Help a Sister OUT!!!!

It starts at age 4:

The woman on woman hating---the "mean girl" epidemic that plagues generations of women.

This past weekend while babysitting, I witnessed some of the youngest, yet most fundamental and cruel 'mean girl' behavior.

'Mean Girl' behavior at age 4 really creates the building blocks for decades of bullying, jealousy, and negative competition. Thank goodness we start so early and have so much time to perfect the skill!

The playground gives girls the perfect opportunity to practice exactly what it takes to:

A. Be the Queen Bee Mean Girl

B. Be the follower

C. Be the one left out who sticks with it

AND D. Be the one left out who runs to the corner and cries.

I mean, really by the time we are in high school we are pros, and by the time we are adults we are veterans who know the worse kind of sneaky tricks to hurt each other.

Mia is a nice girl. She plays and gets along with everyone. I am always amazed at how easily she makes friends at the playground and parks we frequent. She simply tags along, becoming "instant" friends, doing and playing weird things that only kids can understand.

This particular trip to the park was different. Mia was lured to one girl: The girl with the beautiful pink dress and the brand new dancer Barbie doll with sparkly plastic toe shoes. The girl was your quintessential Russian (yes she only spoke Russian) sophisticated debutant.

Mia wanted to play with her, particularly the Barbie. The Russian Princess proceeded to continually run away from Mia while coyly glancing backwards to lure Mia in once again. It was a girl flirtation game. She would sit on a bench, stroke the dolls hair, let Mia touch it once but nudge and elbow her off the bench when Mia attempted to sit down.

Then.....Russian Princess #2 shows up. The two did not speak any English--to Mia's advantage. However, Russian Princess #1 began to take Russian Princess #2 by hand, running away from Mia. Mia kept up, forced the nicer of the girls (#2) to hold her hand and blatantly included herself in the playground Shenanigans.

These ridiculous coquetries ensue for a few minutes when a different little girl, is also lured by the beautifully dressed Russian Princess #1 and her Barbie Doll. This little girl is not as resilient as Mia, and quickly finds herself crying to her nanny who quietly explained, "They just don't want to play with you".

I found the entire situation highly amusing. On one hand, Mia couldn't understand a thing the Russian Princess' were saying; never fully comprehending the rude facial expressions. On the other hand, I was amazed that a 4 year old girl, from RUSSIA, knew and understood the game of girl bullying so well.

As we get older this 'mean girl' behavior manifests itself in a variety of ways. From "leaving friends out" in neighborhood play, to passing notes with gossip and lies just to make yourself feel better in middle school, to jealous antics in high school--we all know the drill.

I was never a "mean girl"--but that's not to say I didn't understand the game and partake when the occassion arose, mostly in middle school, and mostly at the peer pressure of mean girl naturals.

During one particularly difficult time, when my popularity was waning, I was pressured into uninviting a friend simply because the boy I happened to like at the time, "had a crush on both of us". 5 years later, I walked at graduation with this same girl. We were able to overcome our "mean girl" stages, but some women never do and never will.

..............

Now as an adult, I am finding the "mean girl" behavior so much more disgusting and extensive than ever before. When we were young girls, we could run home to our home in tears, repeat to ourselves that words will never hurt us, and grasp to the hope that when we 'got older' things would not be this hard.

Wake up call. Infidelity. Women sleeping with other women's husbands. Women stomping on each other's self esteem. Women slut shaming. Women competing for all the wrong things.

This is the reality of adult women.

It's downright nasty. And it only got worse from the innocent days of note passing and excluding one from a game of house.

It makes my heart hurt when I hear stories of marriages ending due to affairs. From celebrity couples to close personal friends to personal experience. Why do you want to be that kind of woman?

Sure, the men play a part. But isn't it high time we realize we, as women, can't count on men, as a collective, for much at all? Let's start taking the responsibility on ourselves...we can...and MUST do this together.

Why would you want to be that kind of woman who sleeps with a man in a 38 year marriage with 4 kids? Not only does that show NO self respect, but NO respect for your fellow women. Don't do that to other women.

Now, more than ever, we need to stick up for each other--and not just in sex and relationships. We need to stop the aesthetic competitive. We need to stop the jealousy and hatred.

In the United States alone, women are significantly poorer than men in terms of economic status, 1 in every 4 women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime, and women still only make 77 cents to every 1$ a man makes.

Help a sister out!

Respect yourself. Respect your sisters.

We need each other's support and guidance more than ever. Life is hard right now--the last thing we need to do is make it harder for one another. Let's start standing up for our fellow women--even if it is as simple as not judging her outfit, or cutting the mom on the train with the crying baby some slack. Be radical--don't hate other women.

We are our own best allies. Let's act like it. It starts with us.