The cult of the mean girl

TORONTO STAR ^ | Mar. 5, 2006 | LESLIE SCRIVENER

[tbird5]

It happens to the best of women. Here's Rosalind Wiseman, who has spent her entire working life teaching girls to treat each other decently. The script for the movie Mean Girls was based on her 2002 best-selling Queen Bees & Wannabes, a book that helps parents understand the drama and danger in the adolescent girl world. She knows the minefields that lie in gossip, jealousy, disloyalty and cruel judgments, and offers solid prescriptions for changing bad behaviour.

Yet despite her experience, she recently found herself sizing up two mothers who came to see her.

In her view, the women paid too much attention to their appearance, especially their hair. They seemed catty in their conversation, were micromanaging their kids' lives, and were silly.

"All these things came into my head. Why? They are antithetical to what I teach and believe," Wiseman says. "I was still judging these women."

Where does this nastiness come from?

Wiseman thinks it exists because it's supposed to exist. Being nasty to each other is one of the unspoken rules about how girls and women are supposed to behave; one of the rigidly enforced North American standards of what constitutes femininity.

"It's everything you know but haven't been sat down and taught," as Wiseman puts it.

When she judged the two women so harshly, it was as if she was acting out one of the observations she made in her book — that girls and women can be their own worst enemies.

[Dad yer funny]

bookmk ping

[RockinRight]

That's a pretty good description.

[RockinRight]

Well, maybe not...sometimes I'm just a little naughty...

;-)

[SuziQ]

"Women who have never had true female friends, who avoid activities because they involved women, who disparage women as a group, or who deliberately work in male-dominated environments because they don't like women, are everyday examples of a basic failure to connect with peers," writes Dellasega.

Nah, maybe they just don't like whiny, bitchy women. Life's too short to be spent around people you can't stand.

[JillValentine]

Just remember that those statements, while they describe perfectly 99% of liberal women, don't apply to conservative women. At all.

I've had enough incidents working with catty, manipulative liberal women to know what it's like. Conservative women, we're 100% different from that.

It's not "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus," it's "Conservatives are from Earth, liberals are from Uranus."

[RockinRight]

"Conservatives are from Earth, liberals are from Uranus."

You just found a new tagline, I think...

[RockinRight]

Did someone say Uranus?

[Woman on Caroline Street]

cat fight bump

[Mogengator]

In her view, the women paid too much attention to their appearance, especially their hair. They seemed catty in their conversation, were micromanaging their kids' lives, and were silly.

If it's true, is it still mean?

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

Nice try pissant. This is more my speed....

[RockinRight]

LOL...

[conservativebabe]

Excellent shirt!

[chris1]

I love the UFC too. To me, almost everything else seems boring. I can't wait for Royce Gracie vs. Hughes.

[Calpernia]

THAT's a relief!

[wagglebee]

But I've been known to be wrong! :-)

[JillValentine]

"Women who have never had true female friends, who avoid activities because they involved women, who disparage women as a group, or who deliberately work in male-dominated environments because they don't like women, are everyday examples of a basic failure to connect with peers," writes Dellasega.

"Women who disparage men as a group, or who want to ban guns because they're afraid of them, or who think a true friend is one who's nice to your face but says mean, catty things behind your back, or who think imitating Jennifer Aniston's hair style will make them happy and popular, are everyday examples of a basic failure to possess a functioning brain."

There, much better. :-)

[Hoodlum91]

Eeewwww!

[RockinRight]

Still have to say I like this one best:

[RockinRight]

Well, eeewwww! is the most appropriate response to a Barney Frank pic!

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

I am a big UFC fan!! Can't get enough.