Women hurting women: Relational aggression and female relationships in stepfamilies

A few posts back, I'd mentioned that a group of women in my karate class had been bullying me. They weren't bullies in the sense that they'd beat me up after class (actually, part of our karate exercises include us beating up -- or sparring -- one another). Their bullying was in the form of exclusion from group activities that I had formerly been a part of.

If you recall from my Freaks, Geeks and Being Alone post, there had been instances where I didn't feel I had many people I could turn to in my life. I felt alone and lonely and depressed as a result. Being the self-reflective geek that I am, I sought books, articles and experts that could help explain what might be going on. I think I found the answer: Relational Aggression

Relational aggression isn't new; however, it's become popular in the last 20 years. What is it? According to Cheryl Dellasega, Ph.D., author or "Mean Girls Grown Up," "Relational aggression is the use of relationships to hurt another. It's a way of verbal violence in which words rather than fists inflict damage."

It's gossiping and backstabbing about one woman to another. It's excluding one woman from a circle of peers or talking smack about her behind her back. It's a woman using people or children against another woman to make the other woman feel bad about herself.

The more I read the articles and the books, the more intrigued I became. In my karate class, I'd become the "Afraid-to-be" as Dellasega calls it. The Afraid-to-be is the 'victim' of the bullying; the person who is afraid to speak up for fear of what the 'Queen bees' might do to her psychologically or emotionally.

I was afraid to tell the karate 'queen bees' how I really felt because how I really felt was pathetic and worthless because they didn't want to be my friend. My intellectual brain realizes that I am a smart woman with a lot of great qualities; however, the inherent nature of women to crave connection with other women -- and my feeling like I'd somehow failed to do that -- made me feel like I'd failed as a woman.

As I dug deeper into books like Dellasega's "Mean Girls Grown Up" and Dr. Erika Holiday and Dr. Joan I. Rosenberg's "Mean Girls, Meaner Women" I noticed a lot of similarities in what I hear about mom and stepmom relationships.

Think back to every negative mom/stepmom you've read about on a networking board, stepmom book or heard from a friend: Aren't they all about one woman trying to exclude another in some way, shape or form?

I thought so too which is why I'm going to do a series of posts about relational aggression and the mom/stepmom relationship over the next few days.

Next up: Are you a bully?

Stay tuned and please let me know your thoughts, questions, etc. in the comments.