Girls Against Girls: Why We Are Mean to Each Other and How We Can Change

By Bonnie Burton

Girls Against Girls is a must-read for today's strong, smart, and capable generation of young women. Now, more than ever, young women need to stand together and not tear each other down, and this book provides guidance on how to break the cycle. This informative read includes real scientific theories about why girls are cruel to each other, girls' war tactics, steps to take when things get out of hand, and positive advice for girls on how to unite and become more empowered. There's also advice from female artists and athletes, inspiring movie quotes, and an excellent resource section of empowering organizations to discover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781541581845

Bonnie Burton

Bonnie Burton is a regular contributor to Bust, Geek Monthly, Star Wars Insider, and Wired magazines, and contributed to the comic anthology The Girls' Guide to Guys' Stuff.

Book preview

1

WHY

We Hurt

Each Other

You’ve seen it in school, at camp, at home, and at your part-time job. We girls can be cruel. While most of us don’t resort to slugging it out in the hallway or schoolyard, many of us do go for sneakier and more drawn-out types of infighting — like mind games, gossip, and rumor spreading. It happens so much that expressions like Girls are mean are favorites among our parents, brothers, and even ourselves.

Psychologists even have a name for the way we engage in emotional warfare: relational aggression. And unlike physical violence that’s easy to spot, this type of girl drama can stay way below the radar. So parents and teachers often don’t even see it happening and, if they do, don’t take it seriously. Sometimes the girls who are psychologically beating up other girls don’t even realize that they are, in fact, doing it.

You have probably been a victim — and a perpetrator. We all have. So the big question is: Why do we do it? Just like with anything, we have to understand the problem before we can find the solution. On the following pages are some theories about why we fight the way we do.

theory 1  IT’S BIOLOGICAL

According to a number of scientists, some of our fighting is due to the way we are wired.

The Brain

Research has shown that the differences between women’s and men’s brains are very real, and that women’s brains are much more complex than men’s. Many scientists say that women, in general, are more communicative than men, have better facility with language, are more in tune with their emotions, have a stronger ability to sustain deep friendships, and have a better memory. These brain differences account for why women are so good at recognizing the emotions of others (Honey, what’s wrong?) and also for remembering every detail of an argument … forever (You said I was fat, and you said it at precisely 8:15 pm on Friday night while you were wearing that ugly blue shirt with pinstripes).

Meanwhile, scientists say that boys cannot easily sense when someone is annoyed or upset with them or even remember what yesterday’s fight was about, while girls are so in tune with everything going on around them that they observe and notice everything. This is a good quality in a lot of situations, but it also means that a girl will remember a hurtful comment for the next century, while a boy is more likely to forget about it by the next day.

Our Hormones

You have probably noticed that hormones affect our brains big time, and during our teen years those hormones, like estrogen and progesterone, start seriously rising. The amount of hormones released into our bodies (and brains) changes daily based on our menstrual cycles, and researchers believe these hormonal ebbs and flows affect our behavior, which makes us want to bond with our friends during certain parts of our cycle and kill them during others (hello, PMS!).

Monkey Business

Some researchers say that girls’ tendency to hurt each other in underhanded ways — like giving a friend the cold shoulder or spreading rumors — can be traced to primitive instinct. Researchers have observed female primates picking on other females by interrupting them while they are resting, feeding, or mating. In many of these cases, the victims suffered abortions and spent less time in heat, reducing their chances of reproducing. Ultimately, this infertility led to a greatly diminished social status.

Teen Brain

To top all of this off, there is the fact that you are a teenager, which simply means that your brain is in the middle of a crazy growth spurt.

Neuroscientists used to think human brains finished developing by age 6, but now they are saying that there is another brain growth spurt from age 11 to 20. During this time, the brain is firing 30,000 neural connections a minute in an effort to become more efficient. And where does much of this growth occur? In the prefrontal cortex — the area of the brain we use to make rational decisions. It’s great for our minds to improve themselves, but that amount of work can turn our decision-making capabilities into mush. In fact, a teen’s brain is more likely to get distracted and be ruled by emotion, leading to impulsive behavior. Then, poor judgments can be made, even by smart or normally confident

Reviews for Girls Against Girls

[junerain-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When I picked this book up I thought it was going to be more of a social commentary/social theory text. Instead, it turns out that this is a self-help book for teens. There's nothing wrong with that, but the content is overgeneralized and shallow.Burton refers to things like "studies" or "people think" or "in the past" but doesn't cite her sources on any of these things. She does give additional resources in the back of the book, mostly about feminism and empowerment, which is great. But her credibility would greatly increase if she'd cited some sources.Also, she says that "in the past" men would have more than one wife, leading to competition. She doesn't give any specific cultural background or a timeframe for this claim, and I think that sort of oversight is a huge flaw for a book like this. Almost every chapter could have been improved by more research and more context.On the chapter of the different types of bullying, some of her explanations also sounded like an honest-to-god how to guide for bullies. It seemed a little weird to me.(Review also posted on Goodreads)

[jexball · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Girls Against Girls attacks the age old question of why are girls so mean to each other? It's crazy to think that one girl can ruin another's life without breaking a sweat. Tactics such as gossip, dumping, verbal abuse, and even the silent-treatment have become typical attacks in the high school environment and beyond. Severe cases leave young girls with life altering disabilities such as eating disorders, depression, paranoia, or one of many other mental diseases that carry on into adulthood. The question still stands: why do we do this to each other? Author Bonnie Burton addresses the topic in a concise and straightforward manner. While I find it hard to believe that a teen girl would pick this book up on their own, I think that it would be a good resource for parents, teachers, and counselors to use to address the abuse that happens between girls. I believe this is a good book for parents to look at in order to gain a quick glance at some of the common problems among teenage girls today. A lot of the fighting between girls is overlooked because it is happening quietly or seen as a simple dispute between two people. It's not easy to gauge how bad the fight may be or how much damage it may be doing. In a way, guys have it easy: they yell, they punch, they forget....but women remember forever and man can they hold a grudge.