We hear so much these days about the Mean Girl Epidemic spreading throughout our middle and high schools. I even hear stories of it occurring in
elementary schools. It’s bad, for sure,
and takes an awful lot of diligence on the part of adults to keep it at
bay. We encourage our girls to do the
right thing and to live by a strong moral code.
What happens, though, when the Mean
Girls turn out to be adult women? We
don’t hear too much about it, but I can assure you that it’s alive and well
within our society.
Growing up, yours truly was the target of some Mean Girl (and Mean Boy, for that matter) behavior. Socially awkward and painfully shy, I was an
easy target, I suppose. It took years for
me to come to terms with that cruelty, but come to terms I did, and it’s made
me the woman I am today. I’m not sharing this with you to conjure up any
sympathy, but to prove a point: we can
all overcome it. I’ve built my life’s work around it, in
fact: I don’t want any little girl to
endure what I endured. I want every
little girl to know she’s special, she’s competent, and that she matters. I want to provide her with tools for ignoring
the Mean Girls, tools she may very
well need when encountering any Mean
Women in her future.
Because I’d already ‘been there, done that’ with regard to
the Mean Girls, I confess I took very
little notice of it occurring amongst alleged-grown-ups. I guess at one point I
was downright naïve to its very existence.
I’m aware of it now, and have
come to following conclusions:
Mean Women Operate Out
of Fear –Disrespect and ugliness towards others stems from a fear of not
being accepted ourselves. We channel this fear into the very thing we
don’t want: to be forgotten, or to be
seen as ‘less-than’. We fear it
happening to us, so we’ll beat it to the punch by inflicting it on someone else. How sad…
Mean Women Operate Out
of Self-Loathing – I challenge anyone to find a Mean Girl or Mean Woman
who truly likes herself. Without
self-love, there is no love. It all
starts from within. Plain and simple.
Mean Women Operate Out
of Immaturity – Perhaps they weren’t indulged or encouraged enough as
children. Perhaps they were overly-indulged
or overly-encouraged as children. Who
knows? But something happened along the
way to keep these women from growing up and contributing positively to
society.
Mean Women Operate Out
of Jealousy – Strong women, beautiful women, happy women, and successful
women are often targeted by Mean Women. Instead of celebrating these women, they go
to great lengths to tear them down. They
exclude. They gossip. They lie.
These are the things that get a Mean
Girl into trouble at school.
Unfortunately, you can’t send a Mean
Woman to the principal’s office.
I could go on, but I’d like to move along to another topic,
one that I’ve written about many times:
living by example. We cannot
expect our daughters, nieces, or students to be nice girls if we’re not living
nicely ourselves. The old cliché of the
apple not falling far from the tree is true, I believe. We must take a good, hard look at ourselves
and our motives, for they greatly affect our children. If we want our future generation to live in a
society of love, kindness, compassion and respect, we must put those concepts
into practice – always.
I personally know a few Mean
Women – women who are mothers, teachers, and leaders in my community. I implore anyone remotely responsible for the
well-being and guidance of children, particularly girls, to think and live on a
higher level. Get over what you need to
get over and start playing nicely. Come from
a place of compassion and integrity – this will serve you well.
And for anyone who’s ever suffered at the hands of a Mean Girl or Mean Woman, take heart: set
your sights on fabulosity and you’ll do just fine. It’s easy to ignore their comments when you
know you’re doing the right thing. Surround
yourself with decent, positive people who have the greater good in mind. Strive for excellence in all that you do. Find inspiration wherever you can get
it. They say that living well is the
best revenge. Based on my own
experiences, I know this to be true.
Beth Newman
Image Consultant,
Mentor, Author
Beth’s books, Become a First Style Fashionista and 365 Days of Fabulosity, are available
through Amazon.
