Just Give Up
Making things a whole lot harder for all of us
Erin Campbell Watson
Issue date: 11/7/08 Section: Opinions & Editorials
This week, because I have a column and because I can, I'm going to write a column about something that bothers me. It has to do with love because it is related to the ways in which girls sabotage and ruin other girls relationships, personal lives, and even attempts at friendship, because they believe they are advancing mens' opinions of them. I spend too much of my time wondering why most girls I know seem to work so hard to sabotage others around them while firmly affixing smiles on their faces.
I have been bothered by the sense of compliance girls feel in groups, when they pick an absent frienmey to subtly attack or exclude, and the ability girls have to casually dismiss the ways in which they hurt other girls, as if other girls are less than people, and the men they are trying to please are worth the scorn and disgust they will face from the rest of Girl World.
Madeline Albright famously stated that she believes there is a "special place in hell for women who don't help other women." And while I don't know if I'd stick them right down there in the ninth circle with Judas and all the other traitors, I do know that I wouldn't be above letting them hang out in the seventh with those guys who were eating at each others' brains. Pathologically, that's pretty much what we do to each other. I know a lot of women who would probably enjoy the opportunity to finally scratch out the best features of their most detested frienemies.
Probably the closest thing to a girl in the animal kingdom is a hyena. The evident similarities are represented quite nicely in the Lindsay Lohan flick, "Mean Girls," which features a scene comparing high school girls to rampaging jungle animals. I've learned that this classification doesn't really go away -- it just becomes more poignant. It also switches social stratums. It seems that by the time girls reach college age, most of them have become exhausted by the constant struggle for survival that they have imposed upon each other, and they are willing to occasionally treat other girls as if they were real people. Many girls, probably those who believe that they spent their high school years unnecessarily traumatically being victimized by girls who learned more quickly how to blow-dry their hair without turning it into a triangle, are kind of yearning for their turn to be at the top of the food chain.
I have been bothered by the sense of compliance girls feel in groups, when they pick an absent frienmey to subtly attack or exclude, and the ability girls have to casually dismiss the ways in which they hurt other girls, as if other girls are less than people, and the men they are trying to please are worth the scorn and disgust they will face from the rest of Girl World.
Madeline Albright famously stated that she believes there is a "special place in hell for women who don't help other women." And while I don't know if I'd stick them right down there in the ninth circle with Judas and all the other traitors, I do know that I wouldn't be above letting them hang out in the seventh with those guys who were eating at each others' brains. Pathologically, that's pretty much what we do to each other. I know a lot of women who would probably enjoy the opportunity to finally scratch out the best features of their most detested frienemies.
Probably the closest thing to a girl in the animal kingdom is a hyena. The evident similarities are represented quite nicely in the Lindsay Lohan flick, "Mean Girls," which features a scene comparing high school girls to rampaging jungle animals. I've learned that this classification doesn't really go away -- it just becomes more poignant. It also switches social stratums. It seems that by the time girls reach college age, most of them have become exhausted by the constant struggle for survival that they have imposed upon each other, and they are willing to occasionally treat other girls as if they were real people. Many girls, probably those who believe that they spent their high school years unnecessarily traumatically being victimized by girls who learned more quickly how to blow-dry their hair without turning it into a triangle, are kind of yearning for their turn to be at the top of the food chain.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 3
Linda
posted 11/09/08 @ 8:59 PM CST
It's never O.K. to call another person a slut in social situations. It simply shows how mean spirited and low class the person using that term is--and that applies to any age and any maturity (or lack there of) level. (Continued…)
syklar
posted 4/29/10 @ 10:42 PM CST
linda what if the girl bones probably 1 to 3 guys a weekend i have a friend like that
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