I'm reading Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye right now. The story is one of Western womanhood in the latter half of the 20th century, and the narrator just took me through her ordinary childhood where she was constantly ridiculed and evaluated by her three "best friends". Atwood captures this element of girlhood so perfectly that I felt pain reading it, remember my own tormentors from my youth. What makes it so real is that none of the teasing is bad enough to warrent adult attention.
Today, I subbed in a third grade room where I can watch these very same games being played out, where a girl may be "in" at the beginning of the day and then suddenly gets called names. And there's usually a ringleader, who twists and manipulates, and eventually rules by fear. It's not quite bullying, but it's not good either. Who teaches our young women to act this way to one another? Do we, as adults, unknowingly reward the popular one?
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