Odd Girl Out
The bullied girl goes home and cries, and her poor mother has no idea what to do with her. When she asks what’s wrong, the little girl responds, “Nothing, just go away and leave me alone.” Finally the little girl will open up to her mother, and tell her everything that’s going on, and the mother furious that no one has done anything will step in and talk to the mother of the other child, the principle, the teacher, everyone she can until she finally gets the other child in trouble and gets her voice her that there is a problem.
When children are bullied starting at such a young age, their self-esteem falls and it’s hard for them to make friends and sometimes even have a normal life. It can cause drastic changes in their moods, and the child can be left a broken mess, that no one can clean up. The bullies really have no idea how much they damage someone just using their words.
As the children get older the fights become meaner and nastier. They can go from Taylor’s mom still buys her footie pajamas to Taylor’s the world’s biggest slut. Things like that can ruin a person for life. Another thing that bullies seem to like to prey on is body image. They can call the skinniest girl in the school fat, just because they don’t like her, and then everyone will be doing it. That girl could then develop an eating disorder, and it all started, just because someone didn’t like her.
In the chapter titled, Intimate Enemies, Rachel Simmons talks about how girls hurt their friends. They whisper behind their friend’s back, while glaring at them out of the corner of their eyes. Right then the person being stared at feels uncomfortable and knows that something is starting to go wrong. They don’t want to believe it, so when they ask, “What’s so funny?” and their friend replies, “Oh it’s nothing,” on the outside they believe them, but on the inside they know that’s not true.
The book does raise questions, I feel that if girls know how mean they can be, and they do, then why do they still do it. It’s not like it will look good on a resume or college application. Do they just do it to hold power over someone? Do they like to belittle people?
When you think of a bully, most people think of a big burly boy, not some little girl that is really sweet to everyone. The female bullies are out there and they need to be noticed. Girls are brutal, if you’re too big they make fun of you, if you’re too small they make fun of you, if you wear the wrong style shirt to school they make fun of you. Every little thing you do they pick on and make you feel like you’re so small.
This book makes you think. Everyone at one point or another has either been the bully or been bullied, so then why do teachers not do anything about it. If they see the girl shoot another girl a dirty look, why don’t they question why or anything like that. They just seem to let it go, and let it roll right off their shoulders. Just because a person can be really sweet around adults, does not mean that they are always like that.
Female bullying is around in all cultures, with girls of all ages, even adults! As the years go by the fights go from “you stole my pen” to “you stole my husband” or “you stole my promotion.” The adult bullies are few and far between, but they are still out there.
Female aggression is often seen in the teenage years. That’s when more girls tend to turn on each other the most. There tends to be more pressure from parents to get good grades, and get involved in activities, so when something happens between two friends someone usually tends to snap because they are under a lot of stress. Their bodies are changing and so are their interest, so why is it that when we need each other the most, we are often turning on each other?
When you are the person who is the outcast, it hurts. No one ever seems to think, “Well what if the show was on the other foot.” That’s not how girls think. By getting everyone on “your side” you now have the power and you can almost control the other person. It’s hard for us to admit, but honestly who wouldn’t want the power, it will make everyone like you, and you would become one of the most popular people in school. But like most things, popularity comes with a cost. You belittle a person who has stuck by you through all the tears, the break-ups, and who has been there all along, and that’s just to become popular.
One of the most common things when dealing with female bullying and aggression is depression, which can lead to other things such as self-harm and suicide. It’s in our nature as humans to want and crave relationships in general no matter if they are healthy or not. When your friends are all turning on you, you just don’t want to believe them, or you try and fix all the things that they make fun of you for. You get different clothing, change your hair, your shoes, start doing worse in school, and this is all just to get a few people to like you. However nothing seems to work.
Once they’ve turned on you, you now have no one to sit with at lunch, chat with between classes, or hang out with after school. You’re “friends” all make plans to go to the movies this weekend right in front of you, but no one’s even asked you if you would like to come, so you chime in and say “Oh I can’t go this weekend my mom needs my help cleaning the house.” And one of the girls says, “Well what makes you think you were invited.” This stings. It rings in your ears and all you can say to yourself to not cry is those funny lyrics you heard in the car on the way to school. Once you get in the comfort of your own room at home, the tears just come. All you want to do is curl up and die, because you’ve had it confirmed. They don’t like you anymore, and now you have no idea what to do.
When you go through this type of thing at such a young age, it can ruin you for years to come. You end up with trust issues, and believe that every friend you’ve ever made will leave you. When that one friend comes along that hasn’t left, you still fear that they will, because no one has shown them differently. No matter how many times you tell them you won’t run, it’s always in the back of their mind.
In the section labeled, Annie’s Story, Rachel Simmons talks about a young girl who is torn between two friends. One is more of a loner, Samantha, and the other is one of the popular, Alison. Towards the end of the friendship with the Samantha, she started to act like a stalker would. The mother was so worried; that she would intercept phone calls meant for her daughter and would tell Samantha that Annie couldn’t speak on the phone today. Annie felt like she couldn’t do anything. Whatever she did would make one of them more upset. Eventually she had to rid herself of both friendships, because they just weren’t healthy for a child that young to have.
Just Kidding, talks about girls that use humor to get back at someone. They will start making rumors up about a girl or talking about a girl behind their backs to one of their friends, but the moment they are caught by an authority figure, they were “just kidding.” By saying this they think that everything is ok, and that they can keep talking about this as long as they are “just kidding.”
When you start to get others involved in the fight, they are known as the Middlegirls. They are the people that don’t want to take sides, but go from friend to friend telling one what the other said. Many times this makes the situation worse, because the girl in the middle likes the attention she’s getting, so she makes matters worse, by saying something different than the other girl side. The analogy that Rachel Simmons used was a ping pong ball, because the middle girl is being tossed between two girls that are like ping pong paddles.
One of the reasons Rachel Simmons gives for writing this book is because when she was young, she too had to deal with bullies when she was young. In the beginning of the book she talks about how every young girl is either bullied or the bully. Female bullying goes so unnoticed because adults just chalk it up to be girls being girls. However if it’s boys fighting then they do yell at them to stop.
Odd Girl Out is also a movie, and it takes a few of the different stories and meshes them all into one big story. We see how cruel girls can be and just how much damage they can do, with only one rumor. But we all know how it is once one rumor spreads; it escalates from there. If some young teenagers wouldn’t want to read the book, the movie addresses the same issue, and honestly I think it gave the story of female aggression a little more meaning because it was a visual thing, you didn’t have to imagine anything happening because it was happening right in front of you.
Though Rachel Simmons writes very well, it felt as if she kept making her point over and over again. Maybe that was the point of the book, but she would use different stories from people, and then would say pretty much the same thing about each one. The girl was bullied by another girl, bullying is bad, adults need to step in sooner, we’ve all been there. It never felt that each story had it’s individual problem that she addressed and I think it would have benefited a lot more from that.
The intended audience would have to be women from the ages of 15-100. If teenagers were to read this book, then maybe they would understand how cruel they can be and how hurtful they can be to their fellow classmates, even when they don’t mean to. No matter the age a woman will always be able to relate to this topic, no matter if they were the bully or the one being bullied. Maybe if the bully were to watch it they would remember how they treated that girl in high school, and think back and now feel sorry for them, and the pain that they caused.
Female bullying is everywhere and needs to become more noticed. We punish the boys for being bullies and fighting but just because you don’t always see the girls directly do something, doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing it. Girls can be very sneaky and will usually shoot glances behind their backs.
Rumors spread like wild fires and can damage any girl’s reputation, self-esteem, and even their lives. Because someone may have called them a name once, it can have daunting repercussions on anyone. Bullies beware adults are watching now, so stop making that poor girls life miserable and start lending a helping hand. I give this a 6 out of 10 Stars.
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