Beneath the Surface

         Screaming obscenities, kicking furniture, throwing punches. These are all hallmark signs of aggression that people readily recognize and attribute to anger. The law regulates the occurrence of violence, and society acknowledges socially appropriate responses to hostile behaviors, but some behavior cannot always be identified as aggression and thus, regulated. For example, when a person gives someone the “evil eye,” the behavior is blatantly hostile to the recipient, but may be ambiguous to an observer. This type of aggression – staring, pointing, and general “unfriendliness” – is known to behaviorists as indirect (covert) aggression and was largely ignored by scholars as a valid display of anger until the early 1990s. Two forms of indirect aggression are acknowledged today: social aggression, behavior “intended to damage self-esteem or social status within a group,” and relational aggression, using the threat of social abandonment to hurt another (Simmons 21). Although virtually every demographic in America participates in indirect aggression at some level, both categories are prevalent primarily in middle-class, white girls between the ages of eight and fifteen (Lagerspetz 5).

         The statistics showing that young girls are the main perpetrators of covert aggression astound behaviorists because “the prevailing assumption has long been that girls are good at relationships,” which stems from the stereotypical “good girl” image that society forces girls to conform to (Brown 13). “Good girls,” Rachel Simmons states, “are not expected to experience anger. Aggression endangers relationships, imperiling a girl’s ability to be caring and ‘nice’” (18). Because society forces young girls to maintain a “good girl” image, girls have developed manipulative and undetectable ways of expressing hostility through indirect aggression.

         In Odd Girl Out, Rachel Simmons explores the unknown culture of female aggression in an attempt to expose the many covert methods girls use to display aggression in “a social universe that refuses girls open conflict” (Simmons 22). Simmons discloses several firsthand accounts of female bullying, including her own, which serve to scapegoat society for allowing girls’ harmful aggressive actions to go on unnoticed and unpunished. She explains that it is difficult for teachers to monitor girls’ aggressive behaviors because they are so subtle and ambiguous, but even when the actions are brought directly to the teachers’ or administrators’ attentions, they do not receive fair consideration because they are written off as symptoms of a phase girls go through. Simmons also uses negation extensively to describe “good girls” and “bad girls.” She identifies society’s definition of a “nice” girl as “[n]ot aggressive. Not angry. Not in conflict” (Simmons18). The negation dichotomizes female behavior as either very good or very bad, with no in between. Odd Girl Out accurately represents the patterns of aggression in our culture through the interspersion of true stories. It also addresses the growing gap between “good girls” and “bad girls” and emphasizes society’s inability to allow for compromise between the two.

         So why are young girls so mean? Before that can be answered, people must understand the social differences between girls and boys. First of all, society teaches boys to restrain feelings of love and tenderness and display aggression in order to appear more masculine. Girls, on the other hand, are taught the opposite; they are forced to internalize aggression and instead, demonstrate a nurturing, caring attitude because they “are expected to mature into caregivers, a role deeply at odds with aggression” (Simmons 17). Girls and boys are taught the nuances of their respective genders at a very young age to prepare them for the roles they will adopt in adulthood. Usually, mothers are the more nurturing parents, whereas fathers are the disciplinarians, and it is more acceptable for fathers to display aggression. Thus, society gives boys more independence when it comes to expressing anger and inhibits female aggression in fear that failure to do so will threaten the gender roles that define our culture.

         These gender roles are defined early in life, and the “good girl” image is a particularly difficult stereotype to live up to. A “good girl,” according to Peggy Orenstein, author of Schoolgirls, “is nice before she is anything else – before she is vigorous, bright, even before she is honest” (qtd. in Simmons 17). In today’s world, where girls strive for complete perfection, “part of being an acceptable girl…is to be, or at least appear to be, nice” (Brown 6). American culture constantly exacerbates the application of the “good girl” image in books, in advertisements, and especially in movies. In most films today, the heroine is a woman who is morally upstanding and will only assert herself if the principles of her morals are breeched. The idea of the upstanding woman – a woman who feels no true anger, only indignation – has become the socially accepted norm that is ingrained in young girls’ minds. For example, in the movie Cruel Intentions, the heroine is Annette, a virgin who is saving herself for love, and the villain is Kathryn, a deceitful hypocrite who makes a bet with her step-brother that he will not be able to deflower Annette. This film truly pits good girls against bad girls: Annette vs. Kathryn, purity vs. corruption, humility vs. arrogance. Annette is the ideal “good girl” – she is honest and upstanding, and her morals allow her to be the heroine. Kathryn, on the other hand, is the antithesis of the “good girl” and of Annette. She is lying and manipulative, she shows no remorse when she hurts someone else, and she feels no compassion for others. Cruel Intentions demonstrates the dichotomy of female behavior that exists in our society through the juxtaposition of Annette and Kathryn. However, it also exacerbates the “good girl” stereotype by making Kathryn the villain. Ironically, Kathryn may be more “real” than Annette in the sense that she feels and (indirectly) expresses her anger. She demonstrates all the qualities of a female aggressor, rather than Annette, who supposedly never feels true anger. Kathryn is sweet and “nice” in public, but beneath the surface, she spreads rumors, corrupts other girls, and damages her step-brother’s psychological health, all because a boy dumped her and she has no other way to release her frustration. Kathryn herself sums up the dilemma all young girls face while trying to repress anger and maintain a “nice” reputation: “God forbid I exude confidence and enjoy sex. Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine 24/7 so I can be considered a lady? I’m the Marcia fucking Brady of the Upper East Side, and sometimes, I want to kill myself” (Cruel Intentions). Here, Kathryn is overwhelmed by the hostility she feels, and she blames those around her for her socially unacceptable emotions, effectively scapegoating society for denying her freedom of expression. The built-up frustration that Kathryn feels, coupled with the lack of an outlet for her aggression, forces her to channel her anger into manipulative and destructive pathways, which behaviorists can now identify as indirect aggression.

         Indirect aggression proves ideal for girls who feel hostility because it allows them to express aggression subtly while maintaining the crucial façade of feminine innocence. The most blatant form of covert aggression most girls will dare to use is indirect verbal assault, or gossiping. Girls learn early on that reputation is a central aspect of social interaction, and they soon realize that spreading rumors is an effective method of destroying another’s reputation. Instead of hitting someone who hurt her, a girl would simply start gossiping about that person, avoiding direct conflict. Spreading rumors to hurt someone indirectly also protects the aggressor’s identity, so she accomplishes her goal and can continue to be the “good girl.” Verbal aggression has its flaws, however. Talking critically about someone “behind their back” forces girls to openly exhibit (to at least one other person) dislike toward another, which girls will try to avoid because it could possibly tarnish their pristine images.

         The more common form of covert aggression – and the more harmful to victims – is non-verbal aggression, which consists of social aggression and relational aggression. Social aggression includes giving the silent treatment, glancing at another girl while giggling or pointing, or writing mean notes anonymously. Social aggression is usually performed by a group of girls trying to exclude a single girl from the group. According to Rachel Simmons, “[m]ean looks and the silent treatment are the ultimate undercover aggression. The least visible of the alternative aggressions, nonverbal gesturing slips beneath teacher radar, allowing girls to remain ‘good girls’” (Simmons 47). Relational aggression is the most devastating form of indirect aggression because it targets the very aspect of girls’ social lives that sustains their psychological health: the ability to acquire and maintain intimate friendships. As Carol Gilligan found in her research, “girls perceive danger in their lives as isolation, especially the fear that by standing out they will be abandoned” (qtd. in Simmons 30). Thus, close relationships with peers are central elements in girls’ social lives. They thrive on relationships because they are in constant need of assurance from others. Girls who are mad at one another will often force mutual friends to “take sides” in an effort to get as many friends on their own “side” as possible because they know that social rejection by a close friend is a psychologically devastating event for the enemy. The realm of relational aggression is where girls are the most coldhearted because they use the intimacy that girls thrive on as a weapon to devastate their enemies, who are actually close friends. Simmons observes that “it is the deep knowledge girls have of relationship, and the passion they lavish on their closest friends, which characterizes much of their aggression. The most painful attacks are usually fashioned from deep inside a close friendship and are fueled by secrets and once-shared weaknesses” (31). Girls use the intimate knowledge they gain from friendships to hurt those same friends when they experience anger, which causes friction and distrust between allegedly loyal friends.

         All of the subtle, vacillating hostility that saturates girls’ social worlds takes a toll on their psyches over time. Alternate aggressions inhibit female psychological health by creating insecurity, fostering low self-esteem, forcing girls to think and act defensively, and leading to difficulty in adult relationships. According to the Handbook of Girls’ and Women’s Psychological Health, “victims of relational aggression report greater levels of loneliness, depression, social anxiety, and social avoidance than do their nonvictimized peers” (Goodheart 295). When a girl becomes the victim of female bullying, her first instinct is to ask herself what she did to deserve the negative attention, rather than wondering why the other person is angry. Because girls are “[a]lready prone to self-dissection…they search for the mistake they’re sure they made” (Simmons 46). Girls’ self-evaluations breed insecurity and leave them constantly second-guessing themselves. In order to reassert their “good girl” images, girls often express mortification as a means of displaying humility, a critical aspect of the “good girl” typology. The prevalence of indirect aggression in girls’ social worlds leads them to search for deeper meaning behind others’ words and body language, “often…blaming themselves for their own victimization” (Simmons 62). When a girl sees someone looking at her, she automatically assumes that the person is critiquing her; she doesn’t consider other possibilities, such as the person wasn’t looking at her at all, but was actually just lost in thought. Insecurity directly corresponds with low self-esteem. If a child believes people are constantly critiquing her, she may begin to feel that she isn’t adequate – she’s not smart enough, not pretty enough, not friendly enough, not nice enough, causing even more frustration without providing an outlet. Aggression – and the psychological instability it generates – becomes an unbreakable cycle in girls’ lives that all girls understand, but few address.

         Perhaps the most intrinsic impact of female bullying has to do with the way girls perceive each other. After experiencing covert aggression firsthand, most girls lose the trust they have in one another. They recognize the psychological warfare that goes on within their friendships, but they so fear losing relationships that they will continue to socialize with those who bully them, much the same way some adults remain in abusive relationships. However, the identification of the psychological elements in play destroys the trust dynamic that is crucial to the maintenance of healthy relationships. Girls’ “anxieties about being left out,” notes Henry Stack Sullivan, “are so powerful that children will put themselves in uncomfortable or painful situations to avoid them; rather than have no one, they will seek out friendships with people who do not love or validate them in kind” (qtd. in Brown 69). In other words, very few of the relationships that girls thrive on are built on mutual respect and admiration, but rather, on a perilous balance between the need to express aggression and the need to be a “good girl.” Rachel Simmons points out that “friends learn to doubt what they see and hear and instead search for a second layer of real feeling beneath a false exterior” (47). Girls become so convinced that every glance, every whisper has a hidden meaning, that they don’t trust others to tell them anything directly. They feel that they have to decode their friends’ true thoughts through subtle social cues, which may or may not really exist. When girls grow up believing that other girls are deceitful and manipulative, they transfer those views to their adult relationships and therefore find it difficult to build trusting relationships with other women. Basically, a girl who is the victim of female bullying is often very untrustworthy of others, and as a result, finds it difficult to develop meaningful relationships as an adult.

         Even though the occurrence of female aggression is astoundingly common, that is not to say that all girls participate in indirect aggression. Because our society has recently begun to address girls’ anger in films such as Mean Girls and Welcome to the Dollhouse, older girls are much more aware of the “good girl” stereotype, and some try to challenge it by more directly expressing anger. In an interview, SMU student Amanda DeGroff both accepted and contradicted the “good girl” typology; when asked how she expresses anger, she replied, “I’m not very good at it. I don’t do the emotional girl thing very well. When [others] make me angry, I get on the phone, and I say, ‘I’m angry with you.’ And I proceed to tell them why I’m angry.” She recognizes the “emotional girl” impression that girls are supposed to present, but she also opposes it by refusing to conform. In other words, she allows herself to express anger in a healthy manner rather than inhibiting her own aggression, as society expects. Later, when she was questioned about how releasing her aggression makes her feel, she said she feels “relieved” and “much better.” However, when asked whether expressing anger was a positive or negative experience for her, she responded with an emphatic “negative.” So, even though DeGroff understands that displaying aggression in healthy ways (such as talking out the problem) is better than bottling it up, she still considers her experiences with direct confrontation to be negative, probably because she has found that “[f]lagrant displays of aggression are punished with social rejection” (Simmons 18). She realizes the benefits of releasing frustration, but she cannot help but feel that she is letting someone down by declining to maintain a “good girl” image, which illustrates just how ingrained the non-aggressive girl stereotype is in our culture.

         Now that society has begun to acknowledge the differences between male and female aggression, the social institutions that unwittingly support girls’ expressions of indirect aggression (i.e. schools) can take proactive roles in redefining our culture’s outlook on femininity. In the past ten years, school policies on bullying have stiffened considerably, especially since the outbreak of school shootings like Columbine. However, the rash of media attention and the changes in school rules have been geared mainly toward male forms of aggression, specifically physical violence. Society still largely ignores female bullying as a problematic social issue, but with the recognition of indirect aggression’s negative impacts on girls, administrators should begin thinking about what changes can be made to replace the hurtful aggression that girls now employ with healthier, more direct forms of aggression that can be easily monitored and controlled. “Existing rules,” Simmons suggests, “should be amended to prohibit specific behaviors such as rumor spreading, alliance building, secret telling, and severe episodes of nonverbal aggression” (249). Schools need to use specific language to identify what does and does not constitute female bullying, such as indirect aggression, relational aggression, and the silent treatment. If schools directly address the problem of indirect aggression using precise terminology, girls will understand that such behavior is not acceptable. However, instead of sealing up yet another outlet for girls’ aggression, administrators should also provide girls with the knowledge to be able to express their anger directly. Teachers could possibly educate girls on the acceptable ways to work out conflicts, while also letting them know that conflict is an inseparable aspect of relationships. Once administrators and teachers learn to identify, discuss, and address indirect aggression between girls, female bullying will become much less intimidating and socially restricting, for children and adults alike.

Works Cited

Brown, Lyn Mikel. Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection Among Girls. New York: NYU Press, 2003.

Cruel Intentions. Dir. Roger Kumble. Perf. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Reese Witherspoon. Columbia Pictures, 1999.

DeGroff, Amanda. Personal Interview. 15 Oct. 2006.

Goodheart, Carol D. and Judith Worell, eds. Handbook of Girls’ and Women’s Psychological Health. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006.

Lagerspetz, Kirsti M.J., et al. “Cross Cultural Evidence of Female Indirect Aggression.” Aggressive Behavior 24 (1998): 1-8. 14 Oct. 2006 http://www3.interscience.-wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/32358/PDFSTART>.

Mean Girls. Dir. Mark Waters. Perf. Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. Paramount Pictures, 2004.

Simmons, Rachel. Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. Orlando: Harcourt, 2002.

Welcome to the Dollhouse. Dir. Todd Solondz. Perf. Heather Matarazzo. Suburban Pictures, 1995.