Attn: women. Have you ever come away from an interaction with another woman who you thought you were friends with, only to surprisingly end up betrayed, confused, humiliated and saying “Huh?” Have you ever tried to piece together what happened there, but simply could not? Have you ever felt that men were just easier to deal with? Well, one reason for this could be a phenomenon called “relational aggression.”
Relational Aggression has been defined as simply as “female bullying”. Instead of using direct confrontation, it uses relationships to push out or alienate other girls and women. This can take the form of gossiping, exclusion, talking behind the backs of others, playing the victim to get sympathy and many more behaviours. I find these definitions a bit vague at times, but the term acts as a catch-all for all of us who have said “huh?” in the face of dealing with other women.
I recently read a book about it called Mean Girls Grown Up by Cheryl Dellasaga who is the authority on the subject of Relational Aggression. Although the book overall was a bit disappointing in terms of using stereotypes and lacked research vigour, it was grasping to describe this phenom, and did have some good points. My ideas are in blue.
- In social or professional situations women fall into three categories: Queen Bees, women who try to dominate every situation; Middle Bees, women who “fly under the radar” and typically pass on information through gossip; and Afraid to Bees, women who are insecure and afraid to “put themselves out there” since they do not want to be victims of the Queens and the Middles. Although I find the whole “Bees” paradigm makes the issue seem unimportant, and it is more simplistic than it needs to be, I think that Dellasaga is reaching for the idea that aggression from other women is indirectly done through relationships and can be confusing.
- Women tend to attack each other rather than attacking men with Relational Aggression, creating a more hostile environment for women, especially in a work environment. From personal experience, I find it is often women holding women back, rather than an outside force. This is a bit of a taboo subject, since women like to idealize the “sisterhood” thing, but in the real world, we have all experienced situations where it was just the opposite of sisterhood. Perhaps some honest conversations about what it is really like to be in an environment with other women would be helpful to solve the problem.
- Female-positive areas such as the women’s movement or the healthcare fields tend to be full of Relational Aggression, contrary to a “sisterhood” vibe that you would think you would have. This is sad, since how can we move forward if we are continually sabotaging ourselves?
In cultures around the world, it seems that it is women who keep other women oppressed. In the book, a woman from India, says that in oppressive subcultures in that society, it is the women (mothers-in-laws etc.) who beat and keep other women “in line” rather than the men. In North American workplaces everywhere, it is the women who go after the ambitious women, rather than the men. In the media, you see women reporters going after women politicians for ridiculous things like what they are wearing rather than their policies or ideas. And, the fashion industry, which is so dominated by women, is where you find the “skinny ideal” that almost no woman can live up to and heartbreakingly spend a lot of time and effort trying to conform to the impossible.
After thinking about it for a long time from both the big picture and my own personal trials, I can’t really find a clear explanation for why this happens, but here are some ideas:
- “Shit” flows downhill, so, since women are the more oppressed group, they will be attacked.
- People place too-high expectations on women. A secretary may inadvertently treat a male person she is supporting better than a female because she expects “more” from the female one in terms of niceness. She accepts gruffness from the man, but she relates more to the woman, thinking “if I was ever in that position, I would be kinder. She should be too.”
- Ambitious women make other women ask why they aren’t doing more themselves. When all the men are bosses and the women are workers, there is a certain acceptance. Once there are women bosses a woman subordinate will feel uncomfortable with the question “why aren’t I doing more?”
- Since there is relational aggression coming from all directions for ambitious women, they can become petty and controlling. The “nit-picking”, micro-managing style critiqued by many of women managers is less about being a woman more of a sign of a manager with little power.
I feel at this stage, we have to look less at external factors of the 2nd wave of feminism, the “self” of the 3rd wave, and start to look at the interpersonal aspect of how women treat women in order to move forward. Like Dellasaga, I am still grasping at ideas, but I think it is important to analyze all of this further so we can move forward.
