We all know it from school and it's a popular theme in every chick flick or teen movie – the mean girl. A girl where everything goes according to her wishes and she does everything for it. But what if the mean girl haunts you even as a grown woman?
You are beautiful, bewitching, strong, mysterious and headstrong. They wrap everyone around their finger, they are articulate and always quick-witted. Unfortunately, they are also sneaky, nasty, perfidious and cynical. They can all be grouped under one heading – mean girls.
Who doesn't know the movie Mean girls/Girls Clubwhich starred Lindsay Lohan? The well-known sentence You can't sit with us or You can't sit with us, resounded in many of our minds many years later. The mean girl Regina and her little troupe played the perfect roles of this very specific type of girl/woman.
Have you ever had, or are you currently having, an ugly experience with mean girls of your generation? Mean girls don't only exist in school. Unfortunately, in later life too we often meet people who behave in a mean, malicious and condescending manner towards others.
It can be at work, at university, in the community, or even in an extended circle of friends. But fortunately you are no longer the insecure little girl.
In this article I will show you how to recognize such women and how to deal with them.
Table of ContentsShow 1 The Mean Girl Phenomenon 1.1 What makes girl aggression so different? 2 When grown women act like mean girls 2.1 1. She ignores you on purpose 2.2 2. She gossips about you 2.3 3. She laughs at you online 2.4 4. She will try to intimidate you 2.5 5. She will insult you 2.6 6. She bothers you 3 How to deal with a mean woman 3.1 Stand up for yourself 3.2 Show your confidence 3.3 Don't get caught up in conflicts 3.4 Stay in control 3.5 Get help 4 Conclusion 4.1 7 Sources
The Mean Girl Phenomenon
The phenomenon of the mean girl, as a person who has a great influence on her environment, is also a hot topic in recent studies; discussed topic. According to recent research, in such cases we always have a queen bee who, with her charisma and manipulations, gets her clique to dance to her tune. (1)
We can find filmed examples of this in the already mentioned film Mean Girls/Girls Club, the series Gossip Girl ( Blair Waldorf), Pretty Little Liars (Alisson DiLaurentis), Glee (Santana Lopez) or Riverdale (Cheryl Blossom). You can find them everywhere, but they all have one thing in common – their beauty and cruelty.
But how does it happen and what exactly constitutes girls’s aggression?
What makes girls' aggression so different?
According to the well-known author Rachel Simmons, boys express an open form of aggression, w’ ;while girls deal with aggression differently: Our culture denies girls access to open conflict and forces their aggression into non-physical, indirect and covert forms. Girls use slander, exclusion, gossip, abuse and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on their victims. (2)
This is still evident in school days. Through notes that travel through the class, whisperings in the schoolyard, bad WhatsApp chats and screenshots that are passed on. Silent aggression is just as, if not more, dangerous than overt aggression.
I'm sure every one of us has found ourselves in an uncomfortable situation at one time or another or even left out and that feeling was caused by another woman.
Girls use this form of aggressiveness not just to get some air, but to valorize themselves, to give importance and ultimately to hurt the other person.
The more you to connected to this king bee, the more painful what it does to you. However, we often remain in such relationships to prevent worse things from happening and not to find ourselves on the wrong side of this ”friendship”. to be located.
The notion of relational aggressionin this case best describes what mean girls bring to the table. Their goal is to damage another girl’s social standing and image.
But what if this phenomenon didn’t end in the teenage years, but mean girls ;do little girls become mean women? How can you tell?
When adult women act like mean girls
We all change, learn and want to make up for our mistakes. But it gets interesting when people think they are always right, things should be the way they want them to be and they are generally the best at everything. No doubt the mean girls we're talking about today have the same attitude.
But are whispers, deviousness and manipulation what we can expect from adult women? Unfortunately yes! Toxic people always find a way into our lives. It's up to us to recognize them in time and deal with them properly.
How to recognize a mean woman:
1. She ignores you on purpose
This is a very common tactic. For example, if you're in a group, she won't greet you, or will completely ignore whatever you say. She will not answer your questions or let you in on further plans.
She wants to give you as little attention as possible and in this way humiliates you in front of others.
It's one of the tactics a mean woman wants to make you feel insecure and wants to demonstrate her power over you, but also to others around you.
2. She gossips about you
No, not everyone left gossiping at school. Some carry this unsightly habit with them for a lifetime, no matter their age, gender or level of education. This has also been confirmed by more recent studies. (3) A mean woman will not miss an opportunity to gossip badly about you.
She will spread rumors and lies about you and will smother them to your neighbors, work colleagues, friends, even family members.
Your creativity knows no bounds when it comes to gossip.
3. She laughs at you online
If a mean woman is after you, she won't leave you alone online either. She will leave scathing and sarcastic comments on your posts and pictures.
Also she will make funny memes or photos of you, upload videos of you that you didn't know about. She will do everything she can to expose you and put you down.
She will even go to the trouble of imitating, caricaturing and ridiculing you.
Cyberbullying is taking on increasingly cruel forms these days, which have a depressing and disruptive effect on those affected. This is exactly what has been proven in studies and surveys. (4)
4. She will try to intimidate you
A mean woman will not shy away from giving you her opinion and, if necessary, showing you clearly where she thinks your place is. You don't have to leave this place either, as long as she can decide about it.
So she will try to keep you away from mutual friends. She will openly let you know what she thinks of you or wrap it up as advice or a warning. But all of this comes with just one important goal – to intimidate and belittle you.
5. She will insult you
These women have no filter in them and just want to put you down. They don't care if they hurt you because that's their intention.
Mean women are out to make you look bad. They will comment, criticize, and view everything negatively about you. They will insult you, laugh at you in front of others and comment on you.
Such women are experts in slut shaming and verbal violence is no stranger to them.
6. She’s bothering you
No matter how much you try to avoid her, she just pops up anytime, anywhere. If a mean woman is after you, then she will make it her hobby to humiliate you every day.
Harassment is exactly the right term to describe what she does. Such women are difficult to ignore and will always find a way to insult, humiliate or hurt you.
It's just what makes her day. It's what she uses to build her own self-esteem and self-esteem.
If you found yourself and a certain woman from your environment in exactly these words, then you have a mean woman in your life. What you can do now to put an end to your ordeal and show her that you won't put up with everything, I'll show you in the next section.
How to deal with a mean woman
The mean girl isn't a girl anymore, but neither are you. You are a great strong woman who knows how to set boundaries and not let everything be done with you. Even if this means that you now have to leave your comfort zone, you have to admit to yourself that this is necessary to feel good again.
Here you can see how you show a mean woman that her time is up. So what's the best way to deal with a mean woman?
stand up for yourself
In fact, when we stand up for ourselves, it has a huge impact on our emotional and mental health. (5)
Getting trampled on forever just for a semblance of peace will bring you nothing but frustration and dissatisfaction.
Sit by yourself a. Say something and defend yourself. You're no longer a scared little girl who doesn't dare to say when enough is enough. Those days are over.
Show the mean woman in your life that you don’t let yourself be intimidated.
Show your confidence
No matter what form of bullying we are talking about, the fact is that people who show insecurity or weakness are more likely to do so be perceived as victims than others. (6) This makes it all the more important to show your confidence.
Boost your confidence and self-confidence. How to would say don't let her see your fear. But what should you be afraid of?
As long as you give the toxic woman around you such power, she will provoke you again and again. Show her that you have enough confidence to take on her. Show her that you don't put up with everything and that you can bring her back to earth.
Don't get caught up in conflict
Such embittered women find their sustenance in repeatedly trampling on you and then seeing that she has upset you and you are broken. Is that already on your daily schedule? So why should you offer her exactly that?
Don't get into conflicts with her, don't react to every sentence or look. Try one of their best secret weapons – just ignore them.
If you don't respond, then she won't get what she wants. So stop interacting with her on a daily basis and just don't react. Over time, audiences will grow bored and she will have to put an end to the theatre.
Keep control
< p>You cannot control what other people think or do, but you can control yourself.
stay in control Even if it's hard not to freak out when you're unsettled. But by losing your control, you reveal vulnerability to her.
If you don’t know what to say, sometimes it’s even better to say nothing and to move away from the situation. Later you can think about how you could deal with such a situation differently.
Get help
If you find yourself that you have burdened yourself too much with this situation and you would like to get professional help from someone, then you should definitely do so.
On our help and advice page you will find important contacts and contact points when it comes to knocking on the right door and the one you to get the help you need.
The right contact person will give you important clues that will make your life a lot easier. In this way you will learn important strategies to deal more easily with mean women, but also with the feelings they cause in you.
Conclusion
Do you know a mean girl that hasn't learned or changed over time? Or have you only just met a grown-up but mean woman? While we would like to get on well with everyone and behave in a friendly manner, unfortunately this is not always possible.
Mean women have an attitude where they see themselves as the center of the universe. They are always the best and strongest women in all walks of life. Anything that doesn't fit into their universe is made small and void. This time it's you.
Studies show again and again that women resort to this perfidious type of aggression and thus cause great harm to one another. (7)
But that doesn't mean that you have to put up with it.
Don't let someone take their frustration out on you. You are not a punching bag, quite the opposite. You are a strong woman of today who knows what she is worth and will not put up with anything.
I wish you a lot of strength and courage! Kind regards!
7 sources
Your Way uses only peer-reviewed studies and trusted sources to ensure our content is truthful, accurate and reliable.
1. Ayers, D.: Queen Bees: An Examination of the Mean Girl Phenomenon, Union College
2. Simmons, R.: My Best Enemy: How Girls Make Life Misery and Why Women Don't Trust Each Other
3. University of California – Riverside: Myths about gossip busted, Science Daily
4. M. Zaenul Muttaqin, M. .Z. and Ambarwati, N.T.: Cyberbullying and Woman Oppression, Research Gate
5. Hargie, O.: Standing up for yourself: the skill of assertiveness, Research Gate
6. Huitsing, G., Snijders, T.A. B., J. van Duijn, M., Veenstra, R.: Victims, bullies, and their defenders: A longitudinal study of the coevolution of positive and negative networks, Cambridge University
7. Stockley, P. and Campbell, A.: Female competition and aggression: interdisciplinary perspectives, The Royal Society
