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Mean Girls:
From fiction to reality...
THE ASTERISK
In junior high, I didn't have many friends. People I had gone to grade school with suddenly dropped me for much more popular crowds. The friendships we had formed in our pre-teen years slowly disintegrated as we grew into teenagers. Some people didn't care that most of my clothes were hand-me-downs or that I didn't wear Doc Martens. Others passed me in the hall, barely acknowledging our shared space.
In the eighth grade, I thought I had made some ground. Some of the popular girls in our class started talking to me, and even bestowed secrets and gossip upon me. But when it came time for someone's party, my name was conspicuously dropped from the invite list. On our annual band trip to Maryland, Washington, Grace* insisted that I sit beside her on the bus and share a hotel room with her. I was flattered by all this attention. Grace had come into our class half way through the year, and rumours of being expelled from her previous school for fighting sealed her reputation as someone to be feared and admired.
I was nervous spending eight hours on a bus with Grace. I didn't know what I would say to her. She wore make-up, dressed in Club Monaco from head to toe, and always knew who had a crush on whom. I wanted her to think I was cool, not a big dork.
On the bus, Grace listened to her Walkman or napped for most of the time. Any conversation we had was so unsubstantial that I cannot recall a single word. On our lunch break, she left me and ate with the popular kids. At the hotel, she room-hopped while I stayed in our room, watching television. After the trip, Grace and I barely spoke.
It took five seconds for me to realize what Grace had done to me. And yet, I went along with it because I wanted to fit in. I learned, later, that Grace had been expelled for poor attendance and bad grades. She had a crush on some guy who ended up liking her friend. She was mad at her friend during the Maryland trip, and so used me as her back-up plan. When their friendship was mended, I was out of the picture. She lied to me, and I could not be angry with her.
When Mean Girls hit the theatres, I could see my whole adolescence flash before my eyes. We didn't have the slam books or the really hot guys, but we did have the gossip, the manipulation, and the teasing. Both guys and girls teased me in junior high, but it was the girls who hurt me the most. They were catty, scheming, and bent on believing they were the best by belittling everyone else. For years I tried to chase the popular crowd, until I stopped running and took things at my own pace.
Why are girls so mean? Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence, calls this hidden hostility "relational aggression." Numerous authors have already touched on the subject, among them Emily White (Fast Girls) and Phyllis Chesler (Women's Inhumanity to Women). But it was Wiseman's ground-breaking book, which touches on subjects like teasing, power hierarchies, gossiping, and reputation, that was the basis for Mean Girls.
Girls will go out of their ways to hurt each other emotionally by targeting insecurities and humiliating other girls. In the media, films and television shows may teach them that putting someone down or competing for a man will empower them. These girls grow up believing their whole self-identity should be based on a false worth. To gain admiration and respect, they use any means of passive-aggressive destruction their finely manicured hands can wield. It is an empty life to lead, but one filled with addictive highs.
Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes adequately covers the trials and tribulations of adolescence, but eventually we all have to grow up. These malicious behaviours that girls exhibit don't just disappear with a high school diploma. Unfortunately, they continue into adulthood.
Competition among females is one of the main factors why I didn't grow up with many female friends. When I met Denise*, we hit it off splendidly. She was someone I could confide in, and she never made me go shopping with her. One year into our friendship, I told her that I was interested in a mutual friend. Two days later, she slept with him.
When Denise told me about her indiscretion, I was speechless. I didn't understand why she would do something like this to me. She apologized; I remained silent. She was so adamant about our friendship meaning more to her than some guy that I eventually relented, although I still felt uneasy. Deep down, I knew that she wasn't even remotely interested in him or that she did it to prove to me that he wasn't worth it. She did it purely out of competition, and I guess she won.
Throughout the years, I learned that Denise wasn't the only woman who liked to compete. And it wasn't just about men. Step into any women's washroom, and you will hear it all around you: "Oh, I wish I was as thin as you," "That guy was totally checking you out (and not me)," "You're lucky you can wear that dress - my boobs are so much bigger than yours that they wouldn't fit into anything that size." This competition, this need to be better, can get so out of hand that women don't realize they're effectively destroying the friendships around them.
There wasn't really any need for all this, but every time it happened to me I tried to understand why. I already knew what all my psychology textbooks told me: a need for manipulation, humiliation, competition, it all comes from low self-esteem. So I understood it, but I was tired of being a punching bag for someone who didn't want to change. I had already gone through junior high once, I didn't need to go through it again.
The female friends that I have now do not need to compete. They do not put me down to make themselves feel better. They don't need to use me to boost their egos. They support me in the same way I support them. We have all been the aggressor or the prey at one point or another, but it's time to put insecurities aside to move on with our lives.
Some time ago, I thought I saw Grace walking down the street. I wasn't sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but my heart started pounding wildly and I was thirteen again. I secretly wished that she was had become really overweight or had grown a third arm, but I quickly pushed those thoughts aside. Even if I told her how she made me feel back in eighth grade, it would probably not do much to change the person that she truly is. All I hoped was that she had left her junior high days behind, as I had. Although Grace had been a Queen Bee to me at one point, she has long ago been overthrown. ¤ C.Ho.