Girls Will Be Girls. Unfortunately

Ellen Goodman, a nationally syndicated columnist, in “Girls Will Be Girls. Unfortunately"(2002) argues a major concern and a new headliner that society has to face every day: the hurtful gossip and nasty conversation that is meant to destroy the reputation of other girls and women. She gives an example by using a series called Ally McBeal which illustrates that "In the final episode of the series, everybody's favorite neurotic was driven out of town by a pack of 10-year old girls. Ally gave up her job, her friends, and her apartment to rescue her daughter Maddie--product of a college egg donation--who was being tormented by classmates otherwise known as the RMGs: the really mean girls." Goodman wanted to spell out the importance of acknowledging the serious behaviors of girls to be just as harsh as the bulling boys in order to display the overall effects it has on women and girls. She approaches a common issue as being a parent herself and addresses the parents of the word and all adults in general to be aware of the female oral aggressive behaviors.

Goodman’s uses of the TV series Ally McBeal to shows how the female choices of words can affect our everyday life. She shows how the parents have to jeopardize their income, social acquaintances, and stability in order to face off with the effects those girls inflicted by bullied her child. I agree with her acknowledgement of this issue because I have four girls myself:  ages 6, 7, 8, and 15.  All of my girls have already had to face off with the verbal abuse and threats of girls in their little societies.  Goodman was very concern about the schoolgirl cultural issue that she compared it to the Columbine killings of schoolboys.  I was surprised that she used this comparison because of its level of violence; however, the long term effects and the number of things that can be affected by this issue truly need to be considered.  I was enlightened by Goodman’s use of various authors and experts to explain how and why girls act the way they do during in our adolescent society. It gave an inside interpretation of what could have effected their way of thinking and how girls want or need to fit in for various reasons.

Goodman uses Carol Gilligan, a psychologist, that mentions that girls “experience a similar initiation into womanhood … manifest in the often vicious case of inclusion and exclusion” and compares them to “sheepdogs” noting that “when one moves out of the pack, they herd her back in line”(177).  With is this quote she explains how ‘girls are forced to toe the line, especially in sexual behavior and appearances’.  Goodman’s use of the President of the Ms. Foundation, Marie Wilson, noted “that girls turn on each other just as the boy-girl thing clicks in” (177).  Of adolescent girls want to express the boys so they tend to competent in inappropriate way to get attention. One of these ways would include the use of forming clichés to encourage each other’s behaviors, as Goodman put it “cliques are to girls as bullies are to boys” (177).  One girl in mention to Oprah that being shunned was “meaner” than getting hit (177). In all of her examples, she clearly wanted adult to understand what is going on with our youth today and be aware of how we influence our own children through our past experiences. And ultimately, Goodman wants us to ‘stand and fight’ through our challenges to get positive behaviors from our children.