I know this isn't a good answer, but I've always just opted out of it. I remember reading long ago Gloria Steinem talking about saying she had no female friends (pre-feminism and for much this reason), and she said one day she realized that was untrue. It's not for me. I really have a few pro-feminist friends who just don't engage in this type of behavior, but otherwise my friends tend to be men. I've always been that way. Even in middle school, I realized how destructive that type of "girl" behavior was, and I never wanted to be part of it.

As I said, I don't think that solves anything in general, but it's been my personal mechanism for dealing with it. I always try to tell girls I know that life's not about junior high. It's really not. Once you can wrap your mind around the idea that this moment in your life isn't all there is, the cattiness seems less important.

I know this isn't a good answer, but I've always just opted out of it. I remember reading long ago Gloria Steinem talking about saying she had no female friends (pre-feminism and for much this reason), and she said one day she realized that was untrue. It's not for me. I really have a few pro-feminist friends who just don't engage in this type of behavior, but otherwise my friends tend to be men. I've always been that way. Even in middle school, I realized how destructive that type of "girl" behavior was, and I never wanted to be part of it.

As I said, I don't think that solves anything in general, but it's been my personal mechanism for dealing with it. I always try to tell girls I know that life's not about junior high. It's really not. Once you can wrap your mind around the idea that this moment in your life isn't all there is, the cattiness seems less important.

Unfortunately, I think we're competitive, hierarchical critters, by nature or nurture or both, and this is how girls establish the pecking order and enforce conformity.

Btw, I think it's something of a myth that girls only use social manipulation and snark. I experienced physical violence a good bit from other girls growing up (30 years ago even) and female violence stats are on the rise. Both times in jr. high when a new girl came to town, I was challenged to a fight and told I would lose all my friends if I didn't fight. The second time, I decided those weren't friends worth having.

I don't know what *causes* it, but movies like The Bride Wars are doing their fair share to perpetuate it. I love and deeply respect women, and am absolutely a feminist---but after a few back to back trailers like this at the movies the other day (I think the trailer that followed was "Confessions of a Shopaholic") I thought, "If I had any indication that any women I know were actually like any of the women in these films, I would probably be a misogynist. No WONDER so many people hate women." Watch the trailer and you'll see what I mean. Ugh.

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi4251058201/

@bifemmefatale I'd add that it's also a myth that boys *don't* use social manipulation and snark. I saw the boys in my high school being just as catty as the girls, sometimes even more openly - during sophomore year's homecoming they all conspired to elect a girl as a joke (she was insecure about her weight and was not happy about being elected). It made any predominantly male classes I was in horrendous for a week, because the teachers were looking to punish them and tended to forget that the girls in the class hadn't participated in the prank.

I'm a man, so I have no direct knowledge of this behaviour among girls, but I can definitely say that it happens with boys too. Probably in different forms, but it certainly happens.

I was bullied rather severely in high school. Not physically, but verbally and mentally using similar methods to what you are talking about. And pretty harshly. It followed me around for years, and took a lot of therapy to get past completely.

School (especially high school) is an intensely competitive and hierarchical environment. It breeds this sort of behaviour. Aggression (both the passive and active kind) is often rewarded socially. I honestly don't think this is a women's issue or a men's issue, this is a school issue. School officials need to get more training in spotting, preventing and stopping it. And parents need to be taught how raise their kids in a way so they don't use these techniques. I don't know if it's even possible to stop this, but I don't think it's just about modifying how girls behave towards each other is even close to the whole answer.

It took me a long time to even want to like women. When I was a teenager, it made me feel "cool" to say, "I don't like girls." I took pride in the fact that I felt more comfortable around men.

Having been raised by a man, I was never quite sure how to act around girls, and didn't naturally gel with them. And I didn't trust them.

Because I hung out with so few of them, I wasn't privy to the snarking and putting-down women do to make themselves feel better.

However, it was certainly something I learned. I agree with the above - shows like Bride Wars (or any other reality TV show that focuses on women's hatred for one another) promote the idea that women are competitors.

But, for what?

I can think of no answer but "men." Women seem to want to be the most attractive in the room, more than they seem interested in being the most intelligent.

Why?

For men?

If the answer is, in fact, "men," those of us who find ourselves snarking might actually learn something from men by watching them. I've rarely seen them alienate one another in the interest of attracting a woman. Instead, they form a brotherhood, of sorts, that doesn't turn venomous when a woman comes into the room.

(We could also learn from the many women who have realized what idiocy it is to "compete" with other women and instead learn to like them. After all, we ARE "them.")

As Brandi said, I hate to say it but for most of my life I've just tried to opt-out. I dealt with such intense and debilitating female social aggression (never physical) in elementary school that I have had trouble being 'one of the girls' ever since.

I highschool I found some female friends for awhile but the petty jealousy-induced under-handed things made me shift to mainly male friends.

Since then I've been lucky to have found a handful of individual, feminist, very cool female friends who just simply don't think that way. Sure, now and then we all deal with jealousy, but I know my friends are smart and strong enough to not act on it or let it compromise our friendship.

The sad part of this story is that my first thought when I read this posting was not about high school girls: it was about my current, very much adult, work situation. All of my direct co-workers are women and they are all cut from the same cloth: highly competitive, critical, and I guess, insecure. The fact that I am feminist, "wear comfortable shoes" (which has by the way been pointed out to me by them), don't live to shop, am not obsessed by "muffin top", etc. etc. makes me pretty much a social outcast, and subject to quite a lot of behind-the-scenes eyerolling and suspicion. It's pretty weird frankly to have to deal with this at the ripe old age of 33. (I'm pretty darned happy with the woman that I've become, thank you very much!) ;-)

Not sure what the solution is. For me it's just been to focus on my true friends and try to stay under the radar. Sad but true. I wish I knew another way to deal with it, because frankly it seems to now be a threat to the stability of my job: I'm constantly undermined by them.

"Instead, they form a brotherhood, of sorts, that doesn't turn venomous when a woman comes into the room."

Oh I have to disagree. I've seen guys talk a lot of shit about guys who they don't think are masculine enough for example. I personally had some guy "friends" discouraging me from approaching another guy I liked in grad school (so these people should have known better) because he cried when his knee went out during an impromptu tag football game. They were like, "why do like him? He's a pu$$y". Now maybe one of those other guys was trying to get into my pants, I don't know. But that wasn't brotherly at all.

I've also learned that some guys harshly judge other women that their friends are attracted to. It can gets to a point where the guy is afraid to bring around a new girlfriend because he knows he'll get shit for her not being "hot" enough.

I never really liked girls, either growing up or now as an adult. Then again, I have eventually come to realize I don't really like guys much either. It was just a coincidence that the friends I got along with were guys; the more I went along, the more I realized that there were just as many guys as girls who behave badly.

I don't like a lot of the drama that girls perpetuate, but by the same token, I don't like much of the stupid idiocy that guys tend to get into, either. Men and women generally both engage in stupid shit. I just try to hang out with people from either gender who are above it, and what do you know? I like those kinds of women as much as I like those kinds of men.

So, the moral is, I've learned not to say "I don't like girls/women." I've learned to say "I don't like the drama that a lot of girls/women engage in, but I don't dislike women as a whole."

I grew up hanging out with both guys and girls, though it was the same core group of about 7-10 girls I was friends with from Jr High until after we graduated from High School (I went out of state for college and lost touch with most of them). I can remember, especially in Jr. High, doing this stuff to other girls (and to guys we didn't like too) and not even realizing I was doing it. Not a lot of out-in-the-open aggression, but lots of talking behind people's backs, inviting everyone to a party but one girl, very undercover, passive-aggressive type tactics. Somehow it just seemed very normal. It was just understood that you didn't like people your friends didn't like and that you'd back them up in dealing with that - the reasons why didn't matter. That was a part of the core definition of friendship and nobody questioned it.

I think a lot of this kind of relational aggression comes because nobody teaches girls how to healthfully deal with and express their feelings. You're not allowed to be angry or dislike anybody but you're also never, ever supposed to hurt somebody's feelings, so you have to find ways around directly dealing with your problems with other people. This is true of problems with yourself, too - you're not supposed to have problems or insecurities of your own, so you project them onto other people.

Luckily somewhere along the way I learned how to be assertive without being defensive, and it's helped me out of the trap somewhat. I still have a large group of girl friends, but there are at least a few of us who are pretty good at calling each other out and getting to the root of things as needed - without going on the attack. It really helps keep us from getting that pack mentality going.

I don't this problem is limited to girls, or for that matter, to middle and high schoolers. I've been lucky enough to find a group of friends that more or less does not participate in this behavior, and when I was younger (like some others) I opted out of the catty cliques I was faced with. Unfortunately, I still encounter this sort of negativity from my peers, including those within the feminist community. I agree that something needs to be done to stop it, but I'm at a loss as to what it should be. The people I know who aren't into the high-drama relationships are generally the ones with the least self-esteem issues, and I think this plays a huge role at all ages. Maybe if we start confidence-building (as well as an instillment of the idea that all people deserve to be treated with respect) on an individual level from the earliest years of life, we'll see some change.

I have to deeply disagree that this is something unique to women. I also, don't necessarily think it is something that we need to take steps to correct.

If there is anything to be corrected I think it is the perception that women are some how more passive agressive, mean and otherwise bad than men.

Competition is part of survival, and it makes sense to me that individiuals in a group environment who are not "top dog" would compete at some level to be the "top dog."

Find me a society of mammals where everyone in it gets along perfectly and never fights or does anything mean. I doubt you can. The only differences is humans don't solve their differences or show their insecurity in their "status" by growling and snapping at one another.

And sure, we can stive to teach people not to be jerks. But on the flip side, other people treating me like crap made me the amazingly well adjusted and confident person I am today. So I don't think I would change that, even if I was unhappy at the time.

For one thing, I believe that girls (and boys for that matter) are rather self-centered at that age developmentally. So, an under-developed understanding of empathy and/or humility may be a factor.

Also, based on my own painful memories, I'd say that for a lot of girls, once there is an awareness that this type of talk is happening, there may be an effort to participate IN it to avoid being the subject of it. A bit of defensive initiative. How it begins in the first place, though, is still a puzzle to me.

And about the empathy/humility thing, if adults made more of effort to value, teach, & model this trait, perhaps we would see some change?

This is somewhat unrelated, but Courtney, I am a UT student living in Austin and I would really like to go. I wish I could bring my little sister, but she lives with my mom an hour away. As an adult without a kid to accompany, could I still go and listen to this?

And sure, we can stive to teach people not to be jerks. But on the flip side, other people treating me like crap made me the amazingly well adjusted and confident person I am today. So I don't think I would change that, even if I was unhappy at the time.

The problem is that it doesn’t make every one well-adjusted and confident, especially if they have little to no guidance and support from other sources. I don’t see anything wrong with teaching kids not to be jerks (it would go a long way in reducing bullying as well). As for your sentiment “Competition is part of survival,” that may be true, but it doesn’t mean that people have to be buttholes to each other. You can certainly be competitive and be polite to others – the two are not mutually exclusive.

I really hate to admit it but when I was in high school, I used to think that if one girl succeeded, it was less likely that I would. I guess I figured there was only so much room at the top. If a friend got better grades than me, I would purposely give her vague answers to questions when we were studying together so she wouldn't do as well as I did. If the guy I liked had a crush on my friend, I would tell her she looked awful or something like that. It's low self-esteem that makes girls do that, because as soon as I discovered that I could succeed and other women could too, then I got more supportive of other women.

the two are not mutually exclusive.

I meant to delete that part before posting.

Isn't it always kind of surprising how many girls who grew up to be feminists didn't hang out with other girls as kids? I didn't either, but it was more because I was very athletic and not into any of the "girly" things that the girls in my (private, very snotty) school seemed to like. I didn't dislike them, but I also didn't have much in common with them.

I think this particular form of bullying that people associate with middle/high school girls has a lot to do with the fact that in our culture girls are taught to value their appearance and popularity with the boys over anything else. The only thing that makes you valuable as a girl at this age is the approval of the males. I know that sounds kind of harsh, but I occasionally teach classes at the alternative school, and I teach college freshman courses, and it seems totally true to me. Girls are so programmed by our culture to perform this kind of competitive femininity by this age that it seems kind of inevitable. This is the same reason that they'll continue to unhesitatingly perform for shows like Girls Gone Wild. If I'm right about this, then it's s systemic problem that requires more than workshops and seminars for girls, although I agree that those can be very useful. Our culture needs to find a way to send a new message to girls about what makes them valuable. And it needs to be much more than lip service and tokenism, because kids see through that in a heartbeat, and nothing will make them lose their respect and trust for adults faster.

I was inspired by this post enough to write a mini-novel that should probably be turned into a Feministing Community post, but I’ll post it here anyway.

One thing I found very interesting and very, very true about relational aggression among girls is that it starts as young as age four or five. I vividly remember Jenny Reilly (whose name still makes me shudder with distaste at age 34) telling the other girls at our table in kindergarten not to let me use any of the crayons.

I had the misfortune to be in Jenny Reilly's class until the 6th grade, when I was finally allowed to transfer to another school. In the meantime, I spent recess and lunch break walking absently around and around in circles by myself because JR told the other girls not to talk or play with me. If one of them did, she threatened them with the same social ostracism. Every day for 5 fucking years. Has anyone else here experienced the 'ringleader' phenomenon? Other girls certainly acted mean, but she was the head honcho.

To make things even worse, our Catholic school segregated boys and girls into separate yards, so I had no hope. (And in response to a previous poster, the fact that we were prepubescent and not in the presence of boys pretty much disproves the assertion that it’s all about getting attention from men). I was a tomboy by temperament, and outside of school, all of my friends were boys, so I'd stare longingly at their yard or sometimes go up to the fence and try to talk to them. Or I’d sit on the ground and read. I didn’t feel like acting visibly upset or engaging with any of the girls who were tormenting me. I guess that was me opting out.

Boys never made my life hell. Shit, I even got three or four marriage proposals from boys when I was child. (This kind of thing totally changed after puberty, when they were suddenly into the prissier, more conventionally feminine girls, but I digress). They called each other faggots, hurled other insults, punched and kicked each other, but for the most part did not direct any of that behavior towards me, because they had been instructed not to hit girls. (Aside from a rather disturbing few). I mean, I got the insults (aside from 'faggot' and 'you throw like a girl', since it was acceptable for me to like boys and throw however I wanted because I WAS a girl), but I'd snark back, we'd insult each other back and forth until someone said something that made us laugh, and then it was over. And they were mean *to my face* when they were mean, and they were mean *one on one* instead of a huge gang, very much unlike girls. After the ritual insults, we'd go back to playing. This held true in every single peer group of boys I ever encountered. The kids on my block, the next block over, the kids in my grandmother's city when I went to visit, the kids at day camp, etc. Boys acted the same towards me no matter where I went. I actually spent most of my childhood wishing I had been born a boy. Not in the same way a transgendered person would – I always ‘knew’ I was as female as my body – but because I was convinced my life would be easier if I were male.

Girls, on the other hand, were almost uniformly mean even after you made them laugh, assuming you could, and mean in the same ways. There were the two pairs of girls (one at my school, one at my summer day camp – two entirely different peer groups with few overlapping members), each of whom hated me, none of whom directly said it to my face in the presence of the other girl. Instead, Girl #1 would say, “Girl #2 said she hates you,” when Girl #2 was not present. Then a few days later, Girl #2 would say, “Girl #1 said she hates you,” when Girl #1 was not present. This happened to me TWICE, with two different set of girls! All of us were seven years old. To this day, I have no idea if Girl #1 and Girl #2 (in both cases) decided beforehand that they would tell me separately just to fuck with my head, or if they individually decided to rat on each other behind each others’ back, or some combination of the two. It was pretty common to agree with a girl who said she hated someone just to avoid the possibility of being socially isolated if you failed to agree with the girl who said something mean about someone else.

This kind of thing occurred in Girl Scouts (I was forced to sit in the back of the tour bus next to the stinky chemical toilet when we went on a field trip to DC, and again, totally segregated from boys and nothing to do with getting their attention), on vacation at the beach, damn near every single place and time when I encountered a group of girls. One on one, no one was ever really nasty to my face. Even Jenny Reilly was often nice to me when there was no one else from our around. And no one ever hit, punched, pulled my hair, etc. It was all psychological.

I know that boys are far from uniformly nice to each other, but I’m interested in hearing from more men on this. Do boys tell each other that another boy hates so-and-so behind each others’ backs? Do they plan instances of ostracism and/or threaten each other with it (i.e., don’t let him sit next to you, or we’ll treat you just the same way we’ve been treating him)?

And I can’t make a comment like this without mentioning Judy Blume’s ‘Blubber’ which detailed extensive relational aggression among 5th-grade (If I remember correctly) girls before the term ‘relational aggression’ was part of the discourse. Does anyone else remember that book? I remember reading it and thinking, “Wow, that could totally happen, and thank God my situation isn’t quite that bad!”

Um...duh. One word: Patriarchy. IBTP. You should too.

I have to agree with Oskar. I think the core reason why females are so horrible to each other is because of men and low self esteem. Females want to be the most popular and most attractive girl, and they will attack any other female who they view as a threat to their status as "Top Girl." I have been dealing with this type of situation for the last several years, and I'm hoping that someone here can help shed some light on this. During my senior year of college, I befriended a freshman girl. She had a horrible reputation on campus for being cruel to other people and for sleeping with LOTS of guys (including making a sex tape with half a dozen guys). Most people at school hated her, but I was nice to her because she was nice to me. Then out of nowhere she suddenly turned against me as she had done with so many other students. She went digging into my past, discovered that I had had an abortion several years before, and created several AOL Instant Messenger screen names that she used to anonymously IM and impersonate my aborted fetus. She sent me IM's saying "Mommy, why did you kill me? Didn't you want me? Oh well, I guess it's just as well that I wasn't born with a whore for a mother." She told me that I should have kept my legs closed if I wasn't ready to have a baby, ranted on and on about how ugly and annorexic I was and how "every single guy" hated my guts and thought I was disgusting. I also got a few death threats in these IM's where she swore she would come to my dorm room and stab me in the middle of the night and hoped that "the rotten smell of my cunt didn't knock her over." When I realized she was the one behind the hateful IM's, I asked her why she was doing this to me. She said it was because I "thought I was Miss Popularity and God's gift to men." So just as Oskar stated, she turned on me in such a ferocious way because she wanted to be the hottest girl on campus and thought I was stealing that title from her.

This girl's hatred for me has continued on for years. I am 27 years old and she is now 23...and still carrying on in the exact same fashion. I can't count how many times she has called me a "disgusting whore who doesn't deserve to live," "hideously ugly," "pathetic and unloved," etc. I don't have boyfriends very often, but this girl manages to have a guy at her side all the time. She is currently a newlywed to a soldier serving in Iraq and 6 months pregnant....and having a passionate love affair with her boyfriend on the side, all the while bragging about how "loved" she is and how "unloved" I am and always will be. When I had a miscarriage awhile back, she jumped on this sad event to take advantage of it and tell me over and over that my baby was "burning in Hell" and "Sorry about your baby bitch, better luck next time!!" When my Grandfather passed away last month, she took his obituary photo from the newspaper and used it to create a My Space page impersonating him as a child molester who was burning in hell for "sticking his fingers up his granddaughters and sucking off his grandsons" and that he was "playing with my dead baby in Hell." I know the topic of this post is aggressive girls, but does anyone else here think that this girl's aggression towards me has been extremely excessive?? Do girls normally act this disgusting and evil towards other girls who they think are more attractive or are getting more attention than them? Or is this girl just a plain old psychopath? Give me some feedback here, folks!!

I would add (because I think everything mentioned so far might play a part) that our society in general has a way of shrinking back from the "weakest" (by which we usually mean, different) members and ostracizing them for their differences. That girls would engage in this too should come as no surprise.

My own experiences with it are pretty complex. I, too, tried to avoid it, but managed to find plenty of female friends who were like me. And at the same time, I feel like it's way to easy for me (for all of us) to say that we didn't participate in it when we probably did. I especially remember in middle school calling one girl "mosquito bites" repeatedly with my friends, or laughing that another girl's name was the same as my stepmother's slang word for a vagina. So even though I knew what it was like and experienced a torturous amount of it myself, I also engaged in it against other people. Even while decrying it in my teenage years and using it as an excuse to say I couldn't be friends with girls, I engaged in it.

If I'm going to be completely honest, I still engage in it sometimes.

The best way I found to stop it was to confront it as bluntly as possible. I remember a grown woman and I talking about weight one time, and she decided to pick on something else about me because she was jealous that I was saying I could eat anything and not gain weight. Except she chose to pick on me about how straight I sat, to which I said simple, "Yeah, well, I have two metal rods in my back. I can't not sit up straight." I'd like to think it made her realize that she was being rude, since she started to apologize right away, and I hope that it made her think twice about doing that again in the future.

Unfortunately, I think we're competitive, hierarchical critters, by nature or nurture or both

I'm a man, so I have no direct knowledge of this behaviour among girls, but I can definitely say that it happens with boys too. Probably in different forms, but it certainly happens.

I was bullied rather severely in high school. Not physically, but verbally and mentally using similar methods to what you are talking about. And pretty harshly. It followed me around for years, and took a lot of therapy to get past completely.

So maybe this is the same basic drive that takes a different form during different stages of development. I've heard of other experiences like Kathleen's as well.

Maybe the point is that from a very young age girls are socialized to be the center of attention by being cute, charming, etc. Then as they get into structured social settings they come to realize that it's more effective to demonize others in order to maintain your position at the center of attention. Kind of like how negative political ads are usually more effective. In contrast boys are socialized to be physically competitive and to assert their dominance openly and aggressively.

Then as they get older, the way that girls fight for that top position is through male attention and being the sexiest. I definitely felt a shift from indifference to mild hostility from the other girls in my school as we moved from middle school to high school. I think I was just lucky in that I had the "untouchable" status of an athlete, and I was already considered attractive by the boys, so I don't think I appeared to be a viable target. But I do think that Kathleen's point is appropriate. Although it takes different forms, this behavior starts much younger than the media coverage suggests.

I don't know. I think it's not necessarily a gender specific thing so much as what happens you put a bunch of people together in an isolated, prison-type situation.
Strangely enough, my high school years went rather smoothly, socially. I think the girls there were just more mature. Indeed, a certain level of maturity and recognition of how insignificant the school pecking order is (fighting among the lower classes distracts them from the fact that they're all lorded over and manipulated by the people who are really in charge). Also, I think it's important to change kids' peers frequently, to wreck the social structure and allow people to free themselves from "permanent" positions.

This sort of thing seems to be the "always was and always shall be" horrid truths of the world. I doubt there's a cure except for slowly realizing it's not the truth.

Jordan, that woman is severely mentally ill.

I think Flippy's point is a good one too. The way we structure our schools leaves a lot to be desired. For sure.

Jordan, I agree. That is certainly not normal behaviour.

I wasn't bullied as such during secondary (middle/high) school, but I was definitely involved in these kind of relationships. I'm 21 and still paranoid about other women, convinced they are talking about me/hate me/think I'm stupid and ugly etc. I've had so much experience with two faced girls that I cannot take anyone on face value. The majority of my friends are male, probably for this reason.

The other day I was forced to read Freud (the horror of Uni), and was thinking about how I could use his theories in my own life. As a child I was in direct competition for my parents' attention - particularly my father's - with my younger, incredibly beautiful and artistically talented younger sister. The only edge I had was my academic aptitude. Have I spent my (short) adult life forcing this same relationship upon everyone I meet? Of course, even if this is applicable to me, it surely doesn't explain the phenomenon as a whole.

Jordan, I think I'd see what electronic stalking laws exist in your area if I were you and send her a legal cease and desist. She's waaay over the line.

I was teased a lot when I moved to private school in 4th grade on, mostly because I was the sheltered, smartest-kid-in-the-class, good girl. I mean, I was liked, but it was easy to pick on me. I didn't know the ins-and-outs of sexual innuendo at age 10, which should be normal (!!) but led to my having to play dumb much more than I'd like to admit just to avoid getting teased. Somehow being nice equaled being easy to pick on, though I never ended up getting too snarky with anyone anyway.

My high school was amazing. I went to an all girls Catholic school, which sounds awful but was actually really liberating. It was fairly liberal and definitely focused on making us confident and intelligent young women. Of course, the cattiness was there among some groups, but my class was pretty awesome. There wasn't any overwhelming cliqueishness, and my group of friends in particular were completely above the cattiness and aggressiveness that seems so prevalent in high school kids. My class was only 116 girls, so I think the size and the positive environment kept us from going crazy.

I think it really has to do with the maturity level of the girls that take part in these behaviors. Also, supporting and praising your friends, instead of putting them and other classmates down helps tremendously. It's so much better to have loving relationships with your friends. I get along well with women and men, so long as they're positive and not so snarky. It was kind of a shock that even now in college people can be ridiculously catty. You learn to avoid them.

I want to add that, yes, there have been girls that I've disliked over the years. And it can be hard to keep from being snarky. But, really, it doesn't do anyone any good to be passive aggressive or bitchy. What's wrong with a little civility?

I guess I just want to add a different voice and as a feminist, I almost never came into contact with aggression among girls as I grew up. None of my friends did this passive aggressive stuff or manipulation. I know it exists - there are books about it and I hear all your stories and I know some girls do it. I guess I've never come into personal contact with them.

I guess I either didn't stand out as a target and/or I've always been good with intuition. I'm good at knowing what kind of person someone is, even when I was little. I stayed away from the cliques and status groups. All my female friends have been chill and almost drama-free. And I prefer to have female friends because I feel much more comfortable around them. When I'm around too many guys the sexist jokes and attitudes come out, but then again, maybe I'm only good at spotting awesome female friends and I don't know how to spot awesome guy friends. I have some good guy friends too, but it's harder for me to come by them, because many are friendly in return simply because they have a crush on me and want to get into my pants. I can figure this out pretty quickly and I have no patience for it...

As for solutions to these kind of problems I would say a good self-esteem plays into it. When women and men are comfortable with themselves, they feel a much lesser need to tear down on others.

Jordan, it sounds to me like this girl might have some serious problems of her own. It reminds me of a girl I knew in middle school who was always horribly mean like that. All the girls hated her because of it. But one day, out of the blue, she told us in the weirdest, flattest tone of voice I've ever heard that her parents beat her all the time. I still believe that her treatment of us was a reflection of the way her parents treated her; maybe she just never knew anything different so she never knew how to actually connect with people. I don't know how that will help - the girl you talked about is obviously not someone you need to be around - but maybe it can give you a little insight at least.

Jordan, I second what bifemmefatale said about checking up on electronic stalking laws. In the meantime, do your best to gather up evidence of what she's been doing (save all letters and emails, get screenshots of webpages in case she takes them down), and make sure she can't get access to any more photos or personal information concerning you or your family (this may mean taking down your own websites or making blogs friends-only). You might also consider getting a new email address and quietly letting the other one die.

I have always had more female than male friends. I've encountered a few instances of cattiness in elementary school, but nothing serious past that.

I identified with what SilverAeris wrote.

I've never experienced serious cattiness or nastiness from girls or women though I have no doubt it exists (but I don't know to what extent) and I have witnessed some incidents.

I've always had male and female friends and I found that gossip and nasty comments weren't limited to either sex, just as kindness and compassion weren't either.

I'm much more wary of men than women when it comes right down to it. The nastiest comments I've ever heard about women have come from men. The most supportive people I've ever met have overwhelmingly been women.

And to echo what some male commentators have said...I've also heard men being really nasty and judgemental about other men. I have a few close male friends and I'm often surprised at what they pick on about other men.

IBTP. I think Reviving Ophelia did that, but Charisse Nixon, the author of Girl Wars and a keynote speaker for The Ophelia Project did not. I was very happy with Reviving Ophelia's treatment of girls. In Girl Wars, I felt that girls were being isolated for their behavior as if it were happening in a vacuum. They were differentiated from boys in their relational skills but no real mention was given of why that was happening. Just accusations (labels) and correctives.

I feel that, to some extent, as girls we're told that we have to "get a guy"—setting it up as a competition. As though there aren't enough to go around. I'm sure this is not the only reason behind it, but I do think it contributes.

Kathleen6674: I agree completely. That sounds like my childhood. I remember this little bitch when I was 5 or 6 years old telling everyone not to talk to me because I was gross because I ate my peas at lunch. I cried because it made no sense. I remember trying to talk to her about it to convince her that it wasn't logical at all. The weird thing was that she was a favorite of our teacher as well, and I remember the teacher trying to stifle a laugh when I told her (tears streaming down my face) what had happened. Eventually I cracked in middle school and beat the crap out of two kids who had been tormenting me all year. They left me alone after that. I've run into it as an adult a few times - wome who gossip and try to alienate others, and I've learned to stay the hell away from them.

Here is my fem theory final... lacking some siting that was on the final copy and some corrections, but hell, here it is. We were basically told to develop our own theory about whatever we were passionate about, although it could be influenced by other theorists... here's mine... it goes hand in hand with this post.

Earlier this semester our class was given the assignment of writing a manifesto. The nature of this assignment was given as a way for each of us to express what we are passionate about and to convey to everyone and ourselves the type of world we want to live in. My manifesto focused on my utter distaste for the sexualization of girls. I primarily concentrated on the different examples of sexualized exploitation that can be directly observed in everyday life. I feel a connection to these issues, not just because of my experiences growing up, but because I believe that girls and young women are among one of the most ignored groups in our society and it is my goal to work towards more widespread consciousness of this group and the injustices they face that most people are seemingly blind to. In my manifesto, I failed to explore more extensively the effects that being sexual objects has on girls in regards to their sense of selves and their interactions with peers, which ultimately results in the formation of something that has become known as “girl culture.” In this essay, I will explore these effects and what they mean for young women, in addition to how “girl culture” works in favor of dominant society and against the formation of self for young girls. Most importantly, I will discuss what I think has to be done from a feminist perspective to successfully combat the effects sexualization and objectification has on women, young and old, as they develop.
The construction of power in our society has significantly short-changed all women and many men. Being a man, white, middle-class and above, and heterosexual are all factors that will place a person closer to the top. Concomitantly, being a woman, a person of color, lower than middle class and not heterosexual will result in an absence of societal power. Presumably, a Black, working class, lesbian woman would rank considerably low in regards to her possession of power, placing her in a position of considerable marginalization because of the lack of acceptance for difference in our society. She is considered an aberration from what is accepted as the norm, or not even considered at all. An additional factor that either aids in someone’s position of power or lack there of is age. Consider the titles of a newspaper article or news segment on television concerning a teenager; the headlines will almost always read, “Teenager Robs Local Store” or “Two Teens Steal Car.” If “teen” were to be replaced with “Black” or “Gay” the article would appear biased. For some reason, using age as a label does not usually signify any bias. These types of headlines are not uncommon, as our culture wants to verify that its young people cannot be trusted because it takes away any sense of power they may have and makes anything they say or contribute seem pointless and unnecessary. I believe that being young as an adolescent or teenager in our culture legitimately factors into one’s power status and overall marginalization. I believe that age discrimination concerning young people is not given adequate attention because being young is not a permanent status since people will continue to age throughout their life, meaning that young age is just a temporary position of subordination. Because the status is temporary there are not many people within the group who will fight for their rights, meaning that it would have to be people outside the group to devote themselves to the cause. In addition, teenagers tend to not be vocal with their issues. They are at a stage in their development where emotion and feeling are kept stifled within, making it difficult to hear their experiences when they are happening. What I wonder is how young women are affected during this time when they are so significantly vulnerable to the more powerful dominant culture. It is as if girls lose touch with their authentic selves gained during childhood and have no voice to combat the loss.
Adolescence is a period occurring around the time that a girl experiences puberty and is defined as the social and personal experiences of that process (Phipher, 1994). During adolescence is the time that girls first become culturally aware, especially concerning issues that affect them and who they are supposed to become. This has been referred to as the “indoctrination of goodness” by Claudia Bepko and Jo-Ann Krestan and they argue that it has been virtually unchanged since the fifties, although the ways in which the indoctrination occurs have changed. The “indoctrination of goodness” is what tells adolescent girls what their place is in society and what threatens to label them as deviant if they fail to conform. Of course, this indoctrination has been happening since they were born. Girls and boys are treated differently because sex is presumed to indicate gender. Girls will be coddled more and mothers will use endearing, soothing tones with them. With boys, there is pressure for mothers to not hold them as much, and they are encouraged to let them cry rather than coddle them. Boys will be referred to as handsome and strong while girls will be referred to as pretty and sweet. As children grow older, they are given gendered toys to play with, such as Barbies, kitchen sets and baby dolls for girls while boys receive war toys, cars, and building blocks. Despite all of this gendered indoctrination during childhood development, it is during adolescence that girls become much more cognizant of their destined roles. With this cognition comes an understanding of the power they hold, which in many respects is none. Simone de Beauvoir believed adolescence is when girls realize that men have the power and that their only power comes from consenting to become submissive, adored objects. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory would suggest penis envy for the behavior exhibited in girls, when in all actuality, it is power they are envying.
With the realization that power does not significantly exist for girls in society, they attempt to take advantage of the little power that they perceive having, which often translates to their power as sexual objects. Mary Pipher states in her book, Reviving Ophelia, “This is when girls stop being the subject of their own lives and start working towards being the subjects of other’s.” Since focus transitions from themselves to others, the girl will often experience a split between their autonomous selves and their need to be feminine and between their status as human beings and their future vocation as females. It is safe to say that at this age many girls stop “being” and start “seeming” since most girls pick being culturally accepted over being their authentic selves. They become who they are supposed to be rather than who they are. Power is then perceived as a girl’s acceptance by men as a sexual object that can suffice men’s desires, forming particular standards of beauty and behavior. Girls who are able to meet these standards and gain acceptance are then perceived as having more power than the girls who are unable to be as successful in that endeavor. The effects that ensue for girls who are unable to meet these standards, meaning they aren’t pretty or sexy enough, are usually in the forms of self-destructive behaviors and psychological instability.
Certain disorders have become considerably common for adolescent girls, most specifically eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, practices of self-mutilation and depression. It is very rare for girls to have to have to visit a psychiatrist prior to the age of eleven but once girls hit puberty and must deal with adolescence their psychological states often become considerably unstable (Pipher, 1994). Eating disorders such as Anorexia have become increasingly common in our culture as the media outlets have become more and more persistent at representing unachievable standards of beauty and thinness. Many of the images that girls see in advertising campaigns for popular brands and in the images they see on their favorite programs on television become the standard for what girls want to achieve for themselves. In the media girls see culturally scripted versions of beauty that do not translate into reality. It is with these images in the media that the dramatic onset of anorexia nervosa as a culturally stimulated disorder was introduced.
In the country of Samoa, eating disorders were virtually nonexistent prior to the 1990’s. In fact, larger women in Samoa were not discriminated against because of their size, but were in fact considered attractive by their cultural standards. It was not until the introduction of television, and especially the show, 90210, that the prevalence of eating disorders and obsessions with thinness became an issue. This suggests that eating disorders, although may exist as a predisposition, are not innately developed on a large scale without the presence of the mass media to spread the images of culturally accepted beauty. In addition to anorexia, girls are also likely to deal with issues of self mutilation, which is often in the form of cutting. The main purpose that cutting serves is to turn emotional pain into physical pain. This acts as an outlet so the emotional distress being experienced does not have to be overtly expressed, meaning the pain is silenced. This is usually a secretive behavior that is done in areas that can be covered by clothing to help conceal the existence of any problem. There are common factors that connect the occurrence and prevalence of both self mutilation and eating disorders in that they both give the girl a perceived feeling of power, especially if she feels she is lacking them in other parts of her life. If a girl senses a lack of control and power, an easy target for her to try and create power is through the perceived control over her own body. Not eating and cutting then become ways in which a girl gains her own control since it is ultimately at her own discretion whether she eats or whether she cuts herself. Although the mind might interpret these acts as a way to achieve power and control, neither truly exists since it is the control that dominant culture has and the lack of power the girl possesses that lead to her commit self destructive acts. The girl never obtains more control or power, but progressively becomes more and more of a victim to the control and power culture has over her.
The fact that girls try to create power infers that girls lack power due to ways in which they will try and create it, whether if the creation of power concerns power over themselves and their bodies like in the cases of eating disorder and self mutilation, or if it extends to their relationships with their peers. Because of the hold that dominant culture and society have over girls, it is no wonder that they would develop their own culture that would allow them to create their own power dynamics within it. This is what has become known as “girl culture,” which I believe can be defined as the ways in which girls interact with each other, marked by a series of what have become known as alternate aggressions used by a bully to alienate others in hopes of boosting one’s own status. Silence has been deeply rooted in the existence of women. Just like children, their silence has been legitimized with the age old saying that indicates that women should be “seen and not heard.” However, boys experience a different reality where they are encouraged to express themselves both physically and verbally. This culturally enforced behavior of expression then translates into various forms of aggression. A sociological study done by Anne Campbell found that where men viewed aggression as means to control their environment and integrity, women believed it would terminate their relationships (Rachel Simmons, 2002). Women’s lives are engrained in relationships, mostly because of the intimate relationships that are formed with their mothers and the relationships they are encouraged to have with their peers. Their niceness and docility are praised, meaning that in extension, their silence is praised. Because girls are not encouraged to overtly express themselves, the aggression they experience is forced to take an alternate form, different from what is exhibited as the culturally accepted male-based aggressions. Because this aggression is different from what boys exhibit, the aggression that girls exhibit rarely gets recognized as aggression at all, instead, it is referred to as “what girls do.” However, psychologists at the University of Minnesota identified three categories of aggressive behavior that can be used to describe the aggression in girls, they are: relational aggression, indirect aggression and social aggression.
Throughout my middle school experience, I undoubtedly experienced numerous examples of all three aggressions. Relational aggression includes any act that harms others through damage or the threat of damage to relationships or feelings of acceptance, friendship or group inclusion. In this type of aggression, the aggressor usually uses her relationship and her power over other relationships as a weapon against the victim. In my middle school, there was a group of girls who referred to themselves as the Super Seven. I was not considered part of this group even though most of the members were girls who I considered to be some of my best friends. Even though I wasn’t one of the girls who had a label as a Super-Sevener, I still ate lunch with them since I was close with most of the members. The girl who led this group was named Mallory and she was responsible for keeping me out of the group since she “just didn’t like me that much.” I eventually started to become good friends with the girl who was supposed to be Mallory’s best friend, which led to her deciding to oust me from the lunch table. What has to be understood is that in middle school, where you sit during lunch virtually means everything in terms of your social standing. On the day of the ousting, I walked into the cafeteria to find another girl in my seat. I did the only thing that I could think to do which was to find another place to sit while Mallory and the others observed with amusement. Mallory used her power over the group to exclude me. It didn’t matter that I was friends with others in the group because they were all equally as scared that Mallory would do the same thing to them. She used her power over the group to control everyone that wanted to be part of it. Mallory eventually tried to explain to me that the reason that the other girl now sat in my seat was because Mallory was really good friends with her and wanted to sit with her at lunch. The only reason I wasn’t sitting there was because there weren’t enough seats. This is an example of indirect aggression, meaning that the perpetrator, Mallory, tried to make it seem that there was no intention to hurt anyone with her actions. In addition, this same event could also be interpreted as social aggression, which is the intention to damage self-esteem or someone’s social status within a group. Since these aggressions are used as ways for the bully to achieve and maintain power, almost all of the aggressions can be interpreted as social aggression. High social status and the power that comes with it is what the perpetrator craves by taking on the role of bully.
These types of aggression that are prevalent in girl culture exist because they allow girls to develop their own power structure to compensate for how low they rank on society’s power structure. These aggressions are all considerably covert, meaning that none of the behaviors can be specifically labeled as intentionally hurtful even though they obviously are and have damaging effects. The fact that these aggressive behaviors cannot be specifically labeled as aggressive allow girls to hold onto the little power they have for being the way society wants them to be, which is perfect and good-natured. This can be described as the “good-girl” or “sugar and spice” image. Girls will use this image to fool adults, parents, teachers and each other into believing that any suspected aggression does not exist. The point is that adults will not notice the subtle examples of aggression because they do not suspect them due the girls’ apparent image, which means they will not be looking for them, the end result being that the behavior never finds its end until the girls hopefully grow out of that stage in their development. In addition, seemingly upholding the “good girl” image allows girls to ensure that they will not be labeled as deviant. Girls who act out aggression similar to the ways in which boys are expected to act out aggression, or in some cases, girls who are just assertive, will be targeted and labeled with words such as: bitch, lesbian, butch, and frigid. Being labeled as any of these words in middle school would have dramatic social consequences, stripping away any power that may be obtained by being an object of male desire.
Society has undoubtedly placed girls in a reality where they are ignored and denied any significant power. Unfortunately, there is very little in place that is considerably accessible to girls to combat the effects that dominant culture has over them. In our class this semester we have discussed in depth the ways in which what we know as mainstreamed feminism has failed to be inclusive of all women. It instead preached a certain amount of supposed “universality” among women that doesn’t exist. Although there has been definite attention paid to the injustices that girls face, in my opinion it is not enough. I feel like there isn’t any accessible feminism for girls, in fact, I feel like feminism, which is something that should benefit all women, does not even necessarily exist for younger ones to actively take part. There have been attempts with the supposed “girl power” era brought on by the Spice Girls, but that said power only enforced the same ideals for women that society has for them, in that a women’s power is sex. I feel like knowing about feminism is a privilege that is primarily only reserved for older and college-aged women. If I hadn’t gone to college and decided to devote a considerable amount of my education to women’s studies, I would still be ignorant to many of things that shape the way I think, allowing me to think more critically and hopefully give me the ability to not conform to roles or behavior just because they are expected of me.
What needs to be in place to empower girls to hold onto their authentic selves, to give them the necessary assertiveness and knowledge to combat our culture’s damaging effects? I think that one of the key elements to giving girls the ability to be autonomous thinkers when entering their adolescence can be routed in what I would call early intervention feminism. The idea of feminism needs to be accessible to girls much earlier and this can be done is a myriad of ways. First, I think that the idea of girl-centered spaces has to be re-thought. Although there is a lot in place as far as activities for girls to do with each other, such as girl scouts, dancing, and gymnastics, these activities are usually gender normative and do not offer an environment of thought, discussion and reflection. Just as consciousness-raising groups have existed for women I think they need to exist more extensively for girls. I think that giving girls the opportunity to develop their own beliefs through discussion and analyses would greatly benefit how girls react to their adolescence, hopefully giving the ability to feel powerful so they can be part of a greater community rather than compete against each other for sexually objectified status.
Second, I think that there needs to be more accountability placed on the media to produce positive images for girls to observe. There have been some positive advertisements that are girl positive, such as the Dove Campaign, but campaigns such as these aren’t nearly as prevalent enough, especially in regards to the infinite amount of negative messages conveyed that target girls. With the media being as much of an influence as it is, if more was in place within the media to give girls a positive message about themselves, girls could devote more time to their development and autonomy as women, rather than trying to achieve idealized media images for themselves.
Third, it cannot be ignored that women undoubtedly place considerable importance on the relationships they hold with other women, mostly because of the bond they are encouraged to have with their mothers as little girls. Because of this, I think that the use of role models in the lives of girls can truly benefit them. Currently, I would bet that if you were to directly ask a girl who her role model is, she would most likely say the name of a famous Hollywood star, like Hilary Duff, Lindsey Lohan, or Brittany Spears. I seriously doubt that a woman of considerable achievement would be mentioned or even a women that is present within the girl’s life. Girls become lost in this respect because many do not have a concrete role model that they can look up to and have a relationship with, and most importantly, they do not have someone woman positive to emulate. I think that this is where feminists can directly take action, which is to try and be that role model for a girl. I think about how my childhood and adolescence might have been difference if I had someone helping me and guiding me, giving me advice, teaching me to think more critically, and most importantly, teaching me how to be a feminist early on.
Last, I think that it is important to realize that the answer to the empowerment of girls does not rest solely on their education. My favorite spoken word poet, Andrea Gibson, has a poem entitled Blue Blanket. The last line of this poem states, “She’s not asking what you’re gonna tell your daughter, she’s asking what you’re gonna teach your son.” Although educating girls is crucial to help them hold onto their authentic selves created during childhood, it is not all that can be done. It is also important to educate boys using feminism so they will be less likely to challenge girls with the domination that society says they have over them. Just like girls, if boys and in extension, everyone is educated to see the inequalities that exist, they will hopefully be able to recognize the behaviors that enforce it, and discover ways to resist it.