Relationships mean a lot to girls, but there are some who can be mean to their peers or bully them. This means untold harassment for the victim, who becomes silently aggressive. How does the girl overcome such hurdles? What role should parents and teachers play in such a scenario?

Ten-year-old Becky and Jane have been 'best friends' since first grade. Their mothers had been college friends and when their families moved to Dubai, it was natural that the girls would continue to play, study, and swim together. Life in school, however, has been anything but simple. Jane comes home crying: "Becky takes all my friends away" or "She ignores me and tells the other girls not to play with me". Becky rolls her eyes and tells her teacher, "It's not my fault, we all want to play soccer but Jane doesn't know how to, she's such a baby, nobody wants to be her friend".

This scenario is replayed on a daily basis, all over the world. But Jane's pain is real, as are Becky's taunts. How serious is the situation? Should their parents and teachers react or call this "a phase all girls go through"? Take another example. Fifteen year old Monica has been trying to befriend a group of popular girls. Every time she asks them, "Can I join you?" they move away from her, or start talking in code language. What makes Monica's agony worse is that her 'best friend' goes along with the group. Monica is left feeling hurt, dejected, and helpless. What should she do?

'Girl bullying' is a subject we talk very little about. The literature is full about aggression in boys but much less is known about aggression in girls. In her remarkable book, Odd Girl Out (Harcourt Brace, 2002), American researcher Rachel Simmons points out that American middle-class culture forces girls into 'nonphysical aggression' - backbiting, exclusion, rumours, name-calling, giving a friend the 'silent treatment'. Experts suggest that girls use 'relational aggression' that is, they use their personal relationships as weapons. This starts as early as preschool. Moreover, unlike boys who physically attack 'outsiders', girls attack within their own network of friends, making it harder to identify. The aggression leaves the victim feeling helpless and often scarred for life. Simmons interviewed girls between ages ten and 14 all over the United States, asking each one the question, "Do you think there is a difference between the way boys are mean to each other and the way girls are mean to each other?" She gathered tales of victimization which confirm that girl bullying is not just a phase but a pattern of behaviour that we (parents, teachers and society in general) have helped to reinforce. Girls have to be taught to manage their relationships and friendships if we are to prevent them from emotional damage. And there is no doubt that being ignored in school, or being told "If you play with Jane you cannot be my friend anymore" leaves life-long emotional scars.

Aggression in girls is hiddenSimmons points out that American culture, and most Western cultures, have a double standard - it's okay for boys to be physically aggressive but girls are expected to be good. Girls know that it's important to preserve the sugar-and-spice image and so they choose instead to retreat to an underground world of 'covert aggression'. This is why it is so difficult for teachers to identify what exactly is going on in the classroom. They see a group of girls talking in the playground and nothing looks amiss. As one teacher said, "I ask them what's going on and they look at me with those wide innocent eyes and say, "What are you talking about?"

The answer is, we adults have to train ourselves to look for 'relational aggression'. Unlike boys who fight it out, girls use nonverbal gestures and their body language is an important sign of relational aggression. Mean looks, silent treatment, sarcastic smiles, rolling eyes, can emotionally destroy the life of another child. It's easy to knock a book off a girl's table; slam against her in the corridor (the teacher thinks you are clumsy); start a rumour; send e-mails calling her names; get all the kids in class to join the "We-hate-Jenny-Club"; not save a seat on purpose and say, "Oh, I'm so sorry!". None of these behaviours look like bullying behaviours; in fact, the word bully doesn't even describe how girls hurt each other. Simmons says, "There is no real language for it. We are still trying to find its course".

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Researchers suggest that one reason why girls choose to be silently aggressive (compared to boys who use their fists) is because relationships matter a lot to girls, much more than they do to boys. And this is perhaps why they unleash their worst attacks on their closest friends who may have confessed secrets and weaknesses to them. As a tenth-grader pointed out "Your friends know you and how to hurt you. They know what your real weaknesses are." Sometimes, friends betray each other to get accepted into the popular group. It gets them a higher 'social status'.

Author Rachel Simmons points out that if the silent meanness of girls fails to attract adult attention, the feelings of helplessness slowly turns into self-blame. The child feels, "It's all my fault". Young girls may come to understand meanness as a component of friendship, and grow up not being able to tell the difference between real friendship and a nurturing one. When 13-year-old Laura asked her best friend why she was shutting her out, she was told, "It's all your fault." Laura ended the conflict by saying sorry, even though she didn't do anything, "I'll do anything to make peace, otherwise she'll get all the girls in class on her side," she said. Laura's mother was appalled to find her daughter in the role of victim.

When girls are mean to each other, teachers, parents, and school counsellors may tend to shrug it off as 'just a passing phase'. After all, it is much more demanding on a teacher's time to deal with mean looks and sly whispers than separating two boys in a physical fight. Some classify teasing and mean jokes as a developmentally healthy part of growing up, of learning to become accepted in the peer group. As one teacher said, "Mary needs to toughen up and learn to become a part of the group".

However, Simmons suggests that it is our job as parents and teachers to help girls understand their behaviour. We have to help them understand their feelings of anger, and not allow this anger to be pushed under the label of 'girls must be goody-goody'. Unfortunately, girls seldom come to their parents because they don't want our sympathy. What parents can do is turn the home into a sanctuary for your daughter, a place she can relax. The most effective parents are the ones who actively listen. Get facts from your daughter as a journalist would do: find out who's doing the teasing, how long it's been going on, if the teacher knows. Ask questions in the third person such as: "When girls want to be mean what kinds of things do they do? Can friends be mean to each other? How? Does the teacher see what's going on? What does she do?

Then plan some strategies with her and on your own. Find other parents to talk to.

Give your daughter practical advice such as where she can go during recess and lunch. In a way, this is 'running away' but at least it gives her space to breathe. Request the teacher to move her seat around; move he