# Are girls during school years prone to be "bitchy"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 20, 2016, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681 "2016-03-20T19:02:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GlowingDarkness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f04885/32.png) [@GlowingDarkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GlowingDarkness)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/1 "2016-03-20T19:02:45Z")
I am male who went to a single sex school. I didn’t really enjoy the fact boys were mean because I was not the most normal kid. I would have preferred going to a mixed school and tried to make friends with girls but people kept on saying that girls were “bitchy” and could be more vicious than boys? Is this really true and if so what’s the cause? Is it socializing, genetic, or a mixture of both? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/2 "2016-03-20T19:12:34Z")
I didn’t notice the girls being meaner, as a group, than the boys. Mean girls were certainly common enough. But at least in my memory, they were the minority. Mean girls tend to direct their meanness towards other girls. So I think your maleness would have protected you from their wrath. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/3 "2016-03-20T19:22:56Z")
I have a theory that in general women don’t like other women as much as men like other men. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/4 "2016-03-20T19:35:54Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I have a theory that in general women don’t like other women as much as men like other men. What you have, is a hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/5 "2016-03-20T19:40:18Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > What you have, is a hypothesis. Well, technically, a half assed feeling 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/6 "2016-03-20T23:12:56Z")
Speaking as a former schoolgirl who attended only coeducational schools from kindergarten on up, I didn’t notice a significant difference in average niceness/meanness levels by gender. I think there are at least two major confounding factors in the traditional “girls are bitchy” assertion: 1. Girls and boys may be equally likely to say and do unkind or unpleasant things, but only in girls is such behavior called “bitchiness” instead of “meanness” or “aggression” or another less gendered term. 2. Traditional social gender roles condition us to expect girls to be more deferential/cooperative/affectionate etc. than boys. So the same not-very-nice action can be perceived as “normal” for a boy but “bitchy” for a girl. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/7 "2016-03-20T23:28:23Z")
Admittedly what follows is random speculation without anything other than possibly stereotypes to back it up. Bullies exist at that age among both sexes as the desire to gain status and self esteem by pushing down others is universal. But boys are more likely to bully others around them with physical aggression while girls are more likely to do so with social aggression. ---
**Author:** ![Sampsiceramos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Sampsiceramos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampsiceramos)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/8 "2016-03-20T23:38:24Z")
In my (entirely anecdotal, of course) experience with a coed environment, boys are more likely to get in each other’s faces, and girls are more likely to get catty behind each other’s backs. This does not mean that girls never throw punches or boys never spread rumours, of course - merely that there is some level of observed preference with regards to bullying techniques. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/9 "2016-03-20T23:45:33Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Speaking as a former schoolgirl who attended only coeducational schools from kindergarten on up, I didn’t notice a significant difference in average niceness/meanness levels by gender. > > I think there are at least two major confounding factors in the traditional “girls are bitchy” assertion: > > 1. Girls and boys may be equally likely to say and do unkind or unpleasant things, but only in girls is such behavior called “bitchiness” instead of “meanness” or “aggression” or another less gendered term. > > 2. Traditional social gender roles condition us to expect girls to be more deferential/cooperative/affectionate etc. than boys. So the same not-very-nice action can be perceived as “normal” for a boy but “bitchy” for a girl. 1. I think that Buck Godot is closer on this one. Boys are expected to assert themselves physically, establish the pecking order, (backed up by violence), and then move on while girls, “denied” the physical aggression, (in many situations), resort to prolonged verbal antagonism. (Boys continue the insults even after the pecking order is established, but once established, the insults tend to follow a set pattern of name-calling or repeated references to similar jokes.) 2. I don’t think so. Males and females tend to display aggression differently. This even carries over to adulthood. I have been in number of shops where women will say that they would rather work with men than women because the work climate among men is less vitriolic or caustic. Possibly due to the threat of physical violence, (and workplace rules prohibiting it), men do not appear to engage in as many “catty” exchanges as women. This is not a claim that men all get along and women all fight. It is an observation that the manner of displaying antipathy tends to differ between men and women. Men are quite capable of behaving obnoxiously and expressing contempt or disdain for fellow workers, but it is expressed differently. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/10 "2016-03-21T00:11:34Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > 1. I don’t think so. Males and females tend to display aggression differently. This even carries over to adulthood. I have been in number of shops where women will say that they would rather work with men than women because the work climate among men is less vitriolic or caustic. Possibly due to the threat of physical violence, (and workplace rules prohibiting it), men do not appear to engage in as many “catty” exchanges as women. > > This is not a claim that men all get along and women all fight. It is an observation that the manner of displaying antipathy tends to differ between men and women. Men are quite capable of behaving obnoxiously and expressing contempt or disdain for fellow workers, but it is expressed differently. That may be true without actually contradicting or rebutting anything I said. Even if it is, it may well **also** be true that **exactly the same** behavior or remark would typically be considered “no-nonsense”, “assertive”, “candid”, “confident”, “witty”, etc. in a man, but considered “bitchy”, “vitriolic”, “caustic”, etc. in a woman. In other words, it’s not just about different **styles** of “displaying antipathy”; it’s about the possibility that what comes across as “antipathy” when expressed by a woman is more likely to be interpreted simply as “assertiveness”, “self-confidence”, or some other positive or neutral quality when expressed by a man. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/11 "2016-03-21T00:30:12Z")
Citing a single study of course doesn’t conclusively prove anything about people in general, but [here’s a description of one study about different reactions to the exact same facts/behavior presented under different gender identities:](https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/stanford-gsb-experience/news-history/gender-related-material-new-core-curriculum) > [@](#): > > “To support this discussion, I presented to students the results from a study I did a couple years ago involving the Heidi Roizen case. Specifically, with Harvard’s permission, I changed the original materials so that one section of the class received a version of the case called “Howard” Roizen (same case, just different pronouns) and the other section received the original case. Before class, I had the students go online and rate their impressions of “Roizen” on several dimensions. **As you might expect, the results show that students were much harsher on Heidi than on Howard across the board. Although they think she’s just as competent and effective as Howard, they don’t like her, they wouldn’t hire her, and they wouldn’t want to work with her.** As gender researchers would predict, this seems to be driven by how much they disliked Heidi’s aggressive personality. The more assertive they thought Heidi was, the more harshly they judged her (but the same was not true for those who rated Howard).” (Emphasis added.) See? **Exactly the same behavior and personality** is perceived as acceptable and normal when the person in question is believed to be male, but unpleasant and dislikable—in other words, “bitchy”—when the person is believed to be female. So it’s not just that “males and females tend to display aggression differently”: it’s that women tend to be held to stricter standards than men when it comes to criticizing them for perceived “aggressiveness”. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/12 "2016-03-21T01:29:32Z")
Without drawing any specific conclusions on the topic, I offer the following efforts to analyze the topic: [Gender Differences in Subtypes of Workplace Aggression](http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5619&context=etd) I will refrain from claiming the following to support my position: [Women are ‘Bitchier’ than Men, a Non-Experimental Study Says](http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/11129/20131123/women-bitchier-men-non-experimental-study.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/13 "2016-03-21T03:20:24Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Without drawing any specific conclusions on the topic, I offer the following efforts to analyze the topic: Again, all that such studies show is that women are more likely than men to be **perceived** as engaging in “bitchy” behavior. They don’t address the question of whether a particular behavior is **more likely to be perceived as “bitchy”** when women engage in it as opposed to whether men engage in it. In other words, it **might** be that women tend to be objectively “bitchier” than men. Or it **might** be that women tend to be perceived as “bitchy” for the same types of behavior that are taken for granted as “normal” or “appropriate” in men. Or it might be some combination of the two. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/14 "2016-03-21T06:04:09Z")
I have noticed that boys can go in and out of being friends and enemies with each other. Put them on the same sports team though and they become good friends again. However with girls I’ve found once they hate another girl they never get over it including into adulthood. ---
**Author:** ![T.M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/15 "2016-03-21T08:26:51Z")
Boys (I used to be one) settle matters with their fists. Girls (I have three daughters) tend to prefer character assassination, unless a boy is involve then he suffers at the hands of the sisterhood (painful) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/16 "2016-03-21T15:10:57Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I have noticed that boys can go in and out of being friends and enemies with each other. Put them on the same sports team though and they become good friends again. > > However with girls I’ve found once they hate another girl they never get over it including into adulthood. 😕 I’m confused as to which of these behaviors is being put forward as more “bitchy”. ISTM that you could have meant this in one of two different ways, more or less as follows: **A.** _Boys tend to be more petty and offense-prone, quarreling over things that don’t really matter to them and reconciling for equally superficial reasons. Whereas girls tend to be more steady and loyal in their affections unless and until they hit a genuinely irreconcilable difference, at which point they cut their losses and never look back._ **B.** _Boys tend to be more robust and easy-going, accepting cycles of friendship and enmity as part of natural give and take. Whereas girls tend to be more brittle and vindictive, incapable of recovering from even minor conflicts._ In the first interpretation it would seem that you’re describing the boys’ behavior as more “bitchy”, while in the second interpretation it would be the girls. Which did you mean? (Or something else entirely?) ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/17 "2016-03-21T15:32:50Z")
My own theory - or hypothesis, if you prefer 🙂 - is that women are in general more relationship-oriented and focused on social interactions and standing than men. So that when in any sort of relationship or social scene they are more focued on that relationship or social scene than men in a comparable position. The result of this is the heightened sensitivity to real and perceived slights and increased jockeying for position that many people (both male and female) perceive as “bitchiness”, in a variety of social situations. For a prior thread on a related topic: [Lesbian Civil Unions Breaking Up at Nearly Twice the Gay Rate](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=704511) ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/18 "2016-03-21T15:38:01Z")
Perhaps related. My “hypothesis” is that men compete with other men. Women see other women as competition. Add the numerous disclaimers here… ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/19 "2016-03-21T15:58:03Z")
> [@T.M](#): > > Boys (I used to be one) settle matters with their fists. Girls (I have three daughters) tend to prefer character assassination, unless a boy is involve then he suffers at the hands of the sisterhood (painful) ? What “matter” is being “settled” when mean boys beat up weaker boys just for fun? ISTM that this is another example of **subtle “erasure of bitchiness” in descriptions of boy behavior.** The implication is that physical aggression between boys is typically just an honest and mutual “settling of matters”, whereas in reality it’s often just one boy bullying another for no good reason. That behavior would be called “bitchy” if girls were engaging in it. ---
**Author:** ![starryspice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@starryspice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starryspice)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681/20 "2016-03-22T02:39:29Z")
Anecdotally, as a little girl, I was a little on the weird side and I was not popular. But the only kids who _ever_ teased me (and I’m talking kindergarten through high school here) were boys. And no, they didn’t secretly like me, they just had fun teasing me. I’d call that “bitchy”. YMMV. As an adult, I’ve enjoyed working with both men and women. However, I think the best workplaces are mixed (and I think there are studies to back me up on that, but I’m too tired to look them up). I worked in one situation where it was a large group of women, and there was some occasional catty behavior. I’ve also been in situations where it was more male-dominated and there was a lot of boasting going on that I found not at all pleasant. Environments where both genders are present have, in my experience, been productive and generally happy places to be. Again, YMMV. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-girls-during-school-years-prone-to-be-bitchy/749681.md?page=2)