tidbits from "odd girl out"

I just finished reading the book, Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons. The subtitle of the book is "The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls." 

I expected the book to be full of "extreme" stories -- the most severe forms of bullying, tragic suicides ... horrifying tales that are removed from my realm of experience. While these things are important, this book tackles the seeds of female aggression and some of the dysfunctional ways (most) girls learn to relate to each other. Every woman can connect with this book in some way. As I was reading, I was overcome with memories from my junior high years in particular. Some of those memories are painful; while it's uncomfortable to think about times that I was hurt by "friends" or haunted by insecurities, I cringe to remember those times when I was part of the vicious cycle. 

Gossip, jealousy, silent treatments, rolling eyes ... all of these are constant features of girls' social worlds, and yet they slip under the radar of parents and teachers. This book gave some theories as to why girls and women resort to these "alternate aggressions" and also gave some advice to parents (although fathers were hardly mentioned), teachers and girls themselves. I think every teacher should read this book, especially junior high teachers. 

Some quotes:

"Silence is deeply woven into the fabric of the female experience. It is only in the last thirty years that we have begun to speak the distinctive truth of women's lives, openly addressing rape, incest, domestic violence, and women's health . . . Now it is the time to end another silence: There is a hidden culture of girls' aggression in which bullying is epidemic, distinctive and destructive." (3) 

"Our culture has girls playing a perverse game of Twister, pushing and tangling themselves into increasingly strained, unnatural positions. We are telling girls to be bold and timid, voracious and slight, sexual and demure. We are telling to hurry up and wait. But in the game of Twister, players eventually wind up in impossible positions and collapse. . . In a culture that cannot decide who it wants them to be, girls are being asked to become the sum of our confusion. Girls make sense of our mixed messages by deciding to behave indirectly, deducing that manipulation -- the sum of power and passivity -- is the best route to power." (115-116) 

"...if girls can never be sure who they are supposed to be, they will play out their (and our) anxieties on each other, policing themselves into the ground, punishing and bullying and fighting to know the answer for themselves." (128) 

"I have come to believe that the alternative aggressions in which girls engage are halfhearted, unsatisfying forms of communication, that they do not satiate the universal human need to express anger, and that they should not be the only avenue of expression available to girls. Girls need to make peace with conflict, and they need our help. This means providing girls not only with a healthier relationship to aggression, but with permission to experience the uncomfortable feelings that often precede anger and conflict. We need to stop rewarding manipulation. We must encourage girls to embrace respectful acts of assertion ..." (231)