Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I’m not part of any of these and I can’t say I have experienced girl drama. I’m a nurse too, lots of women in the field, still no issues. I think dramatic, attention seeking people attract drama.

If you can't spot the mean girl....it's you.

If you can’t spot the mean girl…it’s because you are an adult woman who refuses to reduce other women to childish stereotypes and instead deal with (or don’t deal with) people as the complex individuals that they are.

I am an adult women who attended a work meeting where one of my colleagues told everyone but me to wear a certain color. so I got there and they were all talking about how they were wearing blue and had been planning it for days and of course I wasn't wearing blue because the person who organized it doesn't like me and so didn't tell me. What would you call this if not mean girl behavior?

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.

Exactly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I’m not part of any of these and I can’t say I have experienced girl drama. I’m a nurse too, lots of women in the field, still no issues. I think dramatic, attention seeking people attract drama.

If you can't spot the mean girl....it's you.

+1

Or worse, you're the bystander who watches it happen to someone else and then blames the victim.

I know one woman on the receiving end of this treatment who expressed such shock - she'd never imagined there were mean girls like this, and had never in her life been bullied. She was wealthy, educated, professional, a former D1 athlete, and widely known as an incredibly nice person. It can happen to anyone.

+2

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mean girls are the fast girls and they’re mean for a reason.

Once you understand that, it all starts to make sense

“Fast” girls? Are you from the 50s?

[This is how mean girl conversations start...one judges about being fast, one judges about age...]

Well, I’m 40 and still waiting…

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I’m not part of any of these and I can’t say I have experienced girl drama. I’m a nurse too, lots of women in the field, still no issues. I think dramatic, attention seeking people attract drama.

If you can't spot the mean girl....it's you.

+1

Or worse, you're the bystander who watches it happen to someone else and then blames the victim.

I know one woman on the receiving end of this treatment who expressed such shock - she'd never imagined there were mean girls like this, and had never in her life been bullied. She was wealthy, educated, professional, a former D1 athlete, and widely known as an incredibly nice person. It can happen to anyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never- have you been in the workplace, kids sports, PTA... basically any adult group? The mean girls still show their claws. The adult version mean girls are Karens and they are everywhere.

This is what j thought when j read the post. Women in my area/school/community activities can be brutal as well.

Really? How? I can honestly say as a 40 yr old adult woman, I have not experienced any behavior from another woman I would describe as brutal. Sure, some are more friendly than others, but brutal, mean, catty? No.

And of course your experience is universal.

Ok, then explain how random women acquaintances that aren’t even your friend, but you loosely know of through activities are “brutal” to you?

Not the same PP you are responding to, but one who agrees that women - even random acquaintances - can be brutal to one another. I am almost 60 and have seen this twice in the past couple of decades. Once was the volunteer board of a small nonprofit in my community and once was a PTA. I was the target in one instance, but not the other. They were different groups of people, but the aggression was eerily similar. In both cases, the "brutality" included attempting to have someone arrested (falsely), trying to get someone fired from their job, falsely accusing people of crimes (with no evidence), publicly making terrible accusations about people (as in, standing up publicly in a board meeting and reading a list of serious but baseless accusations), physically threatening the person and even some pushing and shoving (one-sided, by the aggressor), and spreading the kind of vicious rumors that could cost people their livelihoods. It was shocking, even after I'd seen it already once before. I'm talking about adult females, moms and professional women, attacking other adult females. And in both cases, no one had done anything wrong, and the disagreements were over such petty issues that it doesn't even bear explaining. In my opinion, it looked in both cases like a group of women attacking other women for sport. It was like a cruel game to them, but for the targets, it was an experience so traumatic that some of them sold their houses and moved out of the community. So yes, adult women can be brutal. And if you're thinking you have to be someone unusual to be targeted, you'd be wrong. Some of the "victims" were incredibly successful, well-liked, and highly respected in the community. In both of these instances, few people outside the immediate circle knew what was going on. So yes, it can happen to you, too.

Have you read many threads on DCUM about mom friends / PTA moms / girls trips / etc.?

For some women, the answer is never. The drama never stops.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I’m not part of any of these and I can’t say I have experienced girl drama. I’m a nurse too, lots of women in the field, still no issues. I think dramatic, attention seeking people attract drama.

If you can't spot the mean girl....it's you.

It’s really not. I have some friends, some acquaintances, and some people I would rather avoid, but no conflicts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I’m not part of any of these and I can’t say I have experienced girl drama. I’m a nurse too, lots of women in the field, still no issues. I think dramatic, attention seeking people attract drama.

If you can't spot the mean girl....it's you.

If you can’t spot the mean girl…it’s because you are an adult woman who refuses to reduce other women to childish stereotypes and instead deal with (or don’t deal with) people as the complex individuals that they are.

Anonymous wrote:

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

I’m not part of any of these and I can’t say I have experienced girl drama. I’m a nurse too, lots of women in the field, still no issues. I think dramatic, attention seeking people attract drama.

If you can't spot the mean girl....it's you.

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

I’m not part of any of these and I can’t say I have experienced girl drama. I’m a nurse too, lots of women in the field, still no issues. I think dramatic, attention seeking people attract drama.

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