Odd Girl Out -- Rachel Simmons

I wrote about this book in the callroom and am pasting part of my review here.

Rachel Simmons took a very close look at the nature of bullying amongst girls and presents her findings in this book. Her research includes focus sessions she conducted in a variety of schools (with varying ethnic and economic backgrounds), one on one interviews with girls dealing with bullying and grown women who dealt with it, and current sociological and psychological reasearch on the topic. One of the main points of this book is that there are gender differences in what constitutes bullying. People typically associate bullying with physical agression and the majority of time physical agression is attributed to boys. This is why girl bullying falls through the cracks. Ostracism, rumor generation, singling one or two girls as the "odd girl out" are all considered the female methods of bullying. Since it is often done by whispering, note passing, non-verbal communication and exclusion, these behaviors are sometimes off the radar screens of parents and teachers. The author theorizes that the root of this behavior is from girls being told to "be nice" and not learning to be comfortable with anger and express it appropriately. Their anger or hostile feelings "go underground" and the agression comes out as emotional bullying.

My one complaint about the book is that it seems to go on and on with examples of girls bullying. It honestly gets a little depressing and I started worrying that my darling daughter will either morph into an evil tormenter or be tormented mercilessly. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground. I had to remind myself that this *is* a book about bullying after all, and the author extensively researched the topic. So, if you decide to read this book and start to feel this way, you have my permission to skim, skim, skim through the vignettes about girls and their school and make your way to the last three chapters! However, you might miss out on some very interesting research cited by the author. The last three chapters -- Parents & Teachers, The Road Ahead, and Conclusion -- offer some concrete examples of how girls survived their situations, how parents can help with their daughters (great examples), ways teachers can be more aware, etc.

I recommend this book to women, parents of girl children, and men who want some insight into the sometimes strange ways that women interact with each other.

[PrincessFiona]

Odd Girl Out

It is definately an interesting read, but I have found it to be a bit confusing so far...perhaps it is my attention span??? I just can't seem to stay on track.

I'd have to say that I tend to be skipping a lot of the sociological blah, blah to read the stories of the girls...It just doesn't seem that the author has done a good job of organizing her bullying stories that she is telling? At first I was trying to really concentrate on reading every word, but I've just reached a point of skimming through most of it. I think that some of the examples that she uses are indeed powerful, but many of them are just a rehashing of the same type of story or experience. The interviews that she did with the girls did not generate the insightful discussion that I had expected. She took what they said at face value and never focused on what could have been their faulty perceptions: ie many of the reason that girls gave for bullying went undiscussed.

I haven't finished the last three chapters and I'm going to keep reading. I'll likely need to go back and reread parts.....maybe I'm being too critical of the book because of my own need to distance myself from it...I will let you know.

kris

Re: Odd Girl Out

At first I was trying to really concentrate on reading every word, but I've just reached a point of skimming through most of it. I think that some of the examples that she uses are indeed powerful, but many of them are just a rehashing of the same type of story or experience. The interviews that she did with the girls did not generate the insightful discussion that I had expected. She took what they said at face value and never focused on what could have been their faulty perceptions: ie many of the reason that girls gave for bullying went undiscussed.

kris

I understand what you are saying. I thought maybe it was because it took me so long to read it. Later in the book, she references prior stories and I couldn't remember who belonged to which story. I did end up skimming a lot too through the stories of bullying and reading more of the sociological information because that was less likely to be repeated. The organization of how the story fits with her category is sometimes blurry but I think the categories are interesting by themselves.


re: not digging into some of the reasons for bullying -- I am guessing that had to do with confidentiality agreements. For the girls to tell their stories, she would have to agree not to confront or question the bulliers -- but that certainly would have been interesting. I also think it would be hard to find many of the bullies who are willing to discuss why they do it (when they are at the jr or sr high age). There was one story that did deal with the reason for bullying.....toward the end....the girl being bullied might have been Emily?? (Maybe the "She's All That" chapter??)

I do think the last three chapters are the best, in particular the one about what parents can do and how to discuss these issues with their children. But I do wish that there were more concrete suggestions for girls going through this. Another interesting thing to look at, maybe beyond the scope of this book, would be how some women grow out of this behavior....and others do not.

Keep skimming!

oddgirlout

Well, she actually had a chapter where she interviewed girls that bullied, but I wasn't able to pull out of it what I wanted to. Again, I'm skimming now, so I am missing things. It's interesting that you and I are skimming to read the opposite things

OK...off the puter and back to the book.

kris