The secret life of [queen] bees.

When Sarah* entered high school, she was fully prepared to be initiated.

The ritual of hazing freshmen was a time-honored tradition in her rural community. And so she gamely endured pranks such as getting whipped cream smeared in her hair. "I thought it was hilarious," the North Dakota State University student says today.

But after a couple of years, the initiation ritual developed a nasty edge. 当她的几个同学用管道胶带把年纪小的学生绑在旗杆上时，事情达到了高潮, poured Kool-Aid over their clothes, then kicked and hit them.

这起事件更令人难忘的是，肇事者是北达科他州一个小镇的女孩.

When Sarah shares this anecdote in DeAnn Miller-Boschert's classroom, the NDSU education instructor is disturbed by it, if not particularly surprised. In her statewide research of girl-to-girl bullying, 米勒-博舍特很快发现，残酷的等级制度并不局限于美国城市或好莱坞电影. She has unearthed stories of betrayal, cruelty and the type of peer-group machinations that might have given Machiavelli pause.

Miller-Boschert已经将她的研究结果提交给了消费者科学协会杂志, where it is in the rewrite stage. She could not have picked a hotter area of study. In 2002, Rachel Simmons published the seminal work on girls and bullying, "Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls." Rosalind Wiseman's "Queen Bees & 《乐虎电子》——一本帮助父母引导女儿走过青春期社交雷区的书——也成为了《乐虎电子》的畅销书. It inspired "Mean Girls,这是一部成功的电影，在描述青少年的悲剧时，既有趣又诚实.

Several factors motivated Miller-Boschert to join the charge. One was reading Simmons' "Odd Girl Out," based on interviews with 300 girls from 30 different schools. Another was her own experience as a middle-school teacher and administrator. 另一个离她更近的打击是:她自己的女儿进入了名牌服装和食堂政治的世界, of sleepovers and hallway gossip.

在全州范围内对中学教师的调查和对女大学生的访谈为她提供了必要的数据. Just as Simmons and Wiseman had found, 她发现，在这个世界里，即使是在学校的走廊上走一走，也会被各种尖刻的评论所包围, deliberate snubs and frosty glares. All sugar and spice stuff aside, the world of adolescent girls can be as fickle as it is demanding, as complex as it is brutal.

Like Simmons, Miller-Boschert认为女性的残忍源于社会:女孩被教导要善良和甜蜜, yet are discouraged from confronting or showing anger toward others. 因此，他们形成了西蒙斯所说的“一种沉默和间接攻击的隐藏文化”."

While boys will torment other boys with overt acts of 暴力，女孩会使用间接的策略，如背后中伤，传递纸条和排斥同龄人. Girls grow adept at camouflaging their cruelty from authority figures; they learn to torment their victims through slang, the silent treatment and a glare known universally by any middle-school girl as "The Look." They may start rumors about her, or tell her they love what she's wearing in a tone that says exactly the opposite.

"It's a hurt that goes really, really deep," Miller-Boschert says. "There's no black eye, but it cuts through the soul. You have to ask: Why don't we help our own gender?"

Girl-to-girl bullying is probably at its peak in sixth and seventh grades, when peer acceptance is at a premium and social hierarchy is being established. But Miller-Boschert has found bullying tactics develop years beforehand. She's heard several stories of clubs formed by 4-year-olds, who refused to let another girl into their precious preschool circle.

As girls age, their "games" can grow more underhanded. 米勒-博舍特讲述了一个小学班级的故事，在这个班级里，受欢迎的女孩们通过学校用品发挥了她们的影响力. 每天，老师挑选学生分发彩色铅笔给班上的其他人. When the popular girls distributed the pencils, they purposely doled out the prettiest colors to girls in the "in" group. Girls on shakier ground would sit at their desks in fear, dreading that they'd be handed a drab brown rather than a popular pink. A student's color status could change from day to day.

On the extreme end, peer bullying can make school intolerable. In one case, 一个替罪羊受到其他女孩的严重折磨，她的父母把她搬到了另一个州，和她的姑姑住在一起. 这一事件导致学校的分歧很大，以至于家长和社区成员都参与了进来. Finally, the girl's family wound up moving.

In some instances, technology adds a whole new dimension to peer persecution. Junior high and high school kids across the country use well-known sites such as Xanga.com to create blogs in which they "flame," or attack, other students. In the country school days, girls gossiped by passing notes. 如今，他们的“笔记”能接触到数百名在线用户——他们可以虚拟匿名地传递这些笔记.

"We have this not-in-my-backyard thinking," Miller-Boschert says. "It does happen here."

A girl can become a target for any number of reasons, from wearing the wrong clothes to speaking her mind. 对中学生人气的要求是多方面的:女孩必须漂亮、苗条, she must date a "cool" boy, she has to act and dress right, she should be smart, but not too smart. Even after a girl reaches the coveted "popular" circle, her position is never secure. 执政的蜂王可能会惩罚她的社会群体中任何表现得过于个性的人, starts hanging out with the wrong people, or is perceived as a threat.

NDSU研究中的几位受访者报告说，蜂王们通过散布谣言来处理嫉妒的刺痛. 米勒-博舍特调查中的一名大学生写道:“如果她们嫉妒别人，嫉妒自己与男生的关系, 他们会造谣说她们性行为活跃，或者叫她们荡妇——有时是当着她们的面. I found it appalling and would keep my mouth shut as it was happening, partly due to the shock element of it and partly because I didn't want them to turn on me."

One anecdote illustrates the brutal and unforgiving nature of adolescent society. "In my grade in high school, most girls had their own clique," a respondent wrote. "At one point, 一个来自“受欢迎”圈子的女孩出了车祸，身上留下了一些伤疤, including lazy eyes. Her friends would no longer talk to her, and she was always trying to get included into the other cliques. She had been so mean and rude in the past, though, no one wanted to be her friend."

Contrary to popular belief, most female bullies aren't hiding their insecurities behind a bunch of bravado. Research suggests that most bullies not only possess average to high self-esteem, many do not view themselves as bullies at all. In fact, when asked about bullying behaviors in their school, the biggest offenders of all will report, "We all get along pretty well."

可悲的是，大多数受害者对归属的需求是如此强烈，以至于他们会接受蜂王和她的蜂巢的任何虐待. 他们宁愿属于最高社会群体——即使是在一个时髦的位置上——也不愿根本不属于这个群体.

Of course, not everyone believes the issue of bullying girls is all that important. 一些批评人士认为，这只是一个时髦的问题——在我们有更好的抱怨之前，这是一场媒体制造的危机. Others point out that rejection is a necessary, if painful, reality of growing up. They say it teaches us how to defend ourselves, and helps shape who we are.

米勒-博舍特说，这是真的，尤其是如果一个人有足够的韧性和自尊来面对这场风暴的话. But, she quickly adds, there's no denying that some victims are irrevocably scarred by their middle-school years. 她引用了调查对象的话说，他们的经历让他们讨厌自己, distrust other women or even contemplate taking their own lives.

"It's more than just thinking 'girls will be girls,' " she says. "In the U.S., we almost look at it like a rite of passage. But it doesn't have to be. 它不需要成为某人生活的一部分，以至于他们考虑自杀."

More disturbingly, girl-to-girl bullying can trigger a dangerous pattern that affects a woman's entire life. According to Gary and Ruth Namie's book, "The Bully at Work," most instances of workplace bullying involve women sabotaging women. Unchecked, 恶霸会继续欺压他人，而且很可能会教他们的孩子也这样做. And, "Once you've been a victim as a young girl, you continue playing the victim role throughout your life," Miller-Boschert says, "until you take the bull by the horns and say, 'I'm not going to be bullied anymore.' "

It's not as easy to break the pattern as it sounds. First, girls need to be taught how to stand up for themselves, Miller-Boschert says. 在某些情况下，学校通过制定规则或举办研讨会来承担这一责任. 她的一个学生在明尼苏达州的一所学校教书，该学校遵循一个著名的反欺凌计划. Program features range from a "bullying box,在那里，学生可以匿名报告骚扰事件，教导学生和老师“戏弄”(双方都喜欢的温和嘲笑)和“嘲弄”(只有肇事者喜欢的攻击性攻击)之间的区别。. In Minnesota, Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, Fridley, 提出立法，要求明尼苏达州所有学区建立欺凌标准, adopt an anti-bullying policy and provide training for school officials.

Yet people can't expect schools to be the sole crusaders against bullying; our most important lessons begin at home. 父母需要意识到两种令人不安的可能性:他们的孩子可能被欺负, but too ashamed to talk about it, or that their child could actually be a bully.

米勒-博舍特说，孩子们应该从小就学会如何尊重他人. At the same time, they need to learn how to stand up for themselves. They can be taught how to express themselves assertively, rather than in an aggressive and destructive way.

When asked what can be done to curtail bullying, 大多数受访者在一个方面是一致的:对有害关系的最好解药是向孩子灌输强烈的自我意识. "Tell them you love them, tell them they're beautiful," says Miller-Boschert. "Be there when they need to talk. Just be there for them. They might roll their eyes, but they really want that. They want to know that they're loved and accepted and that they're OK."

-- Tammy Swift