'Just kidding' and 'Ganging Up' from Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons

What is said in this passage is very true, girls do gang up on each other for a sense of pride, and victory over each other. It can be a way of winning a battle, but it leads to a way that makes others isolated to the shocking truth of what it can cause to relationships.


I have experienced a lot of this conflict between girls and alliances. I was once the ‘leader’ of an alliance to another girl. It was a war of gossip. The conflicts aren’t really problems at all, just ways of getting others to be on your side to feel a sense of victory over the target. I once started lying and spreading gossip all over school about a girl who took my best friend. I wanted everyone and (my used to be) best friend to know the lies to convince her I was better. I had more people on my side and they agreed with all the gossip I lied about. In the outcome I never got my friend back as my best friend, just a friend. What was really the problem was how much damage I had caused. The other girl was simply trying to be friendly, but I ignored it and made it pass as anger. I felt bad about the things I said, and wished I had enough confidence to go and say sorry. I did not mean to make her feel bad in front of others, especially her best friend ( who I thought was way better off being with her than with me, now that I think of it). It is not until you see in the future how it affects what you have caused to get back at another, but seem to have made a mess that makes a relationship to break forever.

In conflict like these, you have to be careful of what you do or you could be the new target. Once you decide to be in, there is no way of getting out of it, unless you want to have everyone turn against you as it was being done. The option in my situation was to get as much people into the alliance, and be on my side. If you have everyone ,or most people on your side it makes you feel powerful. It is like the other person cannot get much over you or hurt you since you have your peers ‘supporting you’. I was really just trying to make everyone turn against her. It was a way of letting her know that I was much better than her, but I was wrong in doing that. These alliances can cause girls to turn against one another.

We all know that alliances are made up of bullying. There are many different forms of bullying, but no matter which one they all affect everyone involved in it. People bully each other for many reasons. I think what causes the bullying to start is the conflict between the relationship. Bullying is a way to show the target that you are more powerful, and better. It is a way to gain confidence, to be able to show the target and others that you can beat over them. Bullying is a way of making things worse, because you don't affect one person, but others too. You can make someone be part in a alliance, but then the girl may have others against her for your fault as making her be on your side. Once you start bullying you have to keep on until you have win or loose over your enemy .

People also do not care what they have to do to win the alliance. They can even hurt their own peers. All you want to do is get the power the other person wants and that’s it, there’s not much to it. What is the problem is the hurt that people cause to others. They hurt others who want to turn against them or who don’t want to be in the alliances. The types of hurting others can be a way of threatening as well as showing others what power you have or to just back off.

Sadly in the end I learned that bullying can only break relationships.

It may seem that it is a gain at first, is really the opposite. This passage reminded me that there is nothing good in bullying or being bulled, but in communicating in more appropriate ways like talking things to the person (s) that I may have a problem with. This is a good way to achieve my future goals in school because this way I can focusing more in school work and not in how to get revenge over others.