Not all young bullies are boys
Girls aggressive behavior can be deeply wounding, author says
BY DEBORAH BACH P-I reporter; Jan. 27, 2004

  Rachel Simmons, author of two books on female bullying, has a confession to make - she was once a bully herself.
  Appearing at Seattle Girls' School yesterday during a cross-country tour promoting her new book, the 29-year-old Brooklynite came clean to a group of about 100 middle-schoolers.
  Simmons told them about her best childhood friend. The pair were inseparable until ninth grade, when Simmons joined the popular clique and, at the whim of its leader, turned on her girlfriend. Without explanation, the group stopped talking to the girl, who was devastated.
  “She eventually left the school and she never came back,” Simmons told the roomful of girls, who listened raptly. “That's how much we hurt her.”
  Simmons' second book, "Odd Girl Speaks Out: Girls Write about Bullies, Cliques, Popularity and Jealousy," was published in December. A collection of poems, songs and essays, the book sheds light on the particular brand of nastiness girls inflict on one another.
  Simmons contends there is a "hidden culture of girls' aggression," spawned by a society that denies girls the right to deal with conflict openly. Consequently, Simmons maintains, girls turn to covert forms of aggression: backbiting, exclusion, rumors and silence. Because anger is rarely articulated, the behavior flourishes beneath the radar of teachers and parents, making it nearly impossible to detect - and often deeply wounding.
  Yesterday, the middle schoolers shared their stories with Simmons and a panel of high school girls from Seattle's Holy Names Academy. Simmons has been hosting similar sessions around the country, abandoning the usual promotional bookstore appearances for what she calls "Oprah for girls" - rap sessions intended to provide younger girls with advice, comfort in the knowledge that they're not alone, and a venue to articulate what they've experienced. Audiences, she said, have been responsive.
  I think the reason why they are so eager (to talk) is that there really just isn't, unfortunately, an opportunity for girls to ask questions about the underside of friendship, the hard parts, the awkward moments and the feelings of discomfort," Simmons said in an interview earlier in the day. “It's really hard to find advice about that and yet ironically, it's probably the subject that's closest to their hearts - their friendships, their relationships.”
  Seattle Girls’ School students talked about being suddenly abandoned by friends, about being upstaged by them, about feeling devastatingly alone in a group of peers. Simmons - an animated speaker whose talk is peppered with girlspeak like "ohmygod," and “whatever” - empathized and offered insight. She talked about the forms of aggression girls engage in, from the social aggression that involves attacking someone’s self-esteem or reputation, to the indirect aggression that might prompt a girl to “accidentally” trip and slam someone into a locker.
  Girls practice their aggression secretly, Simmons told the group, “because we expect girls to play by different rules than boys. Girls are not allowed in our society to be angry, to be upset. They're told that a good girl is a nice girl.”

Marja Brandon, head of the private Seattle Girls' School, said that when Simmons contacted her in late summer about making a second appearance at the school, she welcomed her back.
  “For boys it's OK to show your emotions and be direct. For girls, somehow being direct isn't ladylike,” Brandon said. I think she does a great service by naming it, addressing it and letting us discuss some of those behaviors."
  Simmons has been on both sides of the bullying divide. The impetus for her bestseller “Odd Girl Out,” published in 2002, dates back to a third-grade classmate named Abby. The girl turned Simmons’ best friend against her, and soon persuaded the remainder of her friends to follow suit. Sixteen years later, as a Rhodes scholar studying at Oxford, Simmons found herself still trying to make sense of what had happened with Abby. She headed to the library, expecting to find reams of research on girl aggression.
  The dearth of information she encountered prompted Simmons to send an e-mail to her friends in the United States, asking for women's stories about female aggression. Within a day she was deluged with responses, and soon had a book contract.
  Simmons studied political science and women's studies at Vassar College, and was skeptical that she could break new ground on gender studies. But the response she encountered while working on her book indicated otherwise. “Everywhere I went - checkout lines, hair salons, a long-distance operator when I was signing up for a plan - everyone who heard what I was doing became immediately emotional and connected,” she said.
  While researching “Odd Girl Out,” Simmons got back in touch with the childhood friend she scorned, who was also working in Washington, D.C. They met for coffee one day, and the woman confronted Simmons about the past.
  Simmons, who had denied the behavior to herself, ended up apologizing.
  “Amazingly,” she said, “now we're good friends.”

P-I reporter Deborah Bach can be reached at 206-448-8197 or deborahbach@seattlepi.com