We Need to Retire the Phrase "Girls are Mean"

one of my best friends and I this Fall. Also lots of photobombers, but I don't care I love this pic. :) 

I interned in a middle school this past semester and it was the most fun I've ever had in a classroom (which is saying a lot because I love being in any classroom). The students are still developing their senses of humor, they're awkward. Young in some ways, older in other. It's an age that I think gets a bad rap because, yeah...sometimes they're hormonal and smelly. But I still like it.

One of the huge issues I had though is how some girls sometimes would act, well, witchy. And it gets blamed on their age and the fact that they're a girl; I saw girls in the hallways during lunch at class change or in the cafeteria during lunch doing something underhanded and cruel to another girl in the class and the teacher would have intervene to stop the behavior. When I would retell the story in horror to others later or they would sympathize and then say, "well, girls are mean." And here's the kicker... it was girls who were saying this!

Why is it that when the bully is male the cruel action is the fault of the individual, but when the bully is female it's the fault of the entire sex? No. I am taking a stand on that statement and saying no, it is not acceptable that we chalk up cruel, vicious, behavior to two X chromosomes.

I'm a girl. I'm not mean.

My best friends are girls and they're not mean either. We weren't inherently mean at age eleven and we're not mean now. Now, I'm not saying that we never did mean things to one another. It certainly happened. I remember one time in middle school several friends and I were talking about how one of our friends was a better singer than another, and it just so happened that the girl was sitting right there. I don't know if I've ever been more ashamed in my life. I apologized profusely, and while she accepted my apology I could tell the shame remained with her and it remained with me too. Mean-ness is not inherent to our gender just as compassion is not.

"Girls are mean," is problematic language just in general but when we're talking about bullying it strips the personal responsibility from the bully and removes it to something that is (generally, at that age) unchangeable-- gender. By chalking it up to the fact that the mean girl is female is like saying "therefore nothing can be done about it," and allowing it to continue.

Instead of saying, "well, girls are mean" we should be saying, "wow, that girl is mean." And as teachers we should make clear that cruelty, in any form, is unacceptable.

*steps of soap box, dusts off cardigan* Thanks for letting me rant. I'm done. Happy Tuesday!

x M

P.S. The pic above is of one of my roommates and best friends, Erica. She is one of the kindest people I know. And, obviously, she's a girl. Just sayin'. Her blog lives here.