In Ellen Goodman's essay "Girls Will Be Girls. Unfortunately," she explores the popular topic mean girl uprising. She explains that people's attention went from bad school boys to bad school girls in recent years.
She introduces her essay with a fictional story of a girl who is constantly joining and leaving groups of RMGs or really mean girls. Then then states that this pandemic of really mean girls is apparent to any girl "past the fourth grade," (179). Goodman then equates the bad boys and the bad girls as being "...equally awful," (179). Tannen introduces an idea by Marie Wilson that states if a girl's mother is not in power, then the child take the power and projects it downward.
I agree with that idea and It is readily apparent that boys and girls join groups that exclude others. These groups in high school, are called cliques. They're vicious and you can only be invited to them. I know better than to want to be someone I'm not, but kids in those groups just don't have anything better to do. Tannen talks about how the woman from the story gives her life to the RMGs, and how it is too bad for her and her daughter. It is a tragedy, but a tragedy kids choose. They buy into rap stars like Nicki Minaj who market themselves by being bad girls. They eat this stuff up. It's always been cool to be a rebel, but in the real world, it's a waste of time.
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