Cliques, Rumors and Shut Outs: How Girls Use Relational Aggression to Hurt Each Other

When you think of a bully, do you think of a big brute of a boy, pushing kids around and taking their lunch money? Bullying has many forms, and with girls it often takes the form of relational aggression. In a world where social norms expect girls to be sweet and kind, angry feelings are often expressed in much more subtle, yet equally painful forms.

What is Relational Aggression?Invisibility undermines the potential impact of both the potential of a negative consequence administered by an authority and social disapproval. Invisibility also makes it easier to rationalize an irresponsible or harmful action due to the lack of potential for detection and punishment". At a lecture that I attended by Rachel Simmons, she advised young girls to consider what they are typing, and to picture the person in front of them before sending an email or IM. If the text is not something that they would feel comfortable saying to the receiver in person, they should not hit send.

How Can Parents and Teachers Help?

As parents, it can be devastating to watch a child become a victim of a bully. Relationalaggression.com offers several tips to help parents help their daughters. These include involving your child in social circles not related to school, such as YMCA, Girl Scouts, and Sports Groups. These help children realize an identity and a worth outside of the environment where bullying occurs. Other suggestions include monitoring the situation closely, and stepping in when needed.

One clear point that Rachel Simmons addresses in her Harcourt interview, is the fact that girls want their feelings to be validated, "After I interviewed each girl, I asked her what she wished her mom or dad would have done to make her life easier. Overwhelmingly, the girls said they wished their parents had not trivialized their pain. Don't tell me that it will pass; that it's a phase; that she's "just jealous;" that I'm taking things too seriously; that they're just joking. Honor my pain for what it is - devastating."

Teachers have a daunting task of recognizing and interrupting a type of aggression that can be well hidden, and in classrooms where the more over behaviors are taking center stage, this can require extreme vigilance. Being aware of the problem is the first step. One organization that has stepped in to help improve climates in schools is the Ophelia Project, which offers relational aggression curriculum materials, and helps develop mentoring programs in schools.

If you are a female, you have likely either been on the giving or receiving end of relational aggression.

Relationalaggression.com describes relational aggression as "Spreading rumors, gossip, lies, -- telling secrets; eye-rolling, exclusion, and 'the silent treatment' all aim to promote cruelty through the social networks". Girls are expected to behave, and show kindness towards others, to be compassionate, and compromising. What is a girl to do when they get angry? What they do is pass dirty looks, shut each other out of groups, and generally torture each other slowly. While with boys, the conflict ends abruptly and quickly, with girls one conflict can go on for months. Alliance building, taunting, and subtle exclusion can lead to emotional pains that last a lifetime.

In the book Odd Girl Out, by Rachel Simmons, relational aggression by girls is examined in depth. She describes some instances of relational aggression so devastating that it led to suicide. Although this is a worst-case scenario, bullying of this type goes on every day among girls that appear on the outside as kind nurturing young people.

Who Is the Target?

You might think that this type of bullying is inflicted on the less popular by the queen bees. Not necessarily so, as rather than a way to assert a pecking order, girls are using the only socially acceptable tool they have to deal with their feelings of anger, withdrawal of friendship and approval. Relationships for a teen or pre-teen girl are the core of their world, and using them as a weapon can be devastating. The following quote is from an interview with Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out, The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, about her book on Harcourt books' web site. "

" When I first set out to write this book, I assumed girls punished each other according to an unfortunate teen logic. What I expected was that the uncool, the overweight, the differently-abled would be punished. What I found was a far different landscape of female anger. ..In my interviews, girls told me that expressing anger would result in the loss of their relationships with others. The prospect of solitude terrified them, and it was, moreover, a major violation of their caretaking roles. "Nice" girls, they told me, have lots of friends. They don't get in fights. As a result, much of girls' aggressive behavior goes underground. The fear of confrontation makes anger a circular issue that increases the scope of the conflict and causes girls to use relationships with each other as weapons against each other. Although the weak will more often be preyed upon, relational aggression targeting has less to do with an external characteristic than with a conflict that has not been addressed directly and openly". In addition, the role of the "bully" and the "victim" can change multiple times over the course of girls' relationships over time. In Odd Girl Out, Rachel herself admits to being at one point the victim, and another the perpetrator.

The Internet and Relational Aggression

More and more, girls are using a new tool to let out their aggressions: the Internet. Cyber bullying is becoming an increasing problem, with attacks through instant messaging, embarrassing websites or myspace posts, or email bullying becoming rampant among teenage girls. In the article, I Can't See You-You Can't See Me, Nancy Willard discusses how in face to face interactions, the speaker can witness the emotional reaction that his words have caused, and might have empathy for the receiver. Alternatively, in the cyber world, there is no opportunity to witness the effect harmful words are having on the receiver. In addition, the internet provides the comfort of feeling anonymous, as Nancy Willard states, "

Parents and teachers also play an important role in teaching girls about appropriate assertiveness, a skill that many have not learned into adulthood. By providing girls with the tools necessary to express their anger appropriately, and by creating a climate in which relational aggression is not allowed to fester, girls can start to change the patterns to positive ones.

Thankfully, the issue of relational aggression is being brought to the forefront. By starting to recognize signs of relational aggression at home and at school, we can begin to improve girls' communications with each other. Doing so will prevent emotional pains that could last a lifetime.

Sources:
http://www.relationalaggression.com/
http://www.harcourtbooks.com/authorinterviews/bookinterview_Simmons.asp
http://hhd.org/pdf/femalebully.pdf

Linda Goldman: Nowhere Feels Safe, The Bullying Epidemic http://www.kidspeace.org/healingMagazine/NEWHealing/healing_fw05_6.htm
http://www.cyberbully.org/
Nancy Willard, M.S. J.D. I Can't See You-You Can't See Me, How the Use of Information Technologies Can Impact Responsible Behavior
www.opheliaproject.org