Relational Aggression: Female Bullying

"It would be nice to think that we live in a time of cultural transition, of flux, of a world that is learning to give its girls equality in the ways it finds hardest. ...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 answers for themselves." 

Rachel Simmons, Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

Photo by studioster.

I am angry.  I am sad and anxious and I have no idea what to do.  My daughter is being bullied.  Not physically, but in ways far more insidious, and in my estimation, far more damaging.

It started at the beginning of the school year, fourth grade.  She is nine.  During the first week of school, she started coming home upset, crying.  This was unusual behavior for her, as my daughter is notorious for her happiness.  Even as an infant, she was always smiling, always laughing.  It is killing me to see that smile being battered out of her.  I know it is also killing her.  My anger rises within me each time she cries, each time she tells me about her day, and what the other girls are doing to her.  I want to lash out, protect her.  As time passes, I cannot help myself- I hate these children.  I hate them for what they are doing to my daughter.

Like the parents of most bullied children, I started to try and figure out what was wrong with my daughter.

It started with her best friend ignoring her.  She wouldn't let her join in at recess or sit with her at lunch.  My daughter used to list recess as her favorite school subject, and now, she elects to stay inside "writing" to avoid being alone on the playground. Slowly, this behavior began to spread to others.  By the second week of school, her previous group of friends had pulled away from her, joining in on the exclusion, the taunting, the isolation.  "I have no friends!", she would cry to me.  She was devastated. She had no idea what she did, and like most people who don't fit in, she started to try and figure out what was wrong with her. What had she done?  Like most parents of bullied children, I started to try to figure out what was wrong with her too.

They call her names, "Stupid!  Get used to hearing that, because you will be called that a lot in life!" They laugh at her, give her the finger, tell her to "Fuck Off!".  They run from her when she approaches. They say "No!" when she asks if she can play.  Once they had her join a game they were playing, where they would swing someone between two people, one holding the feet, the other the hands.  When she was at the height of the swing, they dropped her, throwing her to the ground.  She told me when she came home that they didn't drop anyone else.  Another girl pushed her off of a large tractor tire in the playground, she landed on an old stump on her back leaving a bruise so large and close to her spine it scared me.  They tell her to leave certain areas on the playground because it is their territory.  They twist her fingers until they hurt to show her how strong they are.  They tell her they HATE her.  They make it a point to diminish anything she does or says to prevent her from ever believing she is good at something, potentially better at something.

Up until this point, my daughter's school experience had seemed idyllic.  A charter school with small classes and a funky, warm environment, it seemed like the perfect place for her to be the individual I was parenting her to be.  Teachers were thoughtful and caring and her "little friends" as I liked to call them, seemed sweet and kind.  She couldn't wait to go to school.  By the second week of school, she was begging me to change schools and to let her stay home.

I had elected to deal with this at home, within our family.  My daughter begged me not to get involved, convinced it would only get worse.  When I asked her if she would like me to talk to the girl's mothers, a terrified look would cross her face and she would make me swear I wouldn't.  Fearful that she might stop sharing with me, I kept that promise.

At first, I didn't think much of it, and thought my daughter might be being overly sensitive to a normal friend disagreement.  She can be sensitive, and I started coaching her to toughen up.  I have since learned that blaming the victim of bullying for over reacting or being too sensitive as some social flaw is a common response from parents and teachers.  Efforts are often extended to righting that behavior instead of the behavior of the perpetrator.  I soon learned that much of what I was doing as a parent to help my daughter was not helping at all.

These rejection periods were episodic and we chalked it up to "normal girl" behavior.  On occasion, the same girl who had been her enemy the week before, would beg to have a sleep over at our house.   Hoping to help her with her friendships, we would happily agree and go over the top to try and make their interaction, special and cool, so they would see how great it was to hang with our daughter.  We would watch these interactions carefully, intent on identifying any negative behavior.  Inevitably, these one-on-one play-dates would be amazing and my daughter would be happy and excited that she had a friend again.

Predictably though, the mean girl behavior would reemerge the moment they stepped back onto the schoolyard and the group was reunited.  Everything these girls had shared over the weekend or play-date was forgotten as they jumped back into their roles.  It became such a frequent occurrence that we established the rule that a girl had to be nice to her consecutively for one month in order to be invited to our house.  We called these friendships "yo-yo's", alluding to the up and down nature of their connection.

We encouraged her to go to her teacher.  When she would share what was happening, as their "Anti-Bullying" campaign within the school promoted, the girl who had taunted her would lie, and say these things did not happen, and over time, they have succeeded in painting her as a whistle blower, an over-reactor.  Even the teachers tell her this now.  They have a school counselor meant to work with the girls to help resolve these conflicts.  Often when my daughter speaks up, the group will speak up against her and she will feel the usual feelings of isolation, of being ganged up upon.  She tells me the girls lie in these meetings, denying their words and actions.  She feels helpless.

I have talked with the teachers.  We have had meetings.  We try and identify our daughter's role in this (I refuse to be a parent who thinks my child is perfect) which we are told, is the "victim", dramatic, sensitive.  She gains some benefit, they say, from this role.  I try and reconcile this with my despondent and anxious child.  This disconnect between a child who leaves a situation stung and crying and isolated as being identified as the problem.  Does the dog getting kicked in the corner somehow deserve the blame for being kicked?  When he flinches when you walk by, having lost trust and gained fear, do you accuse him of over reacting?

I know the ringleaders.  I know their mothers.  I force a smile when I see them.  I try and pretend everything is okay.  Secretly, I wonder, What about them has made their daughter's who they are?  I believe that children are reflections of their parents, and so I don't trust these women, I keep them at arms length.  But like any good socialized female, I avoid direct confrontation and conflict, and instead I let it build up inside of me and fester...and I continue to hate their children.  I feel inside, a personal sting wondering if perhaps their daughter's rejection of mine is somehow a reflection of their rejection of me.  Most women have been wounded enough by the aggression of other women throughout their lives that they are left with a cautious distrust.  We become guarded and untrusting, letting only those that have proven they are "safe" into our lives.

The only way to win as the victim is to become mean.

How much of my reaction comes from my own history?  My own "damage"?  The girls that taunted me when I had something they wanted? A boy they liked, had a crush on me.  My clothes were wrong.  I was wrong.  I toughened up.  I became a bully...because the only way to win as the victim is to become mean.  I had changed schools in eighth grade.  My father had gained custody of us...my mother was in rehab.  I remember my fear when I entered this foreign territory.  I knew instinctively that I should lay low, I also learned immediately where everyone stood on the playground hierarchy...who the cool kids were, who the jocks were, who the geeks were.    I fit in quickly, mostly due to my creative torture of another girl, a girl who was the continuous target of the "cool group", the group that had stepped forward to claim me.

I hate myself for doing this.  I knew it was wrong, but my fear of my own rejection was intense.  I remember as the torment progressed, we were a distance away from the group, and she turned to me, and screamed, "Why are you doing this to me??"  I didn't know.  I couldn't explain it.  I started talking to her then, safely out of earshot of "the group".  I started to coach her.  What could she do to stop being the target.  These meetings continued and as I got to know her I saw that she was kind, that much of who she was, was who I had been and I was being as cruel to her as others had been to me.  I was ashamed.  I have always wondered how we hurt her.  Did we break her down so much that we stopped her from achieving in her life?  I have never bullied again.

And here I am with a daughter who is not invited to the ringleader's birthday party.  I am not surprised nor would I expect her to have invited her.  When a super drama unfolded that finally ended with my daughter being invited, this mother had the gall to lecture me about my sensitive child's problems and how I ought to parent her to recognize that her daughter, these girls are just speaking their mind, asserting themselves.   Does she teach them to filter that? Or is" I hate you!" and "Get lost!" okay with her? I am stunned by this mother's lack of awareness and her lack of willingness to admit her child might have a role in this conflict.  

I now realize she is blinded, clueless as to the nature of her own daughter.  She takes the high ground as she relents and invites my daughter because "It just didn't feel right to her."  She is quick to tell me the reason for the exclusion, that my daughter will fight with her daughter and ruin her party.   She fails to tell me about the email she sends to the other mothers asking them to be discreet about the party, she does not want my daughter to know.  The apple does not fall far from the tree.  Everything inside of me does not want my daughter to go to this party.  I give her credit for her strength to walk into that room, knowing that some of these children hate her in alternating cycles.  Will they like her today?

I seek out support from friends.  Am I crazy?  Am I missing something?  What is wrong with my daughter?  I was not alone in my experience.  Many mothers before me had watched helplessly as their daughters were excluded, rejected.  One such mother shared the book "Odd Girl Out", by Rachel Simmons with me.  I have had it on my bed side table for months, and having peaked with frustration and anxiety about this situation, I finally opened it.  I read the first few pages and I was stunned.  This woman was writing my daughter's and our family's life this past year.  To the last detail, our daughter is experiencing the unfortunate behavior of girls that millions of young girls are subjected to in every school, in every town, in every city.  It's called relational aggression.

The author described the ringleader role.  How she uses the group to diffuse her own behavior, for when her actions are shared, she really isn't doing anything wrong anymore is she?  The types of "relational aggression" they inflict upon their chosen victim.  She described the "ganging up" phenomenon and I learned that the other children join the ringleader to avoid their own exclusion, to connect.  She described my helplessness as a parent and the mistakes of blaming the victim and trying to toughen her up.  I learned that I was looking at my daughter as broken, missing something, deficient.  I learned why the ringleaders can get away with it, having mastered the ability to hide their aggression under the facade of the perfect little girl...she has perfect friendships, avoids conflicts, she is sweet and demure.  When asked if she has wronged my child, she bats her eyes and raises the tenor  of her voice a couple of octives, as she denies it, sounding perfectly sweet.

I've learned that my daughter's biggest mistake is speaking up for herself and standing up to the bully. She creates a conflict that is not allowed in the current group hierarchy.  Telling them after they hurt her, "That was mean! You need to apologize!", only infuriates them more.  Me teaching my daughter to use her words and to stand up for herself seemed right...isn't that what we want our little girls to do?  She is so principled and directed towards fairness she is unable to let these issues go and these disagreements escalate.  I realize now that since she will not willingly follow the "mean" agenda passively, she threatens to make these girls admit that they are, in fact, being mean.  She could expose them, and they need to silence her, discredit her.

The strength in their group creates a false collective agreement that they are justified in their actions while my daughter is not.   I have a new degree of pity for the girls I have hated.  I now know they are terrified to be my daughter, more terrified than she is, to be the one nobody is allowed to like.  In their fear they become bullies themselves.  I realize that their parents either don't know or live in denial that their perfectly socialized little girls could ever be mean.  In her book, the author shared that of all of her interviews at different schools in different cities,  not one mother of a perpetrator was willing to speak about it.  How can we fix something we don't admit is even a problem?

I see these patterns in adult women.  In our communities.  The rejection of someone with different political viewpoints for example, in our need to be justified in our actions and beliefs.  To welcome others of different opinion would risk us having to admit we are wrong.  I realize that my daughter's knowledge of their secret "Sex Club" and her unwillingness to participate, scares these girls...that she might expose them.  Nobody will believe her if they all lie together.

I am strongly considering changing schools and offering my daughter a fresh start at a new role, because I fear she cannot shake the one assigned to her.  In this small school, these are her peer choices and I am not sure the dynamic will ever change.  At a recent school function, I felt unwelcome, an outsider, as if collectively the other parents and teachers wished we would leave so they wouldn 't have to deal with the hard truth of this problem.  I watched the other girls together laughing, connected, while our daughter sat on my lap, apart from them.  I watched as one girl, perhaps the most manipulated girl of all, once a bright, dreamy child, she has darkened and quieted under the control of the ringleader, lean towards another in the group and mock my daughter for sitting on my lap.  She was pointing and her face was twisted in an evil scowl.  I locked my eyes upon her face, and with everything I had tried to convey to her in my look, "I know what you are doing.  I know what you are saying and I hate you for it."  Her eyes caught mine and she quickly looked away, momentarily quieted.  Who have I become that I stare down children?

I have taught her to have the qualities we all want our children to possess, and as a result, I have unknowingly raised her to be the victim.

I have learned that victims are not the ones we expect.  They are confident, they are pretty, they are athletic.  They have nice clothes, they might be from an affluent family.  They like school and are smart. They value fairness and are sensitive.  They are strong and independent.  They have opinions and they voice them.  They express pride in their accomplishments.  All of these qualities we profess to value in our little girls, but from a cultural perspective we shun them.   To fit in, my daughter should be passive.  She should be quiet about her accomplishments, because even her friends don't want her to succeed.  Her success is a threat to them.  She should avoid conflict, and back down in the face of these attacks.  She should follow the ring leader and not confront the accepted agenda.   She should hate school and lie to her teachers.  But I refuse to teach her that.  I have taught her to have the qualities we all want our children to possess and as result, I have unknowingly raised her to be the victim.

She mirrors me.  I am not overly feminine.  I don't wear make up (very often).  In fact I am uncomfortable with trying to "dress up" for fear it will be perceived as conceit.  I prefer to walk under the radar.  I am not captured by fashion or accessories.  I have a career.  I have success.  I don't follow or form friendships strategically.  I am not the ideal feminine, and so neither is my daughter.   We punish women for the very qualities we logically know to be ideal.  Hillary Clinton is a cold bitch.  She is educated, strong and therefore manly.  We silently abhor these qualities in women, they are counter, different, unacceptable.  If she were craftier, she could hide her strength and convictions behind a veil of the ideal feminine, perhaps like Sarah Palin, and exert her aggressive agenda more acceptably.   I have always seen the "mean girl" from school in Mrs. Palin.  She hides her cold words under the facade of femininity.

I know my daughter is not perfect, as I know I am not.  I have spent more time in this situation trying to fix her than any other part of this problem.  As the bullies win and she becomes more and more insecure (she is unable to celebrate her successes, always certain they pale against "the group's") she moves further from the qualities I want her to have.   I am so proud of her for standing up and being an unapologetic individual.  She reaches out to other girls as friends (something we strongly urge and promote) and if she ends up alone, she shrugs it off (or so she tells me).  Victims of relational aggression are also ashamed to share their social failure with their parents, for fear of letting them down in some way, that not fitting in is their fault and a reflection of what a bad kid they really are.

Sometimes girls stand up for her, and join her.  They are stuck though...risking their own isolation, for these "middle girls" as they are called, experience their own repercussions for standing by her.  Until we recognize these patterns as harmful and not just some normal girl phase, victims at each end of the bullying spectrum will grow up as their mothers have, shaped by these relationships.

I am going to set up alternative school visits for my daughter.  People say, you will just teach her to run from her problems.   This theory continues to blame the weak, socially flawed role assigned to victims and the act of changing schools is seen as another way in which we weaken them.  The problem is, there is no escape for her from these girls.   She feels trapped, helpless and who am I if not the person responsible for helping her?  As one women put it, "She is in the fire and you need to get her out of the fire!"  I am empowering her with choice.  My hope is that she can thrive in a new environment.  I am not the only parent who has identified the ringleader and her behavior.  Other parents know it and their daughters suffer peripheral effects, but I think they must breathe a sigh of relief that their daughters are not sharing my daughter's torment.   What they might not realize is that if we leave the school, another girl will be sought to replace my daughter as the victim, and just as quickly as we have this year, they may find themselves the mother of a bullied child.

http://www.opheliaproject.org/main/relational_aggression.htm

Click on the above link for great resources for dealing with relational aggression.