At last week's babysitting gig, I leafed through a copy of BYU Today that was on top of the magazine pile. It had a short article describing a BYU study that found relationally aggressive behavior in girls occurs in pre-school--much earlier than was once thought.
The behaviors that fall under the umbrella of "relationally aggressive" were excluding other girls, withdrawing friendship, isolating and manipulating others into following suit. (What surprises me is that some women never quite grow out of this).
Anyway, when 5-year-old Stephanie got home from school, she pulled out her backpack of Barbies. Eight in all. We clothed the naked ones and decided they were going to see a movie.
As we were seating the octet in front of the TV, I put the Barbie in the white dress next to one Stephanie was playing with. Immediately, she said re: White Dress Barbie, "You can't sit with us! You're not our friend!" Huh? All eight were in the backpack together, but now there's segregation?
I tried to get a neutral Barbie to vouch for White Dress Barbie, saying, "I know her. She lives on my street. She's nice." That didn't take. After a few minutes, Pink Dress Barbie topped the Sh-t list. I tried to get Stephanie to explain why one Barbie had to be on the outs, but she didn't/couldn't. But at age five, she's tuned into these dynamics. Eeek.
Eventually, all eight Barbies sat down together (following some shuffling after Capri Pants Barbie was accused of not sharing her popcorn) and finished watching the screening of Blue's Clues. Reading about relationally aggressive behavior is one thing. Having it acted out with a five-year-old and her Barbies was a real eye opener.
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3 comments:
Huh.
I'm pretty sure I work with those effing barbies. Nice to know that "everything they needed to know, they learned in kindergarten."
Hmph.
I'm a *nice* barbie - and by nice, of course, I mean chubby and tolerant and NICE.
I've been reading about why girls do this in a book called The Female Brain. It's been a while since I read it, but a lot of it is hormonal and genetics with ties into linguistics and relational difference between boys and girls.
All I can say is, we're a scary lot in many ways and it's little wonder why laws and edicts restricting women have been and continue to be passed against us.
I'll drag out my book and find more precise information for you.
That's why I love the Scary Feminists: there's honesty, support, recipe exchanging, and a clear absence of that toxic RAB bullshit.
It bothers me that so many women keep using these tactics into adulthood. Bad enough that it was the stuff of grade school and junior high.
I "wasn't allowed" to play with the Bluebirds the days they wore their uniforms to school because I wasn't one. (I became one--what does that say?)
And in junior high when my best friend went to another school for 8th grade and the other two girls we used to hang out with wanted nothing to do with me.
In my singles ward, certain women engineered social events so they could spend time with the guys they were hot for--without the competition. That I'm even referring to it as a competition nauseates me, but I wasn't the one making it that way.
And I heard tales of the same happening at JPL: my replacement at work and the annoying officemate ganging up on the third for speaking Mandarin on the phone. Oh, I could knock their heads together.
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