by Tracee Sioux

I found some alarming statistics in my local paper about physically violent fighting in the local high schools.

There were five physically violent fights in one high school so far this year. Ten girls were involved. No boys.

At another high school there have been seven fights and five of them involved girls.

The trend seems to be escalating from last year's statistics where 81 fights in the 2006-2007 school year involved 32 girls at one high school. At another school last year 21 fights involved 28 girls. At still another local high school, one of the better ones in town, girls accounted for 7 of 7 fights.

Authorities at the school report that physical violence among girls is generally the result of gossip and even teacher intervention does little to deescalate the violence.

Principals and teachers discribe boys as posturing and easy to redirect and girls as more vicious and more likely to follow through with threats of violence.

While this trend is alarming, and I think further research will indicate a national trend, it isn't really all that surprising.

Mean girl behavior is getting out of control in preschool and going completely unchecked as I wrote in Girl Drama. Parents are sending four- and five-year-olds to school as if it's a Kindergarten Fashion Show and turning their tots into fashion divas as I wrote about in Second Generation Mean Girl.

Common responses in preschool and Kindergarten by teachers, in my experience, has been to minimize the behavior, yeah, girls do that.

What continues to surprise me, though it may only illustrate my naivete, is that girls' parents are defending mean girl behavior as opposed to punishing or stopping it.

Take the national news story (not an urban legend as I had hoped) about the two girls who took a photograph of their supposed friend in the shower at a slumber party and spread it all over their high school via cell phone.

This is disturbing in and of itself.

The girls were suspended and kicked off the cheer leading squad.

The mean girls' parents, however, hired a lawyer to ensure their daughters would suffer no consequences.

The girls were put back on the cheerleading team. The father of one of the mean girls was on Dr. Phil saying the victimized girl and her parents were making too big a deal over a little prank. The other parent of the mean girl has a website defending his "brave" daughter's behavior.

Neither parents disciplined their mean girl daughters. Neither felt it was even an assault worthy of a good old fashioned grounding.

Have girls become so sexualized in our culture that to be angry that the whole school has a nude photo of you is being a poor sport? That to take the nude photo is a simple childish prank?

What message are we giving to our girls?

To me, this action is the equivalent to pornography of a child and should be punished accordingly.

This case is important for all parents of girls. If our daughters are not the mean girls, they may become victims of mean girls.

This is not an isolated incident, it's just one that has gotten national attention.

One teenage girl I know shared that a boy had shown her a cell phone recording of another girl having intercourse with his friend. She didn't understand my shock and outrage. It didn't occur to any of the girls involved to go to the police or other authority figure. It didn't even occur to the girls that they had a right not to be sexually victimized in this way.

This kind of thing is likely to become more and more prevalent as no one, not the police or the school or the parents, seem to dare to take action to nip it in the bud punitively.

Isn't it our responsibility to teach our girls the difference between right and wrong? Isn't it our responsibility, as parents and educators, to enforce consequences for mean girl behavior?

If we fail to take action and provide consequences to mean girl behavior aren't we teaching them that it's an acceptable and excusable way to behave?

Is it any wonder that gossip wars have begun to escalate into physical violence?

Is it too complex for parents to understand that insulating our children from consequences is not what's best for them?

By Tracee Sioux

I started a book club two months ago. A lovely woman showed up and suggested we call it Between the Covers. It implies something just a little naughty - I dig it.

I have always wanted a group of women that I hang out with on a regular basis and I'm a huge reader. I kept wishing this into my life. But, you know, I live in a small town and I never got an invitation.

That's the problem - I was waiting for an invitation. Two months ago I decided I would extend the invitation and suffer the possible rejection of no one wanting to come to my book club. Cause really, that's what's hard about making new friends - the possible rejection.

I want it to be some place where an eclectic group of women meet and share something of themselves and let's face it - get out of the house without their kids or significant others.

The interesting thing has been the rejections. Yes, I've asked women that I've seen around town to come and they've not even considered the idea. Not even for two seconds. But, the rejection hasn't been about me (no I don't like you enough to hang out once a month).

It's been about the lack of time and money available to spend on themselves. Let's face it, to be in a book club you have to buy the book. I buy all books used at Amazon or at a garage sale or after a trade with a used book store because we're on the Dave Ramsey http://traceesioux.blogspot.com/2007/01/shut-up-john-mayer-stop-waiting-for.html zero-based budget plan and it must come out of my blow money. So, we aren't reading new releases at my book club. But you still have to be willing to spend a couple of bucks on yourself. Then, you have to actually make the time for yourself to read the book. Yes, take the book into the bathtub or to bed with you and stay awake long enough to read a couple of pages. You have to say, hey, I deserve some time to be off in my own head and read for a little while. And then you have to find a babysitter or make sure your spousage (stole that term off another blog - be flattered) understands that he must be home in time to watch the kids so you can actually GO to the book club for an hour-and-a-half. Knowing that childcare would be a problem I even arranged the book club to be on a day where babysitting is available at the local indoor playground, but then you have to decide that me-time is worth the $3 an hour it costs to leave the kids there. For some, that's a problem cause it's just not in the zero-based budget, especially if you're dropping off three or four kids.

Anywho. The point is that some women I've talked to have just said, no way can I afford myself all of that time and energy. Maybe they have other ways to take time for themselves and I truly hope that is so. But, it worries me to think that they have reserved nothing for themselves because if that's the case I think the messages they are sending to the entire family are negative.

The message is: Women don't deserve time or money to spend on themselves. Daughters grow up being the same relentless super-women their own mothers are and emulate the behavior of never taking time to relax and enjoy their own interests. Sons grow up and expect their wives to sacrifice every second for the family.

Robin McGraw actually wrote a whole book, Inside My Heart, http://www.amazon.com/Inside-My-Heart-Choosing-Passion/dp/078521836X/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-9541949-9891038?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175357195&sr=8-1 about women needing to take time for themselves. Now, I haven't read it because I haven't yet found it at a garage sale and it would be a little too naughty of me to spend $24.99 on a book. But, the gist according to the one-hour advertisement on Dr. Phil when she released the book was, women are driving themselves to the ground by never taking time for themselves and perhaps it's best to be a little naughty and take the time to explore personal interests before you drive yourself into an early grave with all this self-sacrifice.