I want to give a copy of this book to every female between the ages of 13-18. Unfortunately, I don't have the money. I am almost finished reading my copy. When I do, I plan to give it to the first teenage girl I come in contact with. It is written with minimal jargon and every section brings me just teetering on the verge of tears. But then I feel good afterwards. I am 27 years old, and this book is helping me heal from things that happened 10-15 years ago.

A book review by Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
of
“Odd Girl Out “– The hidden culture of Aggression in Girls

By Rachel Simmons

I read for enjoyment and entertainment, so most books do not reach out and grab my attention quite like “Odd Girl Out-the hidden culture of Aggression in Girls.” My wife is an Air Force medical officer and an Air Force mental health provider suggested the book to her. We have a ten-year-old daughter just starting fifth grade. My wife brought it home from the base library and I stole it off her nightstand. I was a police officer in the Air Force. After I retired from the Air Force I worked in civilian law enforcement and most recently I taught Air Force Junior ROTC at a high school in Mississippi. With my employment background, I have had significant dealings with girls and young women and their open aggression. I must admit I was clueless about (until I read the book) the pervasive hidden culture of girl’s alternative aggression. This involves the non-physical and behind the back, verbal bullying that goes on with girls and young women. We are a society that teaches our girls from an early age to “be nice.” Nice girls get ahead in life and bad or mean girls don’t. Boys hit and are loud when they want to express their anger or frustration. Little girls are expected to “be nice.” What ever you do young lady don’t raise your voice and heaven help you if you strike someone. As Patrick Swazey explained to his “bouncers” in the movie Road House “be nice and when you can’t be nice no more-take it outside.” Taking it outside is where you ultimately get to release your anger, in a physical form. The issue is, girls get angry just like boys, but our society does not allow them an open opportunity to verbally vent, let alone physically express their anger. We demand that our girls “be nice.” The problem with refusing to allow girls to engage in open conflict (as we allow boys), is we have driven the aggression and it’s hope for a release mechanism underground. The way girls facilitate their need to be “mean” to their fellow females is through “alternative aggressions.” According to Rachel Simmons “girls use backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on targeted victims.” “Unlike boys, who tend to bully acquaintances or strangers, girls frequently attack within tightly knit networks of friends, making aggression harder to identify and intensifying the damage to the victims” states Simmons. Inflicting of psychological pain starts as early as grade school and can continue on for years into high school. If you watch “Oprah” you are forever hearing women complaining about their lack of self-esteem. As a male I think, just get over your perceived weakness and move on in a productive manner in life. The problem is the perceived weakness of this girl or young women, is exactly what her female tormentor is trying to quietly exploit. As a male reading this book I continued to be amazed at the almost fanatical importance, girls place on popularity. If you are not popular and in the right clique, the struggle to “get in” is all consuming in your young schoolgirl life. But it gets worse. Once you are in the most popular clique, it is a never-ending fight to stay on top. Girls who were your friends in the past, are now pawns to be moved around the playing board and sacrificed if need be, to protect the queen. The anxiety and emotional distress this creates can actually be physically debilitating for the girl. The author interviewed numerous women during her book research, who twenty years later still carry the emotional scars of alternative aggression. One of the issues Simmons points out in her book was she had no problem finding victims of bullying, but very few of the girls and/or women she interviewed would own up to being the bully. If you can carry the scars of bullying into your adult life, I would suspect you could also carry the bulling skills into your adult life. So what has this got to do with the military? Alternative aggression is a learned behavior that girls can take with them into women hood and into their military career. As a former squadron commander I remember some of the same types of alternative aggression going on with young female airmen living in the dorms. I was not trained to realize what was happening at the time. The problem was, there is a much smaller group of women to interact with, within a male dominated military organization. So, when you had this alternative aggression going on, it could possibly, negatively effect almost the entire young female population of a unit. But it is not restricted to the young women. As a junior Captain, I ran-a-foul of a senior civilian Air Force female employee, who through alternative aggression had an almost unrecoverable negative impact on my early military career. She had allegedly done something inappropriate and “someone” filed a complaint. I was to junior and to stupid to even know what was going on. She was investigated and apparently cleared of any wrongdoing. The problem is, unbeknownst to me “someone” told her I was the person who “ratted her out” in the first place. She never came to me to about the issue, but this did not stop her from starting a worldwide (within my career field) campaign of alternative aggression directed at me. Backbiting, rumors, name-calling, flat out lies and manipulation, all directed to punish me without her ever having to come to me face to face and discuss the alleged wrongdoing. I can only assume she had learned her skills of alternative aggression at an early age and was able to retain and use what she had learned, later in life. She had spent six months trying to “get me.” I was eventually told what was going on and I was able to convince her I had nothing to do with her situation. She finally told me she believed me and that she was sorry. In six months of alternative aggression, she was able to reach out to most of the senior people in my career field and taint my name in some of their eyes for the rest of my military career. This was all for something I had never done or even known about. To the best of my knowledge she did not spend the next six months trying to repair the damage she had done to me. As I said, alternative aggression is learned early in a girl’s life and can scar her forever. It can also teach the quiet bully, skills that she unfortunately takes into her adult life. I can not emphasis strongly enough what an excellent learning tool this book is for any one dealing with daily contact of young females. If you are a parent, grandparent, teacher or a supervisor of girls or young women read this book. If you are an adult female and you would like a very well researched look back at what was going on in your K through 12 school years, this book is a must. If you are a male and you have never seen or understood alternative aggression, read this book. It may help you improve your skills of observation and perception in handling your relationships with females. As a male, after reading this book, I am convinced, I never had it nearly as ruff in junior high and high school as my two sisters did. My father was career Navy and for my sisters at least, every couple of years we moved and they got a clean break from this situation. If you are now or plan in the future to be a Junior ROTC instructor on a high school campus, read this book as a form of enlightenment and self-protection. Our girls and young women desperately need a break from this perpetual cycle of alternative aggression. We love you today, we hate you tomorrow, we think we might like you sometime in the future, now you are a member of the popular clique and next week someone else will start the quiet war to destroy you from within. Girls are spending so much of their daily energy on the issue of popularity and alternative aggression, that they are truly missing out on a major part of their education and their young life. This time is completely wasted. The only thing that seams to get accomplished, is the building of emotional scar tissue, that for women never seams to go away. As I said I had no idea what alternative aggression was until I read Rachel Simmons’ book, but now that I have been made aware of this painful issue, I must become proactive about helping our girls and young women. My first mission is to spread the word, to encourage people to read “Odd Girl Out” and then try to reach out to these girls who suffer in silence.

Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
Vanharl@aol.com
5 Sep 2003

"Queen Bees and Wannabes" by Rosalind Wiseman is also a valuable resource. It explores the world of teen female social groupings. The author also took part in a soon-to-be-released feature documentary on the subject of teen female relational aggression.

The documentary will be released to film festivals in 2004 and focuses on the bullycide of a 14 year old teen, Dawn-Marie Wesley. A month before taking her own life, she watched on T.V. how Rena Verk, another nearby teen, was murdered by school mates. When Dawn-Marie was threatened and harassed in a similar fashion, she decided to hang herself in her bedroom using the family dog's leash, before the bullies could make good on their threats.

You may have heard about this story on such shows as Oprah, The John Walsh Show or Canadian television. Producers Roberta McMillan and Ray Buffer interview one of the bullies, the family of the victim, the judge who presided over a precedent setting court case which spawned anti-bullying laws throughout the world, a politican, community members, press reporters, and New York Times best selling author - Rosalind Wisemen.

The film is a raw, visceral glimpse into the secret world of teenagers and the choices they make of either being a "rat" or a "bully". The film also features music by Simple Plan, Hairpeace, and Exit 104.

A trailer for the film is available for preview at Rats & Bullies Preview Trailer or visit the OFFICIAL WEBSITE.

.: RATS & BULLIES :.

[FEEL FREE TO REDISTRIBUTE THIS NOTICE OR ADD THIS PROJECT AS A RESOURCE LINK ON YOUR SITE OR IN YOUR EMAILS]

You are invited to go to http://news.place.cc to sign up for a free e-Newsletter chronicling the developments, screenings and availability of a powerful documentary film: "Rats & Bullies - The Dawn-Marie Wesley Story."

"Rats & Bullies" produced by Roberta McMillan and Ray Buffer (official website is www.ratsandbullies.com) probes the suicide of a 14-year-old Aboriginal girl from Mission, BC named Dawn-Marie Wesley, who took her own life by hanging herself with a dog leash in her bedroom after systematic bullying and threats by three teenage girls from her school. Her suicide was discovered by her then-13-year-old brother who had come to her room prior to the family's dinner, to use her TV. The bullies were named in Dawn-Marie's suicide note which prompted an investigation by RCMP and Crown Counsel leading to two precedent setting cases by Canada's provincial court in which the bullies were held accountable for their threats.

Relational Aggression is discussed with a focus on female bullying. An added cultural component to the story is the role of the Aboriginal Sentencing Circle held on Sto:Lo grounds, which was utilized in sentencing one of the bullies, since the victim and one of the accused were both Native, or First nations. This form of Restorative Justice is beginning to gain wider appeal by legal systems around the globe.

Actions and their consequences are explored through interviews with Dawn-Marie Wesley's mother, Cindy Wesley and brother D.J., as well as MLA Randy Hawes who was Mayor at the time of the incident, Judge Jill Rounthwaite who presided over one of the trials, Kyla Mae Dunn - one of the bullies who was prosecuted, Dawn-Marie's best friend - Paula Settee, Kevin Gillies - a Mission news reporter, Lee Hanlon - a paralegal who assisted the victim's family, Karen McQuade - a co-founder of a bully prevention activism group named PAVE, which arose from Dawn-Marie's demise; and NY Times best-selling author and Co-Founder of Washington DC's EMPOWER Program, Rosalind Wiseman.

Rosalind Wiseman is also the author of "Queen Bees and Wannabes" the book which inspired Tina Fey to write the recent fictional comedy "Mean Girls".

Dawn-Marie's story has been featured on TV in episodes of "The John Walsh Show", "The Vicki Gabereau Show" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show". Get the whole story in “RATS & BULLIES.”

Sign up for the newsletter at http://news.place.cc and receive exclusive news regarding when, where and how you can see “RATS & BULLIES.”

Visit the official website at www.ratsandbullies.com

View the trailer at http://preview.2ya.com