COMMUNICATES–DISCUSSIONS
K a t a r z y n a S t a d n i kTHE STRUGGLE OF YOUNG KITTIES . CULTURE
OF HIDDEN AGGRESSION AND RIVALRY AS THE
OMNIPRESENT ELEMENT OF GIRLISH EVERYDAY LIFE
IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF SOCIOLOGY
Girls’ experience is strongly immersed in silence, which should be brought to day-light. Th ere is a hidden culture of girls’ aggression, in which bullying teenagers by other girls has reach the size of an epidemic. Our culture denies girls the access to an open confl ict, directing their behaviour into a non-physical, indirect aggression. It is caused by the diff erent ways of socialising girls and boys to their sexual roles and by other expectations connected with their functioning in a wider social con-text. Consequently, girls have mastered gossip, slandering a victim behind her back, using exclusion strategies, calling names and manipulation. It should be under-stood, then, that girls are not a less aggressive sex than boys. Th e commonly shared fallacy on girls’ or women’s aggression as such results from ascribing only a physi-cal dimension to this term. It means that girls’ aggression is oft en described, de-fi ned, explained in reference to men’s aggression, conducting thus an unjustide-fi ed simplifi cation of this phenomenon and showing a misunderstanding of the origin, causes, process, and far-reaching consequences of the girls’ forms of rivalry. Th e rare cases of stricte aggression forms that happen among girls made it possible to draw a conclusion that the sex has a smaller tendency to hostile behaviour. Th e thinking that if something is not seen it does not exist is unreasonable. Girls are beings endowed with both the “angelic” and “devilish” attributes who, just like boys, have the need to express their discontent, anger, jealousy, suff ered unfairness, but they do it in a diff erent, more sophisticated and subtle way. Contrary to boys, girls
oft en attack in a circle of precisely chosen nets of friends1, which makes such forms of hostile behaviour even more diffi cult to recognise and name properly, and con-sequently, the damage suff ered by the addressee of such attacks is additionally strengthened. As a part of the culture of secret aggression, girls fi ght more with their body language and their own relations with other people, rather then with fi sts and knives.
To properly understand the phenomenon of girls’ aggression, such a defi nition of aggression should be accepted, which will not reduce its complex nature, and will make it possible to notice its true face. Th e most suitable and complementary, to my mind, defi nitions are the ones off ered by social and evolutionary psychol-ogy. Social psychologists defi ne aggressive behaviour as “deliberate actions that aim at causing suff ering, harm or sorrow, which is physical or verbal in character”. It is aggression, notwithstanding whether it achieves the goal or not. Th erefore, it is the intention of the aggressive perpetrator that matters2. Evolutionary psychology defi nes aggression not in terms of a specifi c behaviour, but numerous strategies, which are revealed in some specifi c, suitable for that purpose circumstances3. In-stances of aggression, in the light of this theory, are a strategic solution, which re-sults in specifi c benefi ts, such as making rivals pay, achieving a position in the hierarchy, and valuable resources4.
Why have girls developed diff erent mechanisms of expressing aggression, which they can effi ciently operate, just like a two-edged sword, and which hurt more than any physical weapon? Our culture celebrates and praises unaggressive behaviour of girls and imposes on them the attitude of “being nice”. In this situation, girls have to perfect their own secret tactics of aggressive and hostile behaviour, so that they escaped the perception of not only boys, but themselves, as well. Th erefore, the problem with the recognition of such actions lies in the fact that culturally they are not defi ned as aggressive. Nevertheless, teenagers rivalry can adopt various forms and intensity – from a race for the best clothes and cosmetics to verbal and physical attacks. As Phyllis Chesler, claims, girls and women can be in the posses-sion of an evolutionary predisposition to chronic interspecies aggresposses-sion, which can be later additionally magnifi ed by patriarchal culture5. Girls in their adoles-cence fi ght and compete with one another for the following things: to defend their
1 A. Campbell, Jej niezależny umysł, Kraków 2004, p. 150. 2 E. Aronson, Człowiek istota społeczna, Warszawa 2000, p. 235. 3 D. Buss, Psychologia ewolucyjna, Gdańsk 2003, p. 309 4 B. Krahe, Agresja, Gdańsk 2005, p. 16.
own sexual reputation, for access to the most attractive representatives of the op-posite sex, to sustain friendship and for egalitarianism in their groups. Addition-ally, they protect the present relations with other girls and they watch out for an intruder in their group – another girl6.
Th e research result that I have conducted among junior high school students (13–15 years old).
1. The apogee of conflict, i.e. hand-to-hand fighting
Aggression is strictly dependent on age, thus teenagers are most prone to use phys-ical forms of aggression7. Young girls oft en become involved in fi ghts with other representatives of their sex, in the same age, whom they usually know. Th e reasons of the fi ghts are predominantly questioning sexual reputation of another girl, which is usually connected with calling her such names as “a whore”, “a bitch”, “a rag”, etc. Moreover, even though girls are generally against hand-to-hand fi ghts as a success-ful way of solving a confl ict, every respondent surveyed by me considered it almost a necessity and a specifi c obligation in a situation when her “decent lifestyle” was questioned.
Kasia: “I’ve heard how my friend fought with one girl. First there was an ex-change of words between them. One of them had a very bad opinion from her primary primary school and two girls tagged along her, bullied her, pushed her during breaks, and fi nally they had a fi ght. One of them was scratched, the other had a bleeding lip. It is most painful when someone says that you change boys like socks, something like that. It happens a lot that girls call each other names, it is not always justifi ed”.
Koza: “I won’t sit and talk, I won’t explain, I’d like to sort everything out with, you know… with (a fi st). Yesterday, the second chick run away from me, she was a chicken. On a match I accidentally nudged a girl and she started calling me names. When I went outside, all the girls were there but her. She chickened out. And how not to react to ‘Don’t shove, fuck!?’”.
Girls, very oft en as a part of their rivalry, dare to judge the sexual habits of their rivals, charging them with promiscuity. It is probably the sharpest form of
aggres-6 Ibidem, p. 104.
sion of women in general towards their rival. Moreover, in a competitive situation, girls very oft en discuss these issues in public and behind the back of the slandered person8. In accordance with evolutionary psychology, the chances of a woman to secure for herself a life partner depend foremost on the evaluation of her faithfulness. It is about the certainty of fatherhood and contribution to parenthood9. Moreover, girls avoid contact with the girls that do not hold a decent opinion as to their sexual abstinence. Th ey fear a kind of generalisation and thus a fl aw in their reputation10.
Michalina: “I’ve recently seen three fi ghts. But I’ve heard about a lot of others. Usually one girl calls another names, the other says something back and then it begins. Sometimes, one girl just gives another a strange look. It happens to me, too. When some girl looks weird at me, I come closer to her, I know it’s stupid, but it’s just what I am”.
Ania: “I don’t want to be ever called ‘a hooker’ or ‘a whore’, it’s probably the worst way of off ending somebody, especially in the presence of boys, but they don’t react or laugh. Usually, the insulted one talks back to the fi rst one and then they both take off ense”.
Girls create some distinction between the “decent” and so called “easy” ones, which is undoubtedly an instance of female sexism11. Girls are also prone to comment the physical appearance of other girls, who faced with the situation, usually react with silence and they back away or pretend that they cannot hear the remarks and com-ments directed at them. Th erefore, they rarely react to such hostile treatment.
Martyna: “We usually gossip, smear girls and boys. Th ere is this one main subject, there is me, Koza, Ala and we look what is going on around. When we see a chick that is awfully dressed and looks awful, we laugh at her . Such a total lack of aesthet-ics! Th ere was this girl we all three laughed at. Th e chick had such redneck pink trousers…” And did she hear that? “It’s impossible that she didn’t hear half the school laugh at her. She shouldn’t have dressed like that”.
Dorota: “Girls laugh at the way other girls look. Th ey oft en comment the appear-ance of diff erent girls, for example that they have protruding ears, an ugly blouse, or 8 D. Buss, op.cit., p 31.
9 D. Buss, D. Schmitt., Sexual Strategies Th eory: An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Mating,
“Psychological Review” 1993, Vol. 100, No. 2, p. 169.
10 A. Campbell, op.cit., p. 312. 11 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 140.
dirty hair. Th e others are afraid of engaging in the discussion. Th ey want to show that they are better, and the other ones – worse. Th e ones that laugh thing that no one can look better than them. Th e poor others usually don’t react, but they must hear them. Maybe because their gang is not with them, or they don’t have one at all”.
A confl ict arises also when a girl threatens a relationship of another girl with her boyfriend. She feels obliged to protect him from the temptations of the jealous and cunning friend12. Moreover, a lot of girls want even the boys they have long ago fi nished a relationship with to be exclusively their. It happens also if the indi-vidual of the opposite sex arises interest of some girl.
Kasia: “Once, my two friends quarrelled, then they made up, but they aren’t so close any more. It was about a boy. One of them liked him, and the other didn’t pay attention to him. But when she found out that the other liked him, she decided to attract him. So she betrayed her, because she didn’t say that she had liked the boy. It was strange because they were such good friends”.
Akne: “I have a friend I’ve trained seven years with and when we go on camps we always like the same boy because we have the same tastes. Once we were rivals which one would get dressed better, would have better makeup, would get a return text message from him, which one would talk to him more. We even quarrelled about it but I won anyway. Now it is diff erent. We talk about him with each other. For example, now we also like the same boy, but now I am the matchmaker, Matyl-da was fi rst, it was her that found him”.
Ola: “My best friend betrayed me once. For the initial months of our relationship it was superb, so we became best friends. We went on holiday together, when we came back, I heard that she smears me behind my back, I found out what she thought about me from other people. Th en I asked her about it. She said she saw a rival in me, you know, it was about boys, because she liked my present boyfriend then. And the friendship ended”.
2. Machiavellian intelligence and indirect aggression
Th e intensity of relationships among girls is the basis to understand the mecha-nisms that are responsible for aggression and its forms. Anne Campbell claims that girls are most afraid of isolation and of rejection through exclusion from a group.
For this reason, relationships with other people are of such an importance in a girl’s life. Th e fact also implicates a diff erent reaction to a loss13. Since, as we know, our culture does not allow girls to engage in physical acts of aggression and because they develop social intelligence much faster than boys, they are able to practice numerous strategies of social manipulation. Th ey do so to be dominant or to ex-press anger and because they have learned to behave like that from their mothers, grandmothers, mentors, etc14. Since girls are socialised far from aggression, they are not able to negotiate when they deal with a confl ict situation. Th en, even a tri-fl e can contribute to the termination of a relationship between girls. For a major-ity of the surveyed girls, a confl ict means losing something or someone. For boys aggression is connected with achieving control, whereas for girls it denotes a threat for their relationship with their close ones15. Resultantly, a considerable number of girls hides their personal views to adjust to others and sustain harmony in their social environment16. Th e need to place other needs and feelings over their own characterises girls’ attitude to relationships with other girls. Th ey have a tendency to minimise their own emotions, they fi nd them irrelevant, not worthy of causing confl icts17. Th e aim is to keep group egalitarianism.
Koza: “I speak of my true emotions only at home, among peers it hardly ever happens. I take it out then on my sister, my mom and dad. At school I try to withhold myself, I don’t want to off end anyone because of my emotions, someone might not like that I’m so aggressive. Th is is why I don’t always say what I think. Instead, I try to adjust to the other person, even when I’m irritated by something, I don’t show it. I’m really an aggressive person, but I’d rather not have enemies”.
Karolina: “When a friend asks me to do something I don’t feel like doing, e.g. to go somewhere, I still do it not to make her feel sad”.
In the world which socialises girls to value relationships with others above anything else, the fear of loneliness, isolation and losing friends explains girls’ deci-sions concerning the ways of confl ict solving which save them from direct con-frontation18. Th e fact that satisfactory relations with other people are of central meaning for girls carries signifi cant socio-psychological consequences. For
wom-13 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 80. 14 Ibidem, p. 94.
15 A. Campbell, op.cit., p. 149.
16 H. Fisher, Pierwsza płeć, Warszawa 1999, p. 69. 17 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 81.
en, self-esteem is strongly connected with their involvement in relationships. As a result, when facing a confl ict, the consequences of such a situation become for a girl especially arduous and severe19. A crisis in relations with other people usu-ally leads to alienation and loneliness, and the latter one especiusu-ally undermines the core of a girl’s identity. Girls are conscious that society expects them to be outgoing and caring. Loneliness and rejection are not proofs of mastering these attributes. Resultantly, the constant feeling of walking on an unexpected and uncertain ground of girls’ relations strongly impairs girls’ self-esteem and confi dence. Under the in-fl uence of stress coming from such a situation, girls have a tendency to internalise their problems instead of externalising them.
Koza: “I oft en have to pretend that I like some girls, even though I can’t stand them so that I don’t have a confl ict with them, especially when they have an older brother, the brother has friends. I could deal with girls alone”.
An inevitable consequence is the feeling of tiredness, alienation, or sadness20. Girls fi nd exceptionally hard the situations when people close to them undermine their competences and achievements, burden them with unrealistic expectations concerning the fulfi lment of goals without a proper support or the necessary means. Nevertheless, the biggest harm for a girl is a feeling of lack of respect or proper attention on behalf of other close ones, especially in prominent and break-through situations for the individual. Th erefore, girls get angry more oft en when they are neglected or patronised21, especially when similar behaviour of other people is praised and appreciated. Young women worry then that something is wrong with them, that they do not come to the expectations of other people, and this is what they think they are valued for. A factor that strengthens this state is the female ability, or in other words, talent to “read” people. Both girls and women catch subtle signals sent by another person, they discover an individual’s motiva-tion and desires faster and more precisely than boys. Th e useful gift of reading emotions from facial expression, deciphering the mood of an interlocutor basing on gestures and facial mimics22 oft en looks like a match in which they shot into their own goal. A mistake in reading a communicate in the world of girls’ hidden aggression, which happens a lot, can carry really serious consequences. In the world
19 A. Campbell, op.cit., p. 223.
20 R. Simmons, Odd Girl out, New York 2003, p. 223. 21 A. Campbell, op.cit., p. 149.
22 P. Heim, S. Murphy, In the Company of Women. Indirect Aggression Among Women. Why We
of girls, friendship is a weapon, and there is no bigger punishment than turning one’s back on somebody23. However, in this culture, anger is expressed very rarely, and facing a confl ict, girls will use the language and specifi c unwritten rules of “justice”, which are known only to them, and thus are understood only by them. It is indirect aggression (here provocation and manipulation) that is the most popular form of hostile behaviour of girls. Kaj Bjorkqvist, a Finnish researcher of the phenomenon of girls’ aggression, defi nes indirect aggression as hostile behaviour whose aim is to hurt a rival, in which, at the same time, the identifi cation of the aggressor is almost impossible24. Th e girls that use indirect aggression more oft en have their Machiavel-lian intelligence better developed. According to Tomasz Witkowski, it is “an adapta-tion to dealing with the complexity of life in half-lasting groups and with a situaadapta-tion that engages a potentially complicated balance between cooperation and rivalry with the same individuals”25. Evolution happening in complex social groups began, then, to favour manipulators that can use others for their own purposes. Th e point is not to be identifi ed as the provoker of the attack and not to be the potential object of a rival’s revenge. Th e fact that girls develop this kind of intelligence sooner pre-disposes them to solve confl icts among them in a more “peaceful” way, i.e. using a rich variety of techniques of indirect aggression.
Karolina: “When some girl rattles our cage, we usually smear her, her looks, or if some girl has cool clothes or if she looks ugly. And if some girl hurts me, I’d stran-gle her, but you know, it’s just thinking. (…) Girls wear makeup for boys and other girls to make them see how beautiful they are, it is kind of unconscious rivalry among them. It happens also with clothes. (…) Gossiping and ignoring are normal in our school, only nobody says it’s aggression”.
Kasia: “Fist fi ghts are childish, I don’t understand it at all. Verbal aggression is more acceptable, it happens more oft en any way, even to me. Oft en some girl spreads gossip about someone and then the whole school knows. And it really hurts some-times”.
Koza: “When I play basketball and I’m angry, I try to take it back and make everyone think it wasn’t my fault. For example, I take her balls away from her or I do everything to make her foul me, so that it’s her fault, not that I’m fouling. I feel like hitting when some girl calls me names. (…) I oft en look for trouble, but I know it’ll end one day, cause I can really get what’s coming and then I’ll regret it”.
23 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 85. 24 Ibidem, p. 92.
Indirect aggression (here provocation and manipulation) is the most oft en used form of hostile behaviour by girls. Th e conclusion, unfortunately, is that the culture that controls the forms of aggression has led girls and women to shape their un-physical mechanisms. Indirect aggression does not require risking your own life. Manipulation may be its form, the object of which is indirectly attacked and this is why it is diffi cult to fi nd the true aggressor. It can have its vent in avoiding some-one, stigmatising, or slandering them26. When an individual feels off ended, she just stops talking. Moreover, girls oft en exclude an unwanted person from informal meetings, ignore her or hold a unanimous front against her27.
Ola: “In the beginning of the fi rst year I met two nice girls, it was great. My old friend, now my enemy, who knew them, must have told them something and the two changed opinion about me. I didn’t really know why. Th e girls didn’t really know anything about me. Once I’d had it it because they started calling me names such as a whore, a rag, etc. We started hitting one another then. Now we don’t notice one another, just like tat”.
Rachel Simmons distinguishes the following kinds of girls’ aggression: rela-tional aggression, i.e. one that wants to “harm others through damage (or the threat of damage) to relationships or feelings of acceptance, friendship, or group inclu-sion; indirect aggression that allows the perpetrator to avoid confronting her target, and social aggression that is intended to damage self-esteem or social status with-in a group”28. An example of relational aggression is ignoring someone, excluding her from a group, calling names, sabotaging someone else’s relationship, negative mimics or gestures. Here, the fact that the perpetrator is in a close relation with her victim is her strongest weapon. In addition, an illustration of indirect aggression can be a situation in which a perpetrator makes it seem as though there has been no intention to hurt at all and uses other people (spreading a rumour), which makes thus her identifi cation as the perpetrator impossible.
Ola: “Girls are rivals when it comes to boys. Th en they spread rumours, usually untrue rumours, that others are easy, so that the boy could hear that. Such a girl has no chance to defend herself ”.
26 A. Campbell, op.cit., p. 149. 27 H. Fisher, op.cit., p. 71. 28 R. Simmons, op.cit., p. 21.
Social aggression, which is very much alike the previous one, takes the forms of exclusion, collective mockery, etc. A typical situation is reported by Kasia:
− When I annoy someone, or someone annoys me, I instantly have the impres-sion that others talk about it among one another, they look in this way, and talk behind my back. It can be noticed that somebody talks about you all the time, and they even weren’t witnesses of the situation.
− How do you react to that?
− I feel sad, when it’s very intense I react, but if it’s bearable, I’d rather leave it, they’ll fi nally get over it.
− And when you defend yourself, how do you do it?
− I say, “stop slandering me!” Something like that.
Relational aggression starts in kindergarten, when the fi rst diff erences between the sexes become clearly visible. It is believed that such behaviour starts when a child is able to create meaningful relationships with other people. Before turning three, most girls are visibly more relationally aggressive than boys, and in time the disproportion grows further29. Among the most popular acts in this category, it is possible to diff erentiate nonverbal gestures, body language, punishing with silence, creating an alliance against a particular girl, threats such as, “do it or else I won’t be your friend”. Behaviour like the above is predominantly present in the circle of the closest social environment. Th e closer the relation perpetrator – her target appears, the more severe the loss feels. Only the closest friend knows the most sensitive spots of her best friend, so she knows how to hurt her most drastically30. Simmons calls all the kinds of aggressive behaviour with the term of alternative aggression. Alternative aggression is almost invisible for the eyes of adults. Girls send each other hostile looks, send letters, whisper secretly about others, looking at the same time in the eyes of a terrifi ed victim. It is diffi cult to punish such behaviour, it is also problematic to reach its the essence, nobody infl icts pain on anyone, at least not physical31.
29 Ibidem, p. 43.
30 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 31. 31 R. Simmons, op.cit., p. 21.
3. On the words “I’m sorry”, forming an alliance and sense of humour
What is the way, then to save and mend a relationship whose sustaining is so much correlated with girls’ self-esteem? Carol Gilligan observed in girls an unusual and mysterious ability or predisposition to apologise even when they believe the fault is not on their side, which leads to a happy ending of a quarrel like in fairy tales32.
Koza: “Girls are diff erent from boys. Th ey take off ense and you have to apologise to them on your knees, as if I don’t know what happened, they don’t speak to you for a week, for example. But fi nally everything is explained. It’s fi ne”.
Kasia: “For two off ended girls it is easier to make up than for boys. Even though they are rivals, they can understand and they forgive each other. Friendship is just too important”.
Lest us remember that for girls it is a priority to maintain close relations with others at any cost. Th e words “I’m sorry” can be a universal code that informs about a truce. Th e need to clear the air from the confl ict is so strong that it subdues the desire to explain its actual reasons. Resultantly, it looks like squeezing a gene into a bottle, which sooner or later will be opened. Th e old, unsettled confl icts are fas-tidiously imprinted in girls’ memory and read when facing another confl ict, espe-cially in pairs and cliques.
Girls more oft en create permanent peer groups which consist of pairs and threes. Th ey are perfectly aware as to the composition and hierarchy of the group and the social status of individual members of such groups. To illustrate, in the set of school students surveyed by me there are three groups of girls: “the popular ones” - cool, noisy, fashionable, trendy, etc.; “the silent mice” - modest, low-key ones; “the isolating ones” - wearing heavy boots, listening to unfashionable music. It is a fact that girls’ cliques are formed basing on the criteria of physical attractiveness and physical image of their members. It means that the attractive girls will spend more time with other attractive girls, and vice versa. Th e girls that are similar as to their physical appearance and character will stick together rather than isolate themselves33. In spite of the similarities, girls describe their social environment – pairs and cliques as a world of unsolved confl icts, which like hail clouds loom in the air, creating a mischievous impression of silence before a storm of emotions
32 Ibidem, p. 76.
that, accumulated due to the rare articulation of objections, can explode fi red by the tiniest spark. As a consequence, girls are afraid that the success of closest friends will cause the end of their friendship. Resultantly, the egalitarianism and similari-ties appear so important in such relations, even if it happens as a result of losing individuality34. Th ere is also a rule of exclusiveness, which is visible especially when a third party arises on the horizon, one that wants to join an already existent pair. For this reason, under no circumstances can a friend let the other feel that she neglects her and spends more time with another girl. It is a specifi c mechanism of preventive control, which serves as a protection against losing friendship, in which a lot of time and energy is invested.
Koza: “My friend sometimes accuses me of spending too little time with her. And I’m trying to distribute my time to everyone, e.g. one day I meet with her, one with my boyfriend or someone else, and there is school and trainings, and she sometimes has a problem with this”.
Ania: “I’d like my best friend not to have any more friends. I’d be afraid that she wouldn’t give me so much attention”.
Karolina: “I wouldn’t forgive my best friend if she made friends with another girl and she’d hang out with me but wouldn’t like me, if she was double faced and had some hidden goal in being my friend”.
Ania: I wouldn’t be able to forgive if my best friend lied to me in a serious mat-ter, for example if she pretended to be my friend but revealed my secrets to another friend and smeared me behined my back”.
Koza: “Once we quarreled about a third girl. I pretended I liked her, I don’t know why. We both quarreled about my friend. I remember that I always tried to do eve-rything very fast to spend with her as much time as possible. Th e other tried to do the same”.
In addition, losing a friend is inevitably connected with revealing the secrets she was endowed with, which constitutes a real threat for her relations with other girls, and especially with boys35. A fl aw in the net of relations among girls can rarely be mended. As I have mentioned before, friends are especially envious of each other, for this reason they watch and control their contacts with other people. All the respondents, without any exception, provided trust as the most important and essential ingredient of friendship. Spending time with untrustworthy people
34 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 109. 35 A. Campbell, op.cit., p. 248.
can result in a serious scratch in a girl’s image and her reputation, provided that her secret is revealed. Th erefore, maintaining a relationship with other girls needs permanent surveillance, auto-censorship and control of their own behaviour, which kill, subdue spontaneity and passion36. However, even self-control does not give a guarantee for a safe position of an individual in a group. Oft en, a small ac-cidental mistake results in the creation of a hostile campaign staff against the one to blame, and there is nothing more harmful for a girl than an alliance of other girls formed against her.
Małgosia: “Basically, it’s always the same reason. Th e other girls laugh when I can’t do some exercise on the blackboard, or something like that. Th en I try even harder, to show them, and then I can’t do anything anymore. Th e teacher doesn’t react, and I can’t start a quarrel in the classroom, can I? One of the girls is espe-cially irritating. I’m pissed off by her behaviour, she thinks she’s the best and treats others like things. She oft en comments my behaviour, but you can’t tell her anything. I feel like telling her all that, but somehow I don’t have the courage”.
Not only does such a form of relational aggression make the victim face the loss of the relation with her present enemy, but with the whole faithful clique of her friends, as well. Th e aggressor will venture into an extensive campaign to fi nd sup-port for her (the right one) point of view, just to destroy, punish , and humiliate her rival. Such a “back” is a secret relational “ecosystem”, which blooms where a confl ict between two individuals should not bloom37. Th e alliances are created mainly by spreading rumours among friends. At fi rst, people pass on verbal communicates, fi nally sitting at telephone and the Internet cables. Building an alliance includes also scratching old, though here yet unhealed, wounds in the form of the gathered information on previous confl ict situations, which took place between the pres-ently quarrelling girls. Usually, the appeals are directed at these individuals who share some history with the victim and can quickly remember a specifi c event38. It looks at least like an act of espionage. For numerous girls, building an alliance constitutes a unique opportunity to belong, if temporarily, to a created ad hoc clique or a larger group of people, as its legal member. Joining such a support group
36 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 82. 37 A. Campbell, op.cit., p. 248. 38 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 154.
of the aggressor makes it possible to off er her help in a situation of a confl ict and to feel unity39.
Michalina: “Girls in gangs usually support one another. If one of them does something wrong, others will explain her, help her. Hen, it isn’t important who is guilty. Th ey just defend their territory. Such a confl ict is very dangerous, because people from the opposite groups are hostile to one another. I feel pity for a girl who is alone then”.
Belonging to an alliance is a mark of peer affi rmation, a guarantee, an unspoken contract which means that in this specifi c period, “the leader” will not be left alone. Provided that a confl ict begins to expire, and it does not focus as much attention of the environment as it used to, there arises a need – according to girls’ logic – to enliven it. It can be achieved e.g. by commenting the appearance of the victim or by attracting new supporters40. As a result, the actual reasons of the confl ict become deformed and it receives an extensive life. Th e most popular girl in her group will-ingly describes her behaviour:
Akne: “I’m very mean by nature and I don’t hide anything from anybody. With a friend we oft en shout to the whole room about what a sweater some girl’s got and so on. Everybody laugh, but for this girl it isn’t rather funny. I remember once a girl teased me, there were confl icts between us, we had a problem with her, she was once called ‘a cement mixer’ by me and she was stuck with it, cause they like me and not her. And it was taken up. Later we had a case with the pedagogue, like we were harassing her psyche. I didn’t feel sorry. Anyway, ‘the cement mixer’ was in an even worse situation aft er the visit at the pedagogue’s”.
Th e construction of alliances has one more function to fulfi ll, i.e. the commu-nity secures a safe space for mean girls in a culture which does not allow them to engage in individual acts of aggression. Th e feeling of guilt that they experience due to the hostile treatment of others becomes less troublesome when the respon-sibility for their actions can be divided by a bigger number of people. A consider-able number of my respondents appeared to be victims of such behaviour. Alli-ances create a net of relations in which girls defi ne their own social norms and
39 R. Simmons, op.cit., p. 82. 40 Ibidem.
decide when a given person should become the addressee of their aggression41. It is a specifi c mob law.
Another, very eff ective and popular way to hurt a peer, of course indirectly, is humour. Jokes are specifi c camoufl age that the initiator of attacks wears. A victim must choose between her own feelings and what she wants to hear from a friend. Usually, she chooses the second option, which is an excellent example of the fact that a girl is able to resign from her own version of reality for the ones that are in charge of naming or reconfi guring her experience42. For girls, whose aggression is usually channelled through body language, and who in their majority share the need to punish others for expressing their anger, humour appears to be very useful43.
Conclusions
Apparently, the phenomenon of girls’ aggression aimed at their peers is more com-plex than it might seem. Its reasons, character and consequences are oft en beyond reach for an average observer, not because of they are rare, but due to the extraor-dinary camoufl age used by girls in their everyday actions. To research the mecha-nisms that rule girls’ aggression, the generally accepted understanding of aggres-sion should be defi ned fi rst and it should not be limited only to its physical forms. Neither should an assumption be accepted that if girls are less physically aggressive than boys, they are not aggressive at all. Th is faulty logic has resulted in the fact that we still do not know enough about the rivalry of girls and women, and nowa-days such knowledge would be highly useful, taking into consideration that repre-sentatives of this sex are entering the public sphere. Development of knowledge in this fi eld will also make it possible to overthrow the myth of a “devilish” vs. “an-gelic” girl, which creates an image either of an emotionally imbalanced and aggres-sive girl, or of a cute doll. Th e culture of indirect aggression off ers girls the whole world, simultaneously, holding them on a leash. Self confi dence and rivalry are inevitable to achieve success, but they do not fi t into the defi nition of femininity. Rivalry is characterised by the need to be better than someone else, and this, as we know, does not become “good girls”. Th e stigma of girls that does not accept
ag-41 A. Campbell, op.cit., p. 224. 42 P. Chesler, op.cit., p. 81. 43 R. Simmons, op.cit., p. 79.
gression makes it impossible to fi nd vent for their negative feelings. If girls them-selves are not sure who they should be, they will express their negative emotions to one another, hurting one another, and thus being a part of a vicious circle.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Aronson E., Człowiek istota społeczna, Warszawa 2000. Buss D., Psychologia ewolucyjna, Gdańsk 2003.
Buss D.M., Schmitt, D.P., Sexual Strategies Th eory: An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Mating, “Psychological Review” 1993, Vol. 100, no. 2.
Campbell A., Jej niezależny umysł, Kraków 2004.
Chesler P., Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, New York 2003. Fisher H., Pierwsza płeć, Warszawa 1999.
Heim P., Murphy S., In the Company of Women. Indirect Aggression Among Women. Why
We Hurt Each Other and How to Stop, New York 2003.
Krahe B., Agresja, Gdańsk 2005.
Simmons R., Odd Girl out, New York 2003.
Witkowski T., Inteligencja makiaweliczna, Warszawa 2005.
SUMMARY
Th e following article focuses predominantly on the issue of teenage aggression and com-petition among girls and aims at revealing the real nature of this commonly neglected and ignored sphere of female operation. It is beyond doubt that relationships among girls con-stitute to a great extent their closest social environment and become, therefore, a signifi cant part of their realty. Regrettably, the true character of this phenomenon has hardly been depicted by social sciences which leaves women’s aggression towards other women (delib-erately) unsaid. Our society for diff erent reasons does not perceive direct aggression as appropriate and acceptable for young females and, consequently, imposes strict limits on their behaviour through the process of socialization. Th e commonly shared conviction concerning female liability to co-operation rather than aggression does not contradict the fact that girls are not violent and aggressive. Th ey simply externalize their anger in more sophisticated and indirect ways, which makes it even harder to identify. To conclude, the article, focuses on phenomena of female indirect, relational and social aggression among teenagers. It also emphasizes the role of Machiavellian intelligence, the power of apologies and humour as useful tools for preventing or resolving adolescent fi ghts and confl icts.
