World Famous Comics: Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
By: Rachel Simmons Publisher: Harvest Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Format: Bargain Price Label: Harvest Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: April 01, 2003
Dirty looks and taunting notes are just a few examples of girl bullying that girls and women have long suffered through silently and painfully. With this book Rachel Simmons elevated the nation's consciousness and has shown millions of girls, parents, counselors, and teachers how to deal with this devastating problem. Poised to reach a wider audience in paperback, including the teenagers who are its subject, Odd Girl Out puts the spotlight on this issue, using real-life examples from both the perspective of the victim and of the bully.
Amazon.com: There is little sugar but lots of spice in journalist Rachel Simmons's brave and brilliant book that skewers the stereotype of girls as the kinder, gentler gender. Odd Girl Out begins with the premise that girls are socialized to be sweet with a double bind: they must value friendships; but they must not express the anger that might destroy them. Lacking cultural permission to acknowledge conflict, girls develop what Simmons calls "a hidden culture of silent and indirect aggression."
The author, who visited 30 schools and talked to 300 girls, catalogues chilling and heartbreaking acts of aggression, including the silent treatment, note-passing, glaring, gossiping, ganging up, fashion police, and being nice in private/mean in public. She decodes the vocabulary of these sneak attacks, explaining, for example, three ways to parse the meaning of "I'm fat."
Simmons is a gifted writer who is skilled at describing destructive patterns and prescribing clear-cut strategies for parents, teachers, and girls to resist them. "The heart of resistance is truth telling," advises Simmons. She guides readers to nurture emotional honesty in girls and to discover a language for public discussions of bullying. She offers innovative ideas for changing the dynamics of the classroom, sample dialogues for talking to daughters, and exercises for girls and their friends to explore and resolve messy feelings and conflicts head-on.
One intriguing chapter contrasts truth telling in white middle class, African-American, Latino, and working-class communities. Odd Girl Out is that rare book with the power to touch individual lives and transform the culture that constrains girls--and boys--from speaking the truth. --Barbara Mackoff
Not so great I bought this book a few years ago and had to force myself to finish it. It's definately not as great as it is made out to be. A lot of it is common sense, and Simmons repeats things over and over as the book goes on. There are a few good little anecdotes, but other than that this just isn't worth it.
must read for youth workers and parents i'm not sure how i missed this book. it was published in 2002, and is absolute must reading for EVERY youth worker (male or female) and every parent of a girl.
it's a tough read and an easy read. easy, because simmons is an excellent writer and fills the book with real stories of real girls. tough, because the real girls she profiles reveal a profile of aggression (almost universally experienced) that is so painful, so destructive, it's difficult to read (especially if you care about teenage girls).
i had a great chat with my 13 year-old daughter, liesl, after reading this book. she was very open about how girls treat each other. i may be fooling myself, but i do think that liesl's private school (a waldorf school, which is particularly nurturing and has no tolerance for mistreatment) protects her from the fullest extent of what this behavior would look like in the vast majority of schools. in fact, i could easily see liesl being the aggressor (the rumor-creator, the silent treatment-giver, the "we don't like you" club-originator), were she in a different context.
the book talks at length about why this alternative aggression is so commonplace amongst girls. it also talks about why schools are so poor at addressing it. it's a bit light on suggestions for what we all (who care about girls) can do about it - but there is some of this, especially near the end of the book.
given my passion for early adolescent ministry, i was intrigued to read that this behavior is at its peak during the young teen years. the author focuses all of her research on girls from 5th grade through 9th grade, with the "sweet spot" (bad choice of words, i suppose) between 11 and 14.
here's one particular paragraph i found fascinating:
at first glance, the stories of girls not being allowed to eat at the lunch table, attend a party, put their sleeping bag in the middle, or squeeze inside a circle of giggling girls may seem childish. yet as carol gilligan has shown, relationships play an unusually important role in girls' social development. in her work with girls and boys, she found that girls perceive danger in their lives as isolation, especially the fear that by standing out they will be abandoned. boys, however, describe danger as a fear of entrapment or smothering. this contrast, gilligan argues, shows that women's development "points toward a diffrerent history of human attachment, stressing continuity and change instead of replacement and seperation. the primacy of relationship and attachment in the female life also indicates a different experience of and response to loss. the centrallity of relationship to girls' lives all but guarantees a different landscape of aggression and bullying, with its own distinctive features worthy of seperate study.
A Must-Read Book 4 Adolescent Girls and Parents Every girl from age 1O up and her parent should read this book so they understand what is in store for them in middle, junior high and high school. Rachel Simmons beautifully describes the unique bully culture of girls present on every school campus. It is so important for girls to understand this phenomenon so they are prepared and don't unknowingly become victims.If you have a daughter...it is a must-read for a parent. Also add to your bookshelf, Bully-Proofing Children: A Practical, Hands-On Guide to Stop Bullying. This provides an excellent understanding of bullying (as well as girl bullying)and more importantly how to prevent it and intervene to stop it. This too is a must-read for parents of all kids who are about to enter school.
EYE OPENER This book is truly an eye opener and surely will help cast light on the subject of female aggression which does not end in high school. I was drop-dead gorgeous from 15-45 years old with a heart to match always ready to be nice with other girls or women (depending on the time frame). I was brought up in an upper-middle class neighborhood where I was very sheltered in a very exclusive high school. For the most part, aggression in girls was non-existent, except for male bullies, which were hardly something to cry about back then. I was self confident. I had everything, I lacked nothing. It was AFTER high school that I encountered female aggression. At one job one female came to me ABSOLUTELY LIVID and said, "You think you are so perfect, we'll find something wrong with you!!!!!" . . . Women there did not WANT my friendship, they wanted to fight me. The subtle but exceptional violence I encountered was truly amazing to me, and I was totally confounded for a while because I never encountered such devious and vicious behavior in high school--IN THE LEAST. If this happened to me, this can happen to anybody.
This author really helped clarify things. She gets feedback directly from the girls, and you would be surprised at what they say!! This book will certainly help young ladies (and even not so young ladies) understand these forms of exceptionally vicious and insidious female aggression and warfare that is parasitical in nature and uses other females as prey for their own personal satisfaction. Bullies build their self esteem by inventing cruelties. Female aggression is ALL over the place and it is surely caused by low self esteem. What are they telling themselves?: I guess they are telling themselves they have no other recourse for their self esteem other than to prey upon and torment others in very devious ways.
The author really wants to expose as much as possible, and I think this author does a fantastic job at it. I REALLY want to thank the author for helping me understand that which I couldn't figure out on my own--because this mentality and behavior was SO foreign to who I was. This book will certainly help others understand that girls are indeed JUST AS violent as boys--in other ways. She mentions that females will indeed try to get other females into a friendship so they can abuse them. I personally saw that they can even bring males with them into the aggression (you would be surprised that men don't always have high self esteem either). Perhaps I don't agree with just a few points that the author is mistaken about, but this book is truly an eye-opener and will CERTAINLY HELP girls out there victims of aggression in high school AND BEYOND. This type of aggression and violence stems from the inability to verbalize insecurities in an open and honest manner. If someone feels they are bullied because they feel they are "nerds," one can be sure that ANY EXCUSE they WANT is valid for bullies. They need to satisfy their insecurities using someone else.
(I got this book some years back in hardbound, but never did my review) I was prompted by the latest news of the girl being attacked by other girls who brought two guys into the aggression with them. I, in the meantime, have stopped being an ally of women since it happened to me.
Great job to the author!!!
anyone being bullied needs to read this...regardless of age! This is an amazing book that only someone who had been bullied herself could have written with such understanding. This book is a 'must read' for anyone being vicimimzed, whether at work or at school. It should be recommended reading for teachers too as it might make them more aware of 'bully' situations in their classes.
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