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Words Will EVER Hurt Me
Girls as Bullies
By Kelly Burgess
Wellman is the founder of the Ophelia Project, one of the first programs to name relational aggression and find ways to counteract it. Another program is the Empower Program, founded by Rosalind Wiseman. The difference between the two programs is that the Empower Program uses a more confrontational approach between warring peers, an approach that has been criticized for teaching girls even more hurtful tricks, whereas the Ophelia Project, based in Erie, Pa., uses older teen mentors to work with younger girls to try and stop relational aggression before it starts.
"My daughter had a terrible adolescence, one that scarred her so badly that it was years before she recovered," Wellman says. "What I didn't realize was that what she went through is so pervasive in our society and is devastating emotionally to many of our young girls. As soon as I started talking about it, people began sharing their horror stories with me, but what was most distressing was that it quickly became apparent the problem is getting worse."
The reason for the escalation is simple – there has been no intervention in girls' aggression as there has been for that of the more physical aggression of boys. Because girls' aggression doesn't disrupt classrooms, leave anyone bleeding in the halls or result in broken bones, it's generally ignored. The result is an escalation of the emotional bullying in much the same way physical aggression would escalate if it were not nipped in the bud.
Finding a solution for the problem of relational aggression was Simmons' goal when she first came up with the idea for a book about how girls bully other girls. Originally, it was conceived as a children's book, but it evolved as she discovered that there were no books on the subject at all. "I wanted to write a powerful, accessible book to tell women's stories and show that we can survive this type of abuse and grow up to have wonderful lives," she says. "I want girls to read these stories, not just adults, because everyone will see themselves here."