Odd Girl Out
Rachel Simmons
Summary
Dirty looks and snarky remarks are just a few examples of girl bullying. Rachel Simmons endured the embarrassment of being isolated when she was a little girl so she made it her goal to find out the hidden truth. In this book "Odd Girl Out" Rachel travels all around the country to visit schools, talk to counselors, and talk to mothers and their daughters about their bullying stories. She uses their real life examples from the perspective of both the victim and the bully to help inform the reader how to prevent bullying.
Authors Purpose
In the book "Odd girl out" the authors purpose was to help inform and bring attention to aggression in girls. On page 3 Rachel Simmons says "There is a hidden culture of girls aggression in which bullying is an epidemic, distinctive, and destructive. It is not marked by the direct physical and verbal behavior that is primarily the province of boys. Our culture refuses girls access to open conflict and forces their aggression into non physical, indirect, and covert forms."
3 Concepts
- Types of Bullying: There are 4 types of bullying. There is physical bullying which is hitting, kicking, tripping, pinching and pushing or damaging property. Verbal bullying includes name calling, insults, teasing, intimidation, homophobic or racist remarks, or verbal abuse.Covert bullying is often harder to recognize and is the perfected by most teen girls this generation. It is designed to harm someone's social reputation and/or cause humiliation. Covert bullying includes; lying and spreading rumors, negative facial or physical gestures, menacing or contemptuous looks, playing nasty jokes to embarrass and humiliate, mimicking unkindly, encouraging others to socially exclude someone, damaging someone's social reputation or social acceptance. Last but not least the most current forms of bullying is cyber-bullying. It is bullying using digital technologies.
- Reasons why girls bully other girls: because the female population has the need to be dominant and rule things. They want to feel as equal as males so they find conniving and sneaky ways to get what they want without letting others know what they're doing.
- Bullying Prevention: Most school counselors that Rachel interviewed stated that they've witnessed girl bullying but do nothing about it because its just a phase girls go through. Unlike boys, girls would rather sit and mull over an incident instead of getting violent. Bullying prevention works by changing the climate of the school. Most adults are naive to when bullying is occurring or the amount of bullying that students experience, the types of bullying that are most common, and when and where bullying occurs. An anonymous questionnaire given to students is a unique tool for probing into the social climate of the school that is typically visible only to them. But if worst gets to worst a no bullying rule should be enforced at schools for everyones safety.
Chapter Seven: Resistance
This chapter helped me make connections with my own life. It helped me understand that the heart of resistance appears to be an ease with truth telling, a willingness to know and voice their negative emotions. When girls make a choice to value their emotions, they value themselves. They tell the truth because their survival may depend on raising their voices in a hostile society.
Rate 1-5
3; This being the very first non-fiction book i thoroughly completed it was a very repetitive book that covered most of the same concepts and similar stories from now adults. Many times i read a story about a girl who befriended a popular girl and having to deal with her constant gossip and aggressiveness; This book should be read by all mothers and their daughters. It helps understand the truth behind bullies.
Pg. 87
"Like girls who take sides, middle girls who step in to help someone out in their time of need are met with the sort of gratitude and affection that thrives in situations where one person has a disproportionate amount of power." ~This passage is an example of how most major conflicts arise. Two girls start a fight and bring in unnecessary people to help them with the argument. To the people it seems to be a ping pong game. A championship. Like you want to win so you keep bouncing back and forth because you don't want to stop on one side or the other. But eventually the game has to end and you have to land somewhere.~
Pg. 213
"I got very good at listening to conversations. I remember spying, anything I could do to understand. I walked behind them to hear what they were saying. I got good at investigating." ~ This passage is an example of how most girls who are being bullied act. When dealing with rumors and snickering I always tried to find the source by playing detective. These girls can made your life hell and do it very slyly, like it wasn't hard at all I chose this passage because it is a prime example of how desperate girls get to find out why they've lost their best friend.~
Mean Girls
While i read this book many instances stood out to me. It reminded me of my favorite movie Mean Girls. This movie was an entertaining way to address the bullying issue before it was even a major dilemma like it is today just like in the book, there was a new girl who was previously home-schooled for her whole academic career and who previously resided in Africa. During her first year of high school she joined a clique called the "The Plastics" willingly to spy on the leader who was the most popular girl in school. Throughout the year she endured many aspects of girl bullying such as isolation, verbal abuse and just plain meanness. Sometimes in the movie she would switch from the girl who was being bullied by Regina to the victim who was bullying Regina. Most of the instances that were recorded in the book also happened in this movie.