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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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.[/quote]

+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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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