Girls can be mean. Really mean. Yet despite their widespread reputation for cruelty, we have little evidence that girls are meaner than boys. It’s no surprise to learn that boys are more likely than girls to use physical aggression, but we also know that boys surpass girls when it comes to attacking peers verbally and engaging in cyberbullying. Some research suggests that girls pick up the slack by engaging in more relational aggression: being emotionally manipulative, spreading rumors, excluding peers. But other studies find that boys can outpace, or at least match, girls in the use of indirect forms of interpersonal treachery.
So how do we account for girls’ relational infamy? The answer may have little to do with how, or how often, girls are unkind, and more to do with the chain reaction that is set off when girls are on the sharp end of a peer’s stick.
Evidence suggests that girls, more than boys, are injured by social mistreatment. We’ve long known that girls place a higher premium on their interpersonal relationships than boys do, so it follows that they become more upset when their relational ties are threatened. Indeed, research finds that, disproportionately, girls harbor painful thoughts and feelings when hurt by their peers. They fret about why they were targeted, wonder if they had it coming, and strategize about how to befriend the antagonist.
To soothe their bruised feelings girls, more than boys, reach out to their friends . Turning to peers puts girls in touch with valuable social support, but we also know that recruiting friends to analyze social slights in detail can actually deepen a girl’s emotional distress. In contrast, boys who are hurt often seek out distractions — they stop thinking about hard feelings by thinking about something else. This may render boys less fluent in the language of their emotions, but they tend to feel better, faster.
Finally, girls, more than boys, become upset when their friends are upset. They take on vicarious social stress and suffer when a friend is in pain. And what do girls do when they’re distressed? They usually get with their girlfriends and start talking. In short, the emotional and interpersonal processes that are common in girls can cause a single social blow to hurt more and reverberate further than an equivalent blow among boys. It’s easy for girls to seem meaner, even when they’re not.
Until we find a cure for social conflict, we may attend less to gender differences in meanness, and more to gender differences in response to it. True bullying aside, girls may benefit when adults validate their painful feelings, then encourage them to turn the page. To do so, we can support their ability to take perceived jabs less personally or help them gain some perspective on their social turmoil. When girls seem to be nursing an emotional injury, loving adults can point them toward healthy distractions. And when girls worry on behalf of one another, we can suggest that they come up with creative ways to help themselves, and their wounded friend, move on.
Let’s not forget that the heavy focus on mean girls risks minimizing the common experience of aggression, including relational victimization, among boys. Boys may not react to cruelty in a way that catches adult attention. Alternately, they may retaliate when they’re hurting and invite punishment when they deserve empathy. We need to be tuned in to these possibilities, too.
On balance, girls aren’t meaner than boys. It just seems that way. What’s to blame for their outsize reputation for malice? Ironically, it may be their attention to emotions, investment in connections and tender care for one another.