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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It starts by preschool if not kindergarten.

Girls are horrible to each other. Women are horrible to each other, too. It never ends.

Teach your kindergartener to stand on her own two feet starting now. It's nice to have friends who are real friends, but if they are not real friends, then don't be afraid away.

Teaching young girls that they need to put up with being treated badly by other girls -- or worse, that something must be wrong with them if they reject that treatment from a group of girls -- is one of the worst things we as mothers can do to our girls. Another girl's mean girl behavior hould always be rejected. This is how you teach your daughter to respect herself, and her boundaries.

Teach your daughter to be strong, for real instead of merely wearing a pink t-shirt with some power girl slogan.[/quote]

Yes to all of this. When I was a kid, my mom kept telling me "just be nice and the girls will like you" or "just ignore unkind behavior and it will stop." Hell no. I teach my kid that friends are not mean, they do not make fun of you, they don't talk about you behind your back, and they don't use exclusion as a weapon (there is a difference between simply not being included, which everyone must learn to accept sometimes, and being excluded in a targeted way intended to make you feel bad or left out). If anyone treats you this way, they are not your friend and you should focus your energy elsewhere. And also: don't do stuff like this to friends (to anyone but especially not to someone you consider a friend because it's more cruel when you behave this way but say "we're friends).

By the way, to the posters saying it's misogynist to call out the fact that girls engage in this behavior at much higher rates than boys do, and that it is, in fact, "mean" -- I actually think it's misogynist to ignore this phenomenon, which is well documented, and to pretend like girls (or women) are naturally kind to each other or that when they engage in this kind of relational aggression, that the victims are just misinterpreting or that they are just confused. These are the weapons girls use against each other. It absolutely is socialized into them and I think it's because girls and women are discouraged away from being direct or aggressive in any way. So they weaponize niceness in order to work out their aggression on each other in a way that they can claim innocence. That's why they engage in teasing ("I was just joking!"), gossip ("if I don't say it to her, it's not as mean"), exclusion ("what, does EVERYONE have to be invited to everything?"), and isolation ("[shrug] I don't know why no one hangs out with Kelly"). They learn they can do all of this but as long as they smile and are friendly generally, they can still be a "nice girl" who is well liked. It works. That's why they do it.

Meanwhile, when a girl is direct and honest, she will get a reputation for being unfriendly, aggressive, a complainer, or "no fun." A girl who says "hey, it hurt my feelings when you talked to me that way" is whiny and stirring up trouble. But the girl who said the hurtful thing? She's so nice, I'm sure she didn't mean it!

We make mean girls and then people complain that it's misogynist to acknowledge they exist. They do. We have to call this behavior out, whether it's happening in kindergarten or in the office.[/quote]

Of course girls use language and advanced social tactics because in general girls are better at that than boys. The misogyny is giving it its own name while there is no unique name for boys when they are a bully they are just a bully but a girl can be a bully too - boys can’t be mean girls. So assigning it it’s own name gives it more attention and status scorn then the same behavior in boys. Also we call them mean girls because there is some expectation that girls will be nice and these mean girls are somehow an outlier so on that we agree. [/quote]

(1) Boys can engage in “mean girl” behavior. In fact, I think you see this more than you used to because while girls have been restricted in their allowable behaviors, especially around aggression, for… ever, boys only recently started being more restricted in how they could express negative feelings. There’s increasing pressure on boys to be “nice” and “friendly” which translates, as it always has for girls into being indirect. Culturally, we are really struggling with the idea of direct and honest communication of unpleasant emotions and attitudes. So yes, boys can be “mean girls.”

(2) So then why say mean girl? The main reason is that it’s the easiest way to communicate on this set of behaviors. The technical term for it (and by “it” I mean the use of exclusion, teasing that appears good natured but isn’t, gossip, social isolation, and other indirect forms of aggression to lower the social status of peers while boosting your own) is “relational aggression.” But if you say “when does relational aggression start?” people don’t know what you’re talking about. If you say “when does mean girl behavior start?” people immediately know what you are talking about. Honestly, the movie Mean Girls (and the nonfiction book it was based on, which popularized the term “Queen bee”) is sort of a gift and a curse, because it boosted awareness of this behavior and how it manifests and why it’s damaging, but it also associated the behavior with girls in a way that I understands bothers people.

I do think there’s a difference between labeling someone a mean girl (labels are usually a bad idea with kids no matter what) and talking about “mean girl behaviors” as a set of recognizable behaviors.

But if you really hate the term, my suggestion is that you instead use relational aggression. But you seem to be arguing for no term at all, and I can’t endorse that. This is a real phenomenon, it’s a problem, and it is mot the natural result of girls’ “advanced language development.” It’s a form of aggression and it often escalates to bullying and can cause serious mental health problems, especially now with social media.[/quote]

DP - I’m fine with relational aggression.  Glad to use it.  The issue, as PP correctly pointed out, is that there’s no parallel term for boys, just like there’s no parallel term for b****.

Defaulting to “mean girls” because “everyone knows it” is lazy at the expense of girls.  It’s not misogynist to point out that we have unkind, gender-based slurs for girls and women (“mean girl,” “b****”) and nothing similar for men.  Heck, add “slut” to the list.  It’s not okay to use those terms because you’re too craven to describe it for what it actually is, regardless of gender.  If someone asks you what you mean by relational aggression, you tell them.  It’s not that hard.

Interestingly, research shows that girls with advanced language development are at increased risk for using relational aggression so yes, that plays a role.  It’s not the sole determinant, of course, but it’s there.  This issue isn’t all or nothing.  [/quote]

^ thank you![/quote]

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