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The cult of the mean girl
TORONTO STAR ^ | Mar. 5, 2006 | LESLIE SCRIVENER

Posted on 03/06/2006 9:51:00 PM PST by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: psychology
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To: peacebaby
Cigars and Martinis! Breakfast of Champions!!!
361 posted on 03/08/2006 6:52:06 AM PST by Bender2 (Redid my FR Homepage just for ya'll... Now, Vote Republican and vote often)
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To: Bender2

LOL...you go for it, kiddo.

I'll sit back and watch.


362 posted on 03/08/2006 6:54:44 AM PST by peacebaby
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To: peacebaby
Re: ...you go for it, kiddo. I'll sit back and watch.

Gad! You folks over in Picksley who work for a living take all the fun out of life...

They sure do!

Yeah... They never want to see my bippy!

363 posted on 03/08/2006 7:03:03 AM PST by Bender2 (Redid my FR Homepage just for ya'll... Now, Vote Republican and vote often)
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To: Bender2

I guess it was lost in translation. Luckily, I have short term memory loss.....all is forgotton.


364 posted on 03/08/2006 8:43:17 AM PST by Feiny ( "Why don't we go up to the old people's home and wax the steps? " ~ Barney Fife)
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To: baker_girl

PING!!!!


;-)


365 posted on 03/08/2006 11:25:56 AM PST by Dashing Dasher ( I prayed, ---- 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' ----- And God granted it.)
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