One of the things that’s important for me to emphasis is that relational aggression is a continuum along a set of choices that any one of us can make. It’s not a specific person or even a type of person. It’s so easy to fall into stereotypes when we do that, like the whole “mean girls” thing or “just the way girls are” kind of attitude.
Stereotypes are just an invitation and an easy slip into projecting, where we project those parts of ourselves we don’t like onto another person – quite conveniently. Or perhaps an opportunity to get to punish someone with unresolved issues of jealousy or envy with our judgments.
I certainly do believe women and girls need to be held accountable for our actions. In fact, even in dealing with relational aggression, I feel, too often, we are left off the hook as we tell our teachers, parents, counselors, bosses and supervisors just what they want to hear, with no small amount of tears and exclamations of “Oh, I didn’t know….think that…realize…”
But we do have to be careful about dividing ourselves into camps of targets and aggressors, as if they were exclusive of one another.
They are not.
Demian,
~DreamSinger
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