Dissertation on Bullying
Odd Girl out: the Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons discusses the prevalence of female bullying in schools. This book offers "a glimpse of the back alleys and hidden corners of girl bullying, and to begin the process of naming and understanding it (19)."
Simmons begins the book by describing her own experience with female bullying, particularly during the third grade and how the pain from that experience continues to follow her to this day. This pain led her to research and write about this hidden aggression. In Odd Girl Out, Rachel Simmons explores this hidden culture using interviews with girls in school as well as older victims of childhood bullying to highlight the prevalence of female harassment. Through speaking to these diverse groups of females, Simmons is able to uncover the harmful ways in which girls use friendship as a weapon to gain control and inflict pain towards those with whom they are angry. The immense fear of being alone is felt so strongly by young girls that they will often subject themselves to unhealthy friendships with belligerent peers rather than be alone.
There are many major and important themes in Odd Girl Out. One is how aggression and bullying has always been seen as only a problem among male friends. This is because boys resolve their disagreements visibly and violently. Females, on the other hand, are expected to be nice, quiet, sweet, and obedient, and thus their disagreements are resolved silently and secretively. This hidden aggression has developed as a result of the cultural expectations of girls in our society. Young females are often forced to put forth two personalities; the nice, non-aggressive personality which is used in the presence of adults. The harsh, mean, back-stabbing personality used to express their anger is used when dealing with peers, in order to gain control and popularity. Within circles of female friends in most school environments, according to Simmons, there is an ongoing battle for friendship, popularity, and belonging to certain cliques, or groups. This constant desire to belong to the "in crowd" causes young girls to rely on teasing, rumor-spreading, alliance building, and secret-sharing in order to fulfill this longing. This type of aggression is known as relational aggression.
According to Simmons, relational aggression or non-physical, nonverbal personal attacks that girls are waging against one another daily in our schools is often more damaging than we have been willing to admit in the past. One of the major reasons why it is more damaging is due to the fact that teachers and adults are oblivious to relational aggression. "Teachers and parents may not be looking or listening for signs of a problem behind the facade of friendship and play. Denied the use of their voices by rules against female anger, girls have instead learned to use their bodies. Nothing looks wrong (44)." Another reason why relational aggression is so damaging is because a lot the time, parents and teachers, either don't believe that the perpetrator can act like that or they tell the victim to ignore them. This causes the victim to withdrawal, allowing the abuse to continue and suffer in silence.
Another major important point that Simmons makes in Odd Girl Out is the struggle to fit into society's definition of being female. As we read the personal stories of how aggressive female bullies affected the lives of the many girls Simmons interviewed, readers begin to understand the struggle between 'nice' and 'strong' that our society forces girls to deal with. Simmons points out that many channels for the expression of anger are eliminated within this struggle for young girls. "We are telling our girls to be bold and timid, voracious and slight, sexual and demure. We are telling them to hurry up and wait. But, as in the game of Twister, these girls eventually end up in impossible positions and collapse (115). "This struggle comes to a head during the adolescent years because girls do not know how to deal with a bully without the risk of losing their social status and reputation as a "good girl."
One of the most surprising outcomes of Simmons' interviews is how scared girls are to speak up and tell a person that they are mad at them, or ask why a person is mad at them. Many of the girls felt that this would make the situation worse or cause an insurmountable rift in the relationship. "Many girls expressed fear that even everyday acts of conflicts would result in the loss of the people they most cared about. They believed speaking a troubled heart was punishable. Many girls are afraid of not being able to anticipate the response to their anger, so they resolve to maximize what they can control (69-70)."
Finally, control is another major theme in Odd Girl Out. One of the many ways that girls maximize control is through indirect contact or by totally ignoring the situation. By doing this, girls usually know that someone is mad at them, but unfortunately they do not know why. Girls avoid direct contact because society trains females to consider others' feelings above their own. As a result of this, according to Simmons, girls' anger becomes imbedded in them and they tend to take their anger out on someone or something else. "One student told me when she felt angry she kicked her dog. Plenty more said they hit their siblings. Some students I interviewed described feeling depressed as they tried to sequester their anger. Others told stories of escalating fury (75)." All of these reactions to anger cause damage not only in their social life, but their academic and family life as well. Simmons feels we need to teach females how to be more outspoken and productive when they are angry so that the different aspects of their lives would not be affected and that their anger can pass and not simmer inside them. In other words, we need to teach females to "fight" like boys so that friendships and self-esteem won't be ruined.
There are many strengths to Odd Girl Out. One of these strengths is the first-hand interviews and accounts of girl-girl bullying. One reason why these interviews are a strength to the book is because the readers can see how girls handle anger and conflict. A common way girls express their anger is to draw innocent bystanders into the conflict. Many girls do not want a direct confrontation with the person they are mad at, so they either spread rumors or recruit another person to make the victim's life unbearable. This type of aggression is called alliance building.
"During alliance building, discussions spread like wildfire through circles of friends, growing in intensity until they dominate the day. Alliance building also conforms to girls' tendency to stockpile old conflicts. The perpetrator's strategy is to appeal to those who have a history with the target (81)." This, according to Simmons, "allows girls to hold the conflict at arms length as they watch others fight it (81)." Alliance building also allows other girls to feel that they belong. This is a great incentive for other girls to become involved in their peers' conflicts. Unfortunately, alliance building is such a major part of females' social life that many cannot imagine how to deal with conflict in more productive, less harmful ways.
Another strength in Odd Girl Out is that the readers get to see how girl-girl bullying begins and becomes cyclical. Another strength of Odd Girl Out is that it gives a name to the aggression and explains what they are. Based on Simmons' book, bullying begins with social aggression. According to Simmons, "Social Aggression is intended to damage self-esteem or social status within a group (21)." This type of aggression occurs mostly in cliques, especially when the group perceives that one member has done something wrong. This "something wrong" can be being too outgoing, popular with boys, or acting too confidently in the group. Most frequently, social aggression stems from jealousy and not an actual wrongdoing. Social aggression is used when the ostracized victim does not conform to society's norms for females. In other words, the victim is not quiet, demure, or obedient. Instead, she is highly sure of herself and full of self-esteem. These values most often leads others to view the victim as a "bitch" and thus, not worthy of their friendship. The only way the group can tear at the victim's self-assurance is to tear her down using social aggression. This, in turn, leads to relational aggression and an ongoing cycle of bullying.
There is one major weakness to Odd Girl Out, and unfortunately, it makes the book extremely dry and boring. This weakness is its repetitiveness. Even though the interviews of school-aged and older girls gives the reader an insightful view of the complex relationships between females, most of the females' stories are repetitive and seemed coerced from Simmons' questions. Even Simmons' descriptions of the different types of aggression seem repetitive. It seems as though each type of aggression is the same, but with different names. The best example of this is relational aggression and social aggression. I feel as if both aggressions work in the same way and just gives a new synonym to the meaning of bullying. I feel that because of the repetitiveness of the story and terms, the 200 page book could have been cut down to 100 pages. If the book would have been more concise, then it would have been easier an more interesting to read.
A final weakness of Odd Girl Out is the fact that Simmons could have spent more time suggesting solutions to the problems that she presents in her book. Simmons could have given ways in which teachers and parents could put less pressure on girls to hide their anger and aggression. Simmons could also suggest ways to develop different expectations of female behavior, allowing girls a voice to express their feelings and anger, and free young girls from the pressures of society's expectations that guide their actions. Another weakness that Odd Girl Out has is that Simmons could have spent more time researching and discussing the differences in aggressive patterns within schools not situated in middle class settings, where she spent a majority of her time.
Finally, Odd Girl Out presents extensive interviews of school-aged and older females that casts a light on a silent epidemic-like problem that almost every female faces or has faced in their lifetime. Through these interviews, Simmons explains how society's expectations of girls to act sweetly, calmly, and obediently causes many to swallow their own anger and cause great damage to their friends' self-esteem. According to Simmons, this suppression of anger causes females to act out in way that is ignored by teachers and adults. One of the many strengths of Odd Girl Out is the fact that these first- hand interviews gives a name to this hidden aggression and suggests ideas on how teachers and parents can deal with this type of bullying. Even though this book also has many weaknesses, including being too repetitive, Odd Girl Out is a great book for teachers, parents, and females to read. This is a great resource for teachers, parents, and females because it casts a light on a hidden culture and provides good, albeit vague ideas on how to deal with girls who are being bullied or are bullies. This book also shows parents and teachers how to spot this type of aggression so that it can be stopped. Finally, this book is a great resource for parents, teachers, and females because it provides solutions on how to change the way females deal with anger and aggression, which would allow females to be openly angry and help end the vicious cycle of female bullying.
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