Chani Miller

Odd Girl Out Response Paper

1. Based on Rachel Simmons’s years of research, it seems that almost every girl on the planet

experiences the effects of exclusion and social bullying at some point between elementary and

high school, whether she was the bully, sidekick or victim, and for many, this has real, lasting,

damaging effects. The main reason for this is because of the importance of relationships to girls.

Girls have an emotional need to form and maintain close relationships, and therefore

relationships can become the biggest weapon; in fact Simmons defines relational aggression as

harming others “through damage to relationships or feelings of acceptance, friendship or group

exclusion” (Ch. 2, pg. 43). Therefore, “most relational aggression occurs within intimate social

or friendship networks. The closer the target to the aggressor, the more cutting the loss” (Ch. 2,

pg. 43). Since having friends, being liked and feeling like there’s someone who cares about you

is so important to young girls, when a girl is dropped by a friend, taunted, left out, ignored or

made to feel unwanted, this cuts to the heart of their self-esteem. Prolonged bullying or bullying

by someone you thought was a close friend will cause the victim to doubt their own importance

and worth, and impact their ability to function in other areas, often for years after the bullying

incidents and sometimes permanently. A victim of bullying might start doing poorly in school,

withdraw from their favorite hobbies, or even become depressed to the point that they attempt

suicide. Even for those that pull through, Simmons says, the hurt never really goes away,

bringing proof from the hurt she still feels over being bullied by a friend at the age of eight. I can

definitely agree with this last statement; while I was never severely bullied in my childhood,

thank G-d, I do still have negative associations with my “best friend” from first grade, who came
over to my house to play all the time but would make fun of me in front of other girls. While that

was a very long time ago, the fact that I remember it today is proof of this reality.

2. In most cultures, there is an expectation that girls are supposed to be “good.” As adults,

“good” means being caring, sweet, loving mothers, and as kids, “good girls” means that they

“have perfect relationships. These girls are caretakers in training. They ‘never have fights… they

are always together…like never arguing, like “oh yeah, I totally agree with you.”’” (Ch. 1, pg.

17) Socially, being a “good girl” means not being aggressive, not fighting, not shouting, not

expressing anger or confrontation for any reason, even a legitimate one, and girls want to be

considered good, they care about their image. Because of this, girls slowly learn to express their

anger and aggression in secret or non-verbal ways. A “perfect girl” who always smiles when the

parents are around and charms her teachers knows better than to punch her friend when she’s

angry, or even to confront her to work out a disagreement. While boys can also keep secrets,

ignore or roll their eyes, because it is universally accepted that “boys will be boys” and they have

less of an internal need to maintain a perfect image, their disagreements can be more easily and

quickly settled by open aggression. However, this isn’t the case in all cultures. Simmons noted

that hidden aggression in girls was the most severe in white, middle-class girls, whereas girls

from minority or lower-class groups are much more used to and comfortable with expressing

aggression the same way that boys do: direct confrontation, beating people up etc. In fact, she

found that many African American girls were encouraged by their parents to beat up an

opponent; as one kid’s mother said about a boy that was bullying her, “if you don’t hurt him, I’m

gonna hit you” (Ch. 8, pg. 237). She theorizes that this is because historically, those groups have

been at a disadvantage and had to stand up for themselves to make it in society, so there is much
more of a value of being assertive in those communities, even in girls. This is not the case in

many white communities where girls are expected to adhere to the “caretaker” model, which

paves the way for alternative aggressions.

3. According to Rachel Simmons, no one is born “mean” or more likely to become a bully or a

victim, and in fact, roles can change over time. A person may become a bully for any number of

reasons: to take out aggression on a convenient scapegoat when things aren’t going well at home,

out of jealousy, out of a need to maintain popularity by putting potential rivals down, or even to

avoid becoming a victim themselves. Simmons shares the story of a girl named Lisa, who was

bullied in her private school for three long years, until she convinced her parents to transfer her

to a public school. She says that one her first day there, “I saw the same stuff happening. Girls

being mean to other girls. But this time… I was going to be the one to be mean” (Ch. 6, pg.

178-179). She felt that if she wasn’t going to be the bully, she would be the victim, and this

continued for a few years until she was comfortable being herself. Simmons says, “There is a

kind of musical-chairs quality to Lisa’s middle school experience. Winners and losers are easily

interchangeable, and for no compelling reason.” (Ch. 6, pg. 181). A popular girl who bullied

others may just as easily find herself an outcast when a new, more popular girl transfers to her

school, and all her old friends and victims join the new girl in ganging up on her, out of revenge.

No one is really born “mean,” “weak,” “good,” or “bad”; it’s more about the circumstances that

they find themselves in and how they were raised to deal with them. I can say for myself that I

have been both the bully and the victim; I consider myself an overall nice person and if you

asked 99% of people if I would ever bully someone, they would probably laugh at the question,

but there is a girl out there who would answer “yes.” Same thing if you asked if I was the type to
be bullied; most would say no, a couple of people would say yes. That is not to say that we are

not responsible for our actions; in fact this makes us even more so, because if we are not

inherently one way or another, then we have a responsibility to do the right thing.

4. Rachel Simmons explains that it is the social and cultural expectations for girls to be “good,”

“perfect,” “nice,” and non-confrontational that causes girls to resort to underhanded, secretive

forms of aggression and confrontation to express their emotions. She also explains that since this

aggression is covert, oftentimes it is not acknowledged as aggression at all, but rather a “stage”

that girls go through or simply a part of the female experience. Therefore, she feels that it’s

important for two main changes to happen. Firstly, alternative aggressions and bullying have to

be recognized as a legitimate type of aggression. Schools and parents should be educated and

given the awareness that it is not okay for children to be bullied in this way; they are legitimately

being hurt, it is not “just a stage” and it must be addressed. She addresses this in two separate

chapters, one about what parents can do if they discover that their daughter is a bully or a

bullying victim, and one about how schools can change their culture to acknowledge and address

this type of behavior. Secondly, girls need to be empowered to express themselves and be able to

work out their emotions with friends and peers without negative social repercussions. Girls will

rarely tell a friend that they are mad at her, even if asked directly by that friend “are you mad at

me?” They don’t want to get into a fight because they don’t want to “make a big deal,” but they

don’t realize that avoiding confrontation often makes the conflict bigger As Simmons writes, “in

my conversations with girls, many expressed fear that even everyday acts of conflict would

result in the loss of the people they most cared about. They believed that speaking a troubled

heart was punishable.” (Ch. 3, pg. 69). Simmons believes that if girls were encouraged to openly
discuss conflicts or disagreements with friends, they would be much more easily solved, and

even deeper the friendships, citing a story of two friends who admitted to each other that they

were insecure about the other’s friendship, and this deepened their relationship.

5. Rachel Simmons believes that educators and administrators are for the most part unaware of

the alternative aggressions that take place in the classroom and around the school campus. She

explains that in most cases, teachers are “pushed and pulled by parents and administrators,

working under vague or non-existent anti-bullying policies, faced with impossibly high standards

and shrinking budgets, and exhausted and undercompensated” (Ch. 12, pg. 336). A teacher who

is trying to race the clock and cover mandated curriculum might notice boys shoving each other

or throwing spitballs and reprimand them, but there simply isn’t time to notice covert aggression,

let alone address it. Further, “girls have long played the straight man to the boys’ class clown”

(Ch. 12, pg. 337), meaning that boys have a reputation for misbehaving and thus “male

aggression” is more likely to be noticed, while girls have a reputation for behaving, which helps

hide “female-type aggression.” Although they may be aware that there are girls huddled in the

hallway and whispering together, while another girl is crying in the bathroom, there’s not enough

proof of bullying that they would be willing to anger parents by bringing up the topic, nor do

they have the training to address it on their own. However, Simmons is hopeful about schools’

ability to change this trend by introducing clear anti-bullying policies with protocol for dealing

with all forms of aggression, providing this training to all staff members, especially non-teachers

like cafeteria workers, cleaning personnel and bus drivers who are present at “break time” where

most aggression takes place, and creating a school culture where “students… know that

aggression comes at a cost” (Ch. 12, pg. 345). As a future teacher myself, I appreciated reading
Simmons’s suggestions on how teachers can address these issues within their classrooms, and

while I hope that it will be unnecessary to implement these policies, it is good to have a guide on

how to do so.