Meanest at our school, ranked:

Field hockey
Lacrosse
Volleyball
Tennis

Nicest girls:
Softball
Swim
Cross-country

Can’t be categorized:
Soccer
Basketball

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is great at it. I feel silly even typing this out, but my older daughter was saying that "everyone knows" that the girls who play volleyball are "mean girls." I mostly rolled my eyes but a friend in another area said it's the same in their area. Is that really true?

It kind of is, not to say that all the girls on a team are mean girls, but just that mean girls gravitate toward it, much like cheer. Look at the outfits for volleyball and cheer compared to other girls' sports (except swim) and you will see why it attracts a certain type. Other girls' sports do not have such sexualized outfits. Most of what makes a "mean girl" mean is a desire to fight over the attention of boys.

Exactly.

I don’t think this is true. Volleyball is really fun. It’s a great sport. But it’s also pretty accessible to people who are maybe not fast, or super strong, etc. There’s a volleyball position for most people at the high school level.

Also you don’t have to have short shorts as your uniform.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is great at it. I feel silly even typing this out, but my older daughter was saying that "everyone knows" that the girls who play volleyball are "mean girls." I mostly rolled my eyes but a friend in another area said it's the same in their area. Is that really true?

It kind of is, not to say that all the girls on a team are mean girls, but just that mean girls gravitate toward it, much like cheer. Look at the outfits for volleyball and cheer compared to other girls' sports (except swim) and you will see why it attracts a certain type. Other girls' sports do not have such sexualized outfits. Most of what makes a "mean girl" mean is a desire to fight over the attention of boys.

Exactly.

Not in my experience. DD is not a volleyball player but has friends on the team and they're all very nice girls

I think volleyball does have a lot of sh!t talking. Because you’re so close together facing the net. But to me that makes it even more fun.

Anonymous wrote:What a sexist thread.

Talking about the negative experiences girls sometimes have with certain activities is not sexist.

Talking about mean girl behavior (also known as relational aggression) is not sexist. It is simply the truth that girls engage in this behavior more than boys, and it is more likely to harm girls than boys. It needs to be discussed.

That said, it's silly to think one sport or another is more likely to have this kind of behavior. More likely, as other posters have noted, there are dynamics on certain teams at certain schools and the underlying sport is irrelevant. Likely the coaches and the perception of the team at this school plays a big role -- some coaches essentially encourage this kind of behavior, others won't tolerate it. A very successful program where spot on the team is hard to get is more likely to have relational aggression dynamics until the coaches and older team members actively make an effort to stop it.

Anonymous wrote:What a sexist thread.

*****

Those evil marching band kids. (It's like a sport.)

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is great at it. I feel silly even typing this out, but my older daughter was saying that "everyone knows" that the girls who play volleyball are "mean girls." I mostly rolled my eyes but a friend in another area said it's the same in their area. Is that really true?

It kind of is, not to say that all the girls on a team are mean girls, but just that mean girls gravitate toward it, much like cheer. Look at the outfits for volleyball and cheer compared to other girls' sports (except swim) and you will see why it attracts a certain type. Other girls' sports do not have such sexualized outfits. Most of what makes a "mean girl" mean is a desire to fight over the attention of boys.

It seems to be the “popular girls” sport at our hs which also generally is the mean girls, though some of them are nice. Dd played in middle school but it wasn’t her scene so she decided not to continue in hs.

Why do people think this is?? We always talk about how empowering sports are, especially for girls, and also about their value for teaching good qualities like teamwork and perseverance.

And yet I've seen this too -- usually what happens is that the more elite a team is, the more likely you are to see mean girl behavior. It's classic in-group/out-group dynamics. And I also think coaches can sometimes be very immature and encourage this behavior -- there are so many adults working with teens who just fall into dysfunctional teen dynamics of gossip and exclusion instead of being adults and guiding students away from those behaviors.

It's really disappointing.

At our school, it’s lacrosse.

Funny, we literally had this discussion at our dinner table tonight about this. - DC private hs

Anonymous wrote:Lol I think it’s school by school

At my school, the mean girls were the softball players.

Anecdotally, my SIL was a volleyball player who went to college on a volleyball scholarship. 100% mean girl!

+1

I know many athletes of many different sports, but VB always comes up, and I also believe it, from my SIL.

Anonymous wrote:What a sexist thread.

Calling bullies out isn’t sexist.