When does mean girl drama get better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many women embracing victimhood here. It’s one thing for a child to feel helpless or overwhelmed by mean people but as an adult? Know your strength. Avoid the jerks when you can, ignore them when you cannot. And yes, I have had plenty of people be mean to me. I don’t resort to high school tropes to define the situation. You’re better than the jerks.

Actually, you are victim-blaming here by implying that a single individual has the power to avoid abuse by a cohesive group simply by being "better." That's not how bullying works. Bullies have power - that's the very definition of power. They cannot be ignored if they don't want to be. Kids don't commit suicide when they are severely bullied simply because they failed to ignore. You seem like someone lucky enough never to have actually been a victim of real bullying. It's not just someone being mean to you. It's a coordinated effort by a socially powerful group to harm a person with significantly less social status. It is not some insecure kid or a kid with a bad home life. It's typically girls who are fairly popular and more socially adept than their peers. By invalidating the inescapable nature of real mean girl bullying, you trivialize the trauma that real girls experience every day.

DP. If we are talking adults, maybe run for the pool board or be on the PTA or host your own neighborhood party or whatever you are complaining about as overrun by “mean girls” and make those nicer places if you aren’t able to ignore them somehow. These posts are fascinating to me. If you walk around in this world and are a loyal, kind, and inclusive friend you will attract those people. Build the life want to have. A starting point of all women are mean is certainly not going to help.

If I walked around everyday thinking the entire human race was filled with mean people I’d be seriously depressed.

+1. Agree, some people are mean. But the people saying all women are mean? That’s the kind of sh*t that pits women against each other eternally. Total self-own for womankind.

DP (first time posting in this thread).

Not all women are mean, but women and girls who ARE mean and play these games tend to gravitate towards roles where they can wield power over other women, and they can wreak a lot of havoc. It's not fair to paint all women with the same brush, but I know so many women (myself included) who have had these extremely negative experiences with specific women in our lives that leave a lot of scars. I actually did not experience the kind of "mean girl" politics that OP's daughter is seeing now while I was in school. Maybe a little around the edges, but my friend groups when I was in MS and HS were pretty fluid and I really don't remember any one girl, or group of girls, who tried to run things.

But as an adult, I've experienced it a few times, and one particular time when it happened in a work environment, was genuinely a life changing event for me, it was so harsh and hard. I do think it's something we need to talk about because it's something that genuinely holds women back. Women who do this stuff are too often rewarded, or are insufficiently called out on it, because they are good at insulating themselves from responsibility for their actions. It's not some made up problem or just some women having sour grapes. Gossip, exclusion, ostracism -- these are tools that some women use to punish women they view as rivals, or to protect things they view are "theirs," be it friendships or jobs or social status. It's sad because most of the time this perceived competition is all in their heads, but the consequences of their actions are not.

That is true about the ostracism.

Some examples I've noticed of mean girls:
1. Misdirected aggression. An older sibling picks on a younger sibling, who feels angry and then picks on someone else they perceive is inferior or an easy target.
2. Friend poaching. One woman suddenly becomes besties with someone else's friend, then uses closed body language and other tactics to exclude the other woman.
3. Subtle group exclusion. Women may mildly pick on someone who doesn't quite fit with the group. They might pick on the person's choices, exclude them from the conversation or talk over them, or feign concern but really pick on some aspect of their personality or demeanor as if there is something wrong with them, just to be condescending. So then the person winds up leaving the group feeling like they just don't fit in.
4. Overt group exclusion. Girls will do things to annoy one girl, like take something that belongs to her, insult her appearance, threaten to not be her friend, tell her to go be friends with someone else, or they eat without her. They might perceive her to be better looking, which lowers the group self esteem so they need to get rid of that person.
5. Bonding by exclusion. A group might have some connection and don't want a newcomer to ruin their dynamic, or they might be new friends and need a way to bond, and the way they bond is to all pick on one person. Ousting that person gives the group something to gossip about and bond over.

Wow, so well described. I have seen or experienced almost all of these. I think #3 and #4 are the worst, and in my mind the truest examples of "mean girl" behaviors, whether being perpetrated by girls or women. I mean, this is just the clique behavior at work -- a group of girls or women get together and decide that the exclusivity of their group works to their benefit -- the harder it is to get in, the higher their status must be, right? It's completely manufactured though. It's what economists would call artificial scarcity. There's no particular reason why the girls in a clique can't like and approve of other women, but they withhold that approval to make it more valuable. And in doing so, they can extract more from other girls willing to compete for that approval.

Whenever these threads pop up and there are always people saying "I have no idea what you are talking about, I have never experienced this in my life," I think about that idea of artificial scarcity. It only works if you can keep up the lie. If it's obvious "oh we are withholding our friendship from other women to artificially boost our own status by making it seem like only 'worthy' people can earn our friendship," well then no one would buy in. It HAS to be unspoken.

And that's why I don't trust people who simply do not believe this behavior happens. Of course it does. Not everywhere all the time, but often enough that it would be hard to be a woman and hit your 30s or 40s without encountering it in some capacity or another, even as a spectator.

Agree that list is so well described and this response to it is so dead on and facts that I screenshotted both to share with my teen age daughter who is currently a victim of all five type of osctracism and exclusion in her friend group at her all girls school. And of course the Moms are all “I don’t know what’s happening. my daughter hasn’t said anything, I’m clueless”. They know and turn a blind eye to this gatekeeping of social status. After all where do these girls learn this mean behavior from? Look to their Moms. It is gross. But the joke is on them because one day, they’ll get their turn. It’s sad and shameful how awful females are to each other. Thank you for breaking this down so beautifully.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many women embracing victimhood here. It’s one thing for a child to feel helpless or overwhelmed by mean people but as an adult? Know your strength. Avoid the jerks when you can, ignore them when you cannot. And yes, I have had plenty of people be mean to me. I don’t resort to high school tropes to define the situation. You’re better than the jerks.

Actually, you are victim-blaming here by implying that a single individual has the power to avoid abuse by a cohesive group simply by being "better." That's not how bullying works. Bullies have power - that's the very definition of power. They cannot be ignored if they don't want to be. Kids don't commit suicide when they are severely bullied simply because they failed to ignore. You seem like someone lucky enough never to have actually been a victim of real bullying. It's not just someone being mean to you. It's a coordinated effort by a socially powerful group to harm a person with significantly less social status. It is not some insecure kid or a kid with a bad home life. It's typically girls who are fairly popular and more socially adept than their peers. By invalidating the inescapable nature of real mean girl bullying, you trivialize the trauma that real girls experience every day.

DP. If we are talking adults, maybe run for the pool board or be on the PTA or host your own neighborhood party or whatever you are complaining about as overrun by “mean girls” and make those nicer places if you aren’t able to ignore them somehow. These posts are fascinating to me. If you walk around in this world and are a loyal, kind, and inclusive friend you will attract those people. Build the life want to have. A starting point of all women are mean is certainly not going to help.

If I walked around everyday thinking the entire human race was filled with mean people I’d be seriously depressed.

+1. Agree, some people are mean. But the people saying all women are mean? That’s the kind of sh*t that pits women against each other eternally. Total self-own for womankind.

DP (first time posting in this thread).

Not all women are mean, but women and girls who ARE mean and play these games tend to gravitate towards roles where they can wield power over other women, and they can wreak a lot of havoc. It's not fair to paint all women with the same brush, but I know so many women (myself included) who have had these extremely negative experiences with specific women in our lives that leave a lot of scars. I actually did not experience the kind of "mean girl" politics that OP's daughter is seeing now while I was in school. Maybe a little around the edges, but my friend groups when I was in MS and HS were pretty fluid and I really don't remember any one girl, or group of girls, who tried to run things.

But as an adult, I've experienced it a few times, and one particular time when it happened in a work environment, was genuinely a life changing event for me, it was so harsh and hard. I do think it's something we need to talk about because it's something that genuinely holds women back. Women who do this stuff are too often rewarded, or are insufficiently called out on it, because they are good at insulating themselves from responsibility for their actions. It's not some made up problem or just some women having sour grapes. Gossip, exclusion, ostracism -- these are tools that some women use to punish women they view as rivals, or to protect things they view are "theirs," be it friendships or jobs or social status. It's sad because most of the time this perceived competition is all in their heads, but the consequences of their actions are not.

That is true about the ostracism.

Some examples I've noticed of mean girls:
1. Misdirected aggression. An older sibling picks on a younger sibling, who feels angry and then picks on someone else they perceive is inferior or an easy target.
2. Friend poaching. One woman suddenly becomes besties with someone else's friend, then uses closed body language and other tactics to exclude the other woman.
3. Subtle group exclusion. Women may mildly pick on someone who doesn't quite fit with the group. They might pick on the person's choices, exclude them from the conversation or talk over them, or feign concern but really pick on some aspect of their personality or demeanor as if there is something wrong with them, just to be condescending. So then the person winds up leaving the group feeling like they just don't fit in.
4. Overt group exclusion. Girls will do things to annoy one girl, like take something that belongs to her, insult her appearance, threaten to not be her friend, tell her to go be friends with someone else, or they eat without her. They might perceive her to be better looking, which lowers the group self esteem so they need to get rid of that person.
5. Bonding by exclusion. A group might have some connection and don't want a newcomer to ruin their dynamic, or they might be new friends and need a way to bond, and the way they bond is to all pick on one person. Ousting that person gives the group something to gossip about and bond over.

Wow, so well described. I have seen or experienced almost all of these. I think #3 and #4 are the worst, and in my mind the truest examples of "mean girl" behaviors, whether being perpetrated by girls or women. I mean, this is just the clique behavior at work -- a group of girls or women get together and decide that the exclusivity of their group works to their benefit -- the harder it is to get in, the higher their status must be, right? It's completely manufactured though. It's what economists would call artificial scarcity. There's no particular reason why the girls in a clique can't like and approve of other women, but they withhold that approval to make it more valuable. And in doing so, they can extract more from other girls willing to compete for that approval.

Whenever these threads pop up and there are always people saying "I have no idea what you are talking about, I have never experienced this in my life," I think about that idea of artificial scarcity. It only works if you can keep up the lie. If it's obvious "oh we are withholding our friendship from other women to artificially boost our own status by making it seem like only 'worthy' people can earn our friendship," well then no one would buy in. It HAS to be unspoken.

And that's why I don't trust people who simply do not believe this behavior happens. Of course it does. Not everywhere all the time, but often enough that it would be hard to be a woman and hit your 30s or 40s without encountering it in some capacity or another, even as a spectator.

Agree that list is so well described and this response to it is so dead on and facts that I screenshotted both to share with my teen age daughter who is currently a victim of all five type of osctracism and exclusion in her friend group at her all girls school. And of course the Moms are all “I don’t know what’s happening. my daughter hasn’t said anything, I’m clueless”. They know and turn a blind eye to this gatekeeping of social status. After all where do these girls learn this mean behavior from? Look to their Moms. It is gross. But the joke is on them because one day, they’ll get their turn. It’s sad and shameful how awful females are to each other. Thank you for breaking this down so beautifully.

DP. “Gatekeeping of social status.”

E-X-A-C-T-L-Y !!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to turn this into a public/private debate but my 11yo 6th grader has been in private since 4th and it’s not too bad. There are definitely different cliques/circles but no real meanness or cruelty seems to happen.
A new kid started a month ago because she got suspended from mcps and she’s had a struggle. My kid was assigned to show her around the first day and the new kid called mine several different names on the first day, called other kids, fat, ugly etc…. Dunno if she was trying to hard to fit in or what but it didn’t go well. Now mine says no one likes her. I feel bad for the new kid who now had no friends but she came in swinging and alienated them all.

IME small privates are the worst. We had to change schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't get better. Ever.
-47 dealing with mean girl moms at my kids school

The moms are mean to other moms? Examples please?

Trying to engineer kids friendships, PTA, young moms vs old moms, so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never. See also: PTA, HSA, Girlscouts, soroties, mom cliques, et al.

100% Girl Scouts moms. We switched schools this year and the GS moms refuse to let my daughter in, even though I’ve volunteered to help them keep their ratios in tact and plan events. She’s not cute and athletic like their girls….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't get better. Ever.
-47 dealing with mean girl moms at my kids school

The moms are mean to other moms? Examples please?

Trying to engineer kids friendships, PTA, young moms vs old moms, so much.

Are there examples? Young vs old is are characteristics, not all young moms are mean to old moms? How in the pta?

Is engineering kids friendships being mean to other moms?

What should one look out for if thinking of joining say the pta?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many women embracing victimhood here. It’s one thing for a child to feel helpless or overwhelmed by mean people but as an adult? Know your strength. Avoid the jerks when you can, ignore them when you cannot. And yes, I have had plenty of people be mean to me. I don’t resort to high school tropes to define the situation. You’re better than the jerks.

Actually, you are victim-blaming here by implying that a single individual has the power to avoid abuse by a cohesive group simply by being "better." That's not how bullying works. Bullies have power - that's the very definition of power. They cannot be ignored if they don't want to be. Kids don't commit suicide when they are severely bullied simply because they failed to ignore. You seem like someone lucky enough never to have actually been a victim of real bullying. It's not just someone being mean to you. It's a coordinated effort by a socially powerful group to harm a person with significantly less social status. It is not some insecure kid or a kid with a bad home life. It's typically girls who are fairly popular and more socially adept than their peers. By invalidating the inescapable nature of real mean girl bullying, you trivialize the trauma that real girls experience every day.

DP. If we are talking adults, maybe run for the pool board or be on the PTA or host your own neighborhood party or whatever you are complaining about as overrun by “mean girls” and make those nicer places if you aren’t able to ignore them somehow. These posts are fascinating to me. If you walk around in this world and are a loyal, kind, and inclusive friend you will attract those people. Build the life want to have. A starting point of all women are mean is certainly not going to help.

If I walked around everyday thinking the entire human race was filled with mean people I’d be seriously depressed.

+1. Agree, some people are mean. But the people saying all women are mean? That’s the kind of sh*t that pits women against each other eternally. Total self-own for womankind.

DP (first time posting in this thread).

Not all women are mean, but women and girls who ARE mean and play these games tend to gravitate towards roles where they can wield power over other women, and they can wreak a lot of havoc. It's not fair to paint all women with the same brush, but I know so many women (myself included) who have had these extremely negative experiences with specific women in our lives that leave a lot of scars. I actually did not experience the kind of "mean girl" politics that OP's daughter is seeing now while I was in school. Maybe a little around the edges, but my friend groups when I was in MS and HS were pretty fluid and I really don't remember any one girl, or group of girls, who tried to run things.

But as an adult, I've experienced it a few times, and one particular time when it happened in a work environment, was genuinely a life changing event for me, it was so harsh and hard. I do think it's something we need to talk about because it's something that genuinely holds women back. Women who do this stuff are too often rewarded, or are insufficiently called out on it, because they are good at insulating themselves from responsibility for their actions. It's not some made up problem or just some women having sour grapes. Gossip, exclusion, ostracism -- these are tools that some women use to punish women they view as rivals, or to protect things they view are "theirs," be it friendships or jobs or social status. It's sad because most of the time this perceived competition is all in their heads, but the consequences of their actions are not.

That is true about the ostracism.

Some examples I've noticed of mean girls:
1. Misdirected aggression. An older sibling picks on a younger sibling, who feels angry and then picks on someone else they perceive is inferior or an easy target.
2. Friend poaching. One woman suddenly becomes besties with someone else's friend, then uses closed body language and other tactics to exclude the other woman.
3. Subtle group exclusion. Women may mildly pick on someone who doesn't quite fit with the group. They might pick on the person's choices, exclude them from the conversation or talk over them, or feign concern but really pick on some aspect of their personality or demeanor as if there is something wrong with them, just to be condescending. So then the person winds up leaving the group feeling like they just don't fit in.
4. Overt group exclusion. Girls will do things to annoy one girl, like take something that belongs to her, insult her appearance, threaten to not be her friend, tell her to go be friends with someone else, or they eat without her. They might perceive her to be better looking, which lowers the group self esteem so they need to get rid of that person.
5. Bonding by exclusion. A group might have some connection and don't want a newcomer to ruin their dynamic, or they might be new friends and need a way to bond, and the way they bond is to all pick on one person. Ousting that person gives the group something to gossip about and bond over.

I will add to this

3a. Subtle group exclusion characterized by repeated cycles of exclusion and reaction formation. A group of friends mildly picks on a group member by talking about her clothes/hair/appearance/social skills. The targeted person is hurt by this, and the other group members feel guilty and overcompensate by being extra nice for a period of time until they revert back to the norm. Cycle repeats. The group members enjoy having a loyal good-natured scapegoat to feel superior over. The DUFF theory.

[Anonymous]

After dealing with mean girls at age 11-12, I have always avoided mean girls or dramatic girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many women embracing victimhood here. It’s one thing for a child to feel helpless or overwhelmed by mean people but as an adult? Know your strength. Avoid the jerks when you can, ignore them when you cannot. And yes, I have had plenty of people be mean to me. I don’t resort to high school tropes to define the situation. You’re better than the jerks.

Actually, you are victim-blaming here by implying that a single individual has the power to avoid abuse by a cohesive group simply by being "better." That's not how bullying works. Bullies have power - that's the very definition of power. They cannot be ignored if they don't want to be. Kids don't commit suicide when they are severely bullied simply because they failed to ignore. You seem like someone lucky enough never to have actually been a victim of real bullying. It's not just someone being mean to you. It's a coordinated effort by a socially powerful group to harm a person with significantly less social status. It is not some insecure kid or a kid with a bad home life. It's typically girls who are fairly popular and more socially adept than their peers. By invalidating the inescapable nature of real mean girl bullying, you trivialize the trauma that real girls experience every day.

DP. If we are talking adults, maybe run for the pool board or be on the PTA or host your own neighborhood party or whatever you are complaining about as overrun by “mean girls” and make those nicer places if you aren’t able to ignore them somehow. These posts are fascinating to me. If you walk around in this world and are a loyal, kind, and inclusive friend you will attract those people. Build the life want to have. A starting point of all women are mean is certainly not going to help.

If I walked around everyday thinking the entire human race was filled with mean people I’d be seriously depressed.

+1. Agree, some people are mean. But the people saying all women are mean? That’s the kind of sh*t that pits women against each other eternally. Total self-own for womankind.

DP (first time posting in this thread).

Not all women are mean, but women and girls who ARE mean and play these games tend to gravitate towards roles where they can wield power over other women, and they can wreak a lot of havoc. It's not fair to paint all women with the same brush, but I know so many women (myself included) who have had these extremely negative experiences with specific women in our lives that leave a lot of scars. I actually did not experience the kind of "mean girl" politics that OP's daughter is seeing now while I was in school. Maybe a little around the edges, but my friend groups when I was in MS and HS were pretty fluid and I really don't remember any one girl, or group of girls, who tried to run things.

But as an adult, I've experienced it a few times, and one particular time when it happened in a work environment, was genuinely a life changing event for me, it was so harsh and hard. I do think it's something we need to talk about because it's something that genuinely holds women back. Women who do this stuff are too often rewarded, or are insufficiently called out on it, because they are good at insulating themselves from responsibility for their actions. It's not some made up problem or just some women having sour grapes. Gossip, exclusion, ostracism -- these are tools that some women use to punish women they view as rivals, or to protect things they view are "theirs," be it friendships or jobs or social status. It's sad because most of the time this perceived competition is all in their heads, but the consequences of their actions are not.

That is true about the ostracism.

Some examples I've noticed of mean girls:
1. Misdirected aggression. An older sibling picks on a younger sibling, who feels angry and then picks on someone else they perceive is inferior or an easy target.
2. Friend poaching. One woman suddenly becomes besties with someone else's friend, then uses closed body language and other tactics to exclude the other woman.
3. Subtle group exclusion. Women may mildly pick on someone who doesn't quite fit with the group. They might pick on the person's choices, exclude them from the conversation or talk over them, or feign concern but really pick on some aspect of their personality or demeanor as if there is something wrong with them, just to be condescending. So then the person winds up leaving the group feeling like they just don't fit in.
4. Overt group exclusion. Girls will do things to annoy one girl, like take something that belongs to her, insult her appearance, threaten to not be her friend, tell her to go be friends with someone else, or they eat without her. They might perceive her to be better looking, which lowers the group self esteem so they need to get rid of that person.
5. Bonding by exclusion. A group might have some connection and don't want a newcomer to ruin their dynamic, or they might be new friends and need a way to bond, and the way they bond is to all pick on one person. Ousting that person gives the group something to gossip about and bond over.

I will add to this

3a. Subtle group exclusion characterized by repeated cycles of exclusion and reaction formation. A group of friends mildly picks on a group member by talking about her clothes/hair/appearance/social skills. The targeted person is hurt by this, and the other group members feel guilty and overcompensate by being extra nice for a period of time until they revert back to the norm. Cycle repeats. The group members enjoy having a loyal good-natured scapegoat to feel superior over. The DUFF theory.

Agreed. Thank you to the PPs who articulated these things so well. My now high schooler had a horrible middle school experience at the expense of her frenemies. Thank goodness in her new school she has found a few girls who get her and has finally started to feel better about herself. Middle school was hell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It peaked in 7th grade for my DD. Encourage a different friend group. There are other not mean kids. They may not be the most popular kids.

This is the approach. My DD lost her best friend of many years at age 16 and then she discovered that some of her other friends are the nice girls that she should have been focusing on.
While she is sad about losing this friend, she is much happier and at peace with the other girls. There are plenty of mean girls but also plenty of girls who it is not in their nature to be mean.

[Anonymous]

My DD will be graduating soon from high school and we still have the scars from middle school horrors. (Yes, I say "we"--I was watching the roller coaster and trying to get her off. It brought up a lot of stuff I had happen to me in middle school, based on appearance and "sophistication," as measured by how much you drank and smoke). Anyway, a person needs one good friend. If you emerge with one good friend, you're OK. Here's a piece on mean girls in the Retirement Home: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/opinion/sunday/mean-girls-in-the-retirement-home.html