Mean Girls Grown Up

CHERYL DELLASEGA, PH.D., is a professor in the College of Medicine and the Department of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of Forced to Be Family, Surviving Ophelia, Girl Wars, and The Starving Family.

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

PART ONE Relational Aggression 201: The Who,What, and Why of RA 5

1 All Grown Up and Ready to Sting: Adult Female Aggression 7

2 Why Women Aren’t More Like Men 20

3 Big Bullies and Other Aggressive Types: The Queen Bee 32

4 From Mild to Bad and In Between: The Middle Bee 42

5 Blindsided, Backstabbed, and Bruised: The Afraid-to-Bee 54

6 Weapons of Choice 67

PART TWO Our Own Worst Enemies: Aggression at Work, at Home, and at Play 79

7 Women at Work 81

8 Sharing Space: Ages and Stages of Aggression 97

9 Forced to Be Family: The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly of Female In-Laws 108

10 Mrs. Popularity and the Mom Clique 119

11 Relational Aggression Where You Least Expect It 130

PART THREE Recognize, Revise, and Internalize: Changing the RA Way of Life 145

12 Who Are You in the Bee Dynamic?: A Relational Aggression Assessment 147

13 Healing Residual Relation Aggression: Overcoming the Past 162

14 The Power of Forgiveness 172

15 The Won’t Bee 184

16 A New Relational You 197

17 Don’t Stop with Yourself 214

APPENDIX A

Communication That Counts: Connecting through Words 227

APPENDIX B

Talking to Yourself in Ways That Help 231

APPENDIX C

Netiquette Tips 233

APPENDIX D

Mentoring Resources 235

References 237

Index 240