybe in your area, girls who dress like you do and wear make-up like you do are considered to be bitchy or whatever because many of them are. You could investigate this and make a conscious choice to change your clothing brands or make-up style, but it would really depend on whether or not it means that much to you. Lots of people would be unwilling to give up their personal style to please other people, while lots of others would. YMMV.
Or it could be the way you approach people. Are you getting so blindly ambitious that you're neglecting office politics, or coming off like you don't give a crap about anyone else? It may be too late to try to make friends now, but *have* you really made any friends at your job, or have you viewed them as competition from the start and treated them accordingly? People pick up on that stuff, however subconsciously, and react in kind.
But don't get me wrong, in a competitive work environment there will always be people of both genders who'll just be insecure and make comments about you to try to get themselves up. Men might make comments about how you only got promoted because you look so goshdarn pretty for the menfolk or imply that you've been blowing someone for that promotion. Women will probably follow suit and make similar comments, because really, the "you just slept your way to the top, you whore" line of insult seems to be the most effective one in the workplace, though the girls are in the more informed position of being able to critique your clothing/make-up too. That percentage, you've always gotta just brush off and get on with your life. You can't make everyone happy.
Buuut if there seems to be such a huge number of people everywhere you go that just don't like you, well, I dunno, you might wanna examine yourself too. I like you just fine so far, from your post and all, so I don't think you're a raging bitch either, but I'm a firm believer that if someone says/does something and 9 out of 10 people react negatively to it, it's almost never those 9 out of 10 people that are wrong (although some of them most certainly are, just by virtue of being stupid/insecure/whatever). So the final answer to your problem is probably "a little of both." Some people are just insecure and don't know how to cope, and some people may be on to something about you that you don't know yourself.
Lastly, there's always the possibility that you're just completely in defensive mode because you yourself are feeling really insecure, and that half of what you see as people being unkind to you are just misunderstandings on your part (ex. I have a friend who has no problem laughing when you do something stupid, but if you laugh when she does something stupid, she'll take it personally and have a total hissy fit over it because everyone's just so mean to her). Again, I'm not you, I don't live in your world, so I dunno. It's just a possibility I'm throwing out there.
Certain females are more hurtful when they are in a face to face situation. The girl called me a stupid chink and told me to go back to my country. I filed a complaint... and guess what she was never disciplined nor fired. I quit after hearing about that.
