In the Media – When mean girls become mean women (SheKnowsUK)
Mean Girls Beyond the Classroom
April 29, 2014
Claire Gillespie writes about mean girls in Female Bullying Beyond the Classroom on SheKnows United Kingdom and interviews Dr. Levine.
“Unfortunately, some mean girls never grow up,” says psychologist Irene S. Levine. “The insidious practice of woman-on-woman bullying is common in the workplace. Stay-at-home mums are still victimised by frenemies and neighbours, become the subject of gossip, and are systematically excluded from play dates.
“Bullying isn’t uniquely female,” continues Levine. “But there are always women who need to build themselves up by knocking others down. They may exclude, gossip, or do other things to demean one individual — particularly someone who seems vulnerable. Making someone feel alone, rejected and treating her as an outcast can be as vicious as a physical assault.”
“Many women never really outgrow being a bully,” agrees Cheryl Dellasega, women’s studies professor and author of Mean Girls Grown Up.
The entire article appeared on SheKnowsUK.
Category: IN THE MEDIA
From being in groups of both men and women I’ve personally come to the conclusion that there are more psychopaths among women than there are among men. It seems that many women are experts at covert aggression and practice it regularly. Also pretend to be more helpless than they are to manipulate their friends into helping them so they feel powerful through the manipulation.
I appreciate this comment on this article validating my experience with a frienemy that not only bullied me with put-downs and gossip, but other friends. Until I finally put a stop to it and severed the relationship. In High School we are so eager to be accepted, and in my case as an immigrant, that we cling to certain friends and might even put up with the bullying. As we get older, these friends seem like relatives. Amazingly, I realized she was a bully when she invited me to meet her at work and told me she was placing a complain against someone she managed. The way she treated her and what she was doing behind this lady’s back, and the way she bullied her out of the department, was bizarre. It was clear to me she felt threatened by her and took aggressive action.
I realized later that this woman was no longer a friend.