By Selina Lucy.
A roll of the eyes, a turned shoulder, hard glares and behind-the-hands, furtive whispers indicate the tip of an iceberg that is the secret world of female aggression.
Bullying among boys tends to be direct, consisting of physical or verbal attacks that are carried out face-to-face. In contrast, bullying among girls is likely to be indirect, using social exclusion, subtle and planned humiliation, or reputation damage through gossip and rumour spreading. Attacks tend to happen behind each other’s backs.
Technology also plays an increasing role in verbal aggression, by means of the internet, social media, email and mobile phone.
An interesting theory as to why female aggression is so much more subtle than the in-your-face bullying by boys is identified by O’Neil in Bullying by tween and teen girls: A literature, policy and resource review (2008). She writes that through socialization, girls are “…taught to be nurturing and to focus their energies on creating and sustaining relationships.” Females are socialized to be “…passive, co-operative, compliant with authority, and lady-like.” Obvious aggressive behaviour is out of step with this image, so female bullies do their best to stay hidden.
For these reasons, and because it can often be misinterpreted as simple squabbles among friends, even serious incidents of female bullying often go unnoticed by teachers and adults. It may take some time to identify what is going on, who is involved and, because there are no physical bruises, the real pain caused by such bullying can be difficult to verify. This article suggests some ways to respond.
The distress of a girl who has suddenly found herself excluded from a group she thought were her best friends is not uncommon in schools. To appreciate the cause of this distress and why it causes so much angst for young women, in particular, it is important to understand the way girls relate to one another in cliques and friendship groups.
Cliques And Friendship Groups
Friendship groups are, of course, essential to both boys and girls. However, Valerie Besag in Understanding Girls Friendships’: Fights and feuds: a practical approach to girls’ bullying (2006), finds the forming of cliques to be more characteristic of female socialisation. Cliques are more exclusive than groups, with specific criteria for membership. They require more rigid boundary maintenance, a hierarchical structure and often have a dominant leader. Being in a clique influences what a girl wears and how she behaves.
In her book, Queen Bees and Wannabees, Rosalind Wiseman (2002) has identified different roles that often play out in the hierarchy of a clique. She calls the most prominent, leading member, the “Queen Bee” and describes her as “…the girl whose popularity is based on fear and control… this girl reigns supreme over the other girls and weakens their friendships with others, thereby strengthening her own power and influence”. Next to her is the sidekick, the girl who is closest to the Queen Bee, and who gains all her power through this association. Many other roles identified by Wiseman are distinguished by their popularity with the other girls and their relationship to the Queen Bee.
Boys typically remain loyal to their friends and bully people who are outside of their immediate friendship group. In contrast, female bullying often occurs within a tight-knit group of friends through the spreading of rumours, gossip and social exclusion. O’Neil identified that social and emotional hostility, in which a group or clique is manipulated to cause harm to their victim’s status and/or relationships, and termed it “…indirect, social or relational aggression”.
Hierarchies And The Power Of Popularity
Research conducted by Rachel Simmons in Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture Of Aggression in girls (2002), examines the importance of popularity in a young woman’s life. Simmons interviewed one girl who noted that, “If girls have a chance to be popular, they will take it and they wouldn’t really care who they were hurting”.
The importance of social hierarchies in students’ lives is the root of the social element of bullying behaviour and relational aggression among women. O’Neil finds revenge and jealousy, as well as the assertion of social status and power, to be common, underlying motivations in girls who are being relationally aggressive.
Effects Of Female Bullying
The impact of female bullying can be devastating to its victims. O’Neil states that girls, who have fallen prey to it, can experience shattered self-esteem. It injures the most essential personal goal and desire for young women who need to establish positive relationships in which trust and communication is vital. It can crush their self-image and sense of identity, leaving them feeling lonely, anxious and depressed. These young women often experience powerlessness, confusion and internalised feelings of shame and guilt. They may feel responsible for what is happening to them, causing mental self-doubt and impacting further on their psychological distress.
Victims can feel less satisfaction with school, sometimes even refusing to attend and, in some rare but heartbreaking cases, ultimately commit suicide. Frequently, they are unwilling to share their distress with adults for fear of invoking further wrath from their bully or bullies. Even if they do report the behaviour, it often does not result in stopping the bullying but causes it to take other, even more subtle and insidious forms.
The 2012 Draft Shape of the Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education points to HPE teachers playing an important role in encouraging students to “…develop and use personal and social skills and strategies to promote a sense of personal identity, wellbeing and to build and maintain positive relationships”. Social and emotional learning is identified as an integral component of promoting the health and wellbeing of children at all year levels. In light of the devastating impact female bullying can have, it is important that teachers take steps to address the issue.
Fight The power
Below are some ideas about ways to fight female conflict and encourage the girls to develop positive relationships:
1. Discuss Popularity
It is important to recognise the direct relationship between female bullying and their race for popularity. Often, the girls themselves do not realise that their behaviour, while trying to attain popularity, can constitute bullying. One way to counter conflict between them is to engage students in discussion about these issues – what
it means, and what it takes, to be popular. What is gained from popularity, and what is lost.
2. Explore Bullying Tactics In A Supportive Environment
Explore and examine the bullying tactics girls sometimes use in order to gain popularity and move up the social hierarchy. One way to do this is through the use of narrative therapy whereby props (such as ragdolls or other toys) are used to create the different scenarios. Rather than personalise the issues, removing any personal elements from the examples of bullying can provide girls with the confidence to contribute to the discussion. These discussion-based activities let girls voice their opinions in a supportive environment, and engage the group about bullying issues they may not previously have thought consciously about.
3. Teach Skills That Promote Positive Relationships
Teach empathy, assertiveness, effective communication, listening and other skills that are critical to forming positive relationships. Empathy teaches students to put themselves in the other person’s shoes and to recognise what they may be feeling. Assertiveness empowers young people to stand up for themselves in a non-aggressive way.
4. Discuss The Nature Of Relational Aggression
Increase awareness among teachers, as well as students, about relational aggression. Discussions with students should make it clear that starting rumours, ridiculing others, deliberate exclusion, and so on, are not acceptable and can constitute bullying.
5. Promote Positive Friendships
Empower girls to build constructive relationships. Encourage students to choose friends with positive personality characteristics, rather than those who are mean or exclusive. Explore what attributes an ideal friend may possess, such as confidence, a sense of humour, kindness, generosity and friendliness.
6. Implement A Strong Strategy To Counter Cyber Bullying
Ensure an effective strategy to counter cyber bullying is implemented at your school. Technology provides a veil of anonymity to perpetrators and the uploading of embarrassing material about victims to social media sites can be overwhelmingly humiliating. It is shared with an unlimited audience. Teach students what constitutes cyber bullying, the personal and/or legal consequences it may have, and the specific steps they should take if cyber-bullied – such as saving evidence. It is also vital that students understand the concept of digital footprints and that anything posted or shared online, even if deleted, can be traced back to its original source.
These are just some ideas to discuss with other teachers at your school or to implement directly with your students to reduce female relational aggression. Above all, it is imperative to believe the victim if they report they are being bullied in this manner, and keep in mind that relationally-aggressive girls may otherwise be model students who are expert at hiding their bullying.
Selina Lucy and Jeanette Pritchard are key members of Stride Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation with 25 years’ experience in delivering anti-bullying and student wellbeing workshops to schools Australia-wide. For information about Stride’s services and teaching resources, (including MPower
Girls, which directly addresses the issue of female conflict), call 03 9602 3311 or visit: www.stride.org.au/school-workshops.
Reference List
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2012). Draft shape of the Australian curriculum: Health and physical education. Sydney, NSW: ACARA. Retrieved 16 August, 2012, from http://www.acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/DRAFT_Shape_of_the_Australian_Curriculum-HPE-FINAL.pdf
For a full list of references, please contact the editorial team on editorial@australianmediagroup.com
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