Are Girls Mean?

‘…The frenzy over so-called mean girls, the subject of (Rachel) Simmons’ book, Odd Girl Out, as well as a spate of other books just out (Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes; Emily White’s Fast Girls; Phyllis Chesler’s Women’s Inhumanity to Women), is building. She recently appeared on Oprah — for the second time. Newsweek just put a mean girls story on the cover. And for the second week in a row, she was listed on the New York Times best seller list. (Last week she climbed to number 6.)

Buoyed by a wave she doesn’t entirely understand, Simmons has come to conclude that the interest in her topic is linked to the concern over adolescent bullying provoked by the Columbine high school shootings, whose perpetrators had been ostracized by their peers. While Columbine involved boys, Simmons says, “it was only a matter of time before girls were discussed.” ‘ Seattle Weekly [via AlterNet]