Mean girls: the culture of bitching

By Nicki Fudge

“Nobody ever talks about the mean things that girls do to each other”

Bitchiness is endemic but, as this quote (from the author of the book that the film ‘Mean Girls’ is based upon) states, it is rarely spoken about. ‘Mean Girls’ is a hilarious film, and one of its main attractions for me is its highly accurate depiction of the way some women behave towards each other: the culture of bitching.

As a former pupil at an all-girls school, I have seen my fair share of constant bitchiness, accompanied by the oppressive fear culture that comes from no one wanting to be a target. At school, the vast majority of us strove to dress in a certain manner, stay skinny, look ‘passably cool’, try desperately hard to maintain friendships with other equally ‘cool’ people, and have a boyfriend who was a) hot, b) also ‘cool’, and c) drove his own car.  There was also, ironically because I went to a Grammar school, a real pressure not to appear too intelligent. 

The thing that makes this the most unsettling is the fact that it wasn’t men who created that nasty culture, it was women.

It was other girls who dictated how we should look, who we should be friends with, how we should behave, and how hard we should openly be trying in lessons. No men or patriarchy, just a terrible culture of fear and judgement that still looms so large in so many of our consciousnesses. And this wouldn’t really matter aside from that fact that this culture doesn't evaporate once we leave school -  it can cling to us for the rest of our lives.

We created that culture. I was not exempt. I judged as much as the next girl. I still judge, which makes me feel horrible because I HATE the feeling of being judged based upon my appearance or behaviour.

It wasn’t really until Iate sixth form, and then university, that I started to make friends with girls who had opted out of this ridiculous rat-race. I now look back at my school days and shudder at how much I cared what other girls thought of me.

As women, we’ve all been on the receiving end of that ‘look’, from another woman. Usually it comes from running to the Co op late at night wearing your PJs in search of enough chocolate and wine to sink a ship, or when you are at the beach and you are clearly ‘not thin enough’ to be wearing a bikini, or, in my case, when you wear Doc Martens to a club and then proceed to ‘dance’ by flailing your arms about and jumping excitedly! It is the look that says ‘WHAT are you wearing?’, ‘WHAT are you doing?’ and ‘WHY do you think it is acceptable to wear/do that?’ We encounter it for the first time as young teens in school, and still face it throughout our lives: at work, at the park, in the gym, on nights out and whilst shopping.

Earlier when I told one of my friends about this ‘look’- she laughed and did it! But, for those of you who may not be as aware, here is a lovely picture Regina George giving ‘the look’:

If I’m honest, I much prefer nights out if there are male friends with us as well. I spent most of my first few years of clubbing making a lot of effort to appear cool and attractive whilst dancing- not to impress men, but to make sure that women didn’t think I was feeling unconfident and awkward, which is ironic, as I was only doing it because I FELT UNCONFIDENT AND AWKWARD. Several female friends have admitted to me that the reason that they drink so much on nights out is so that they lose their inhibitions, and stop caring about what other people think of them. When I gave up trying to dance in a way that would impress the women around me, I discovered how much fun clubbing could be. The reason why I prefer going clubbing with men is that many of them (with a few exceptions) also seem to have completely lost dance inhibition, or maybe never had it in the first place!

Women also, I have found, police conversation topics. I spent more time in school talking about hair, boys, clothes and other students’ fashion choices than I did about what was going on in the news. What we say, and are interested in, as women, is often roundly judged by the women around us. For example, I think that girls who like computer games are often judged by other women as being geeky, which is ridiculous. In the pub I work in, the men often talk about sport and politics, whilst the women talk about their hair, clothes or other women’s appearances and behaviour. There is nothing wrong with these topics, but it saddens me to think that school culture has, so obviously, bled into adult social behaviour.

We police each other and, to pretend that we don’t (whilst laying the entire blame for female insecurity at the door of the media or men) is a cop out.

I think that the only reason we judge is because we hold ourselves up to the ridiculous standards of others. Those things that we, as insecure thirteen year olds, were conditioned to believe matter, like weight, ‘cool’ interests, and a great dress sense are still very much indented in our minds. We judge ourselves by these standards, thus we judge others by the same ones. It’s a vicious insecurity circle, and it does none of us any favours.

It’s time we actually dealt with this, as women, and stop judging others based upon their appearance and behaviour. We are a sisterhood: we need to start behaving like one.