What happens to all the mean girls

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My daughter was talking about the mean girls in her school and it made me ask what she meant. I mean I knew what she meant but wondered what her experience of it was. In her words: they are dismissive of the girls they don't like; talk down to other girls; laugh and bully them to make others do what they want.

Just out of interest…
Are you a mean girl? Were you a mean girl? What made you change?

Really disappointed by the obnoxious misogyny on this thread. We were three-and-a-half pages down before anyone thought to ask what happened to the mean boys, or questioned why only unpleasant females rather than males were being lambasted here. As far as I can see, no one else has, although beyond that point I've only skimmed the remainder of the thread.

I've met some spiteful female bullies, and I've met some dangerously abusive and physically domineering males. The schoolfellows who most actively harmed me definitely fell into the latter category. There was a particularly mean gang of boys who threw me into a patch of nettles, burned the back of my hand and my chin with cigarettes, and ended in gang-raping me when I was 15 years old. I had no support in my home life as my father was a violently abusive alcoholic: I've since learned that those abused from a young age make almost irresistible victims for those of an abusive disposition, irrespective of how tough a front they put up or how much they tried to hide it.

Of those schoolfellows, I'm the one who made most of a professional success of my life. They are stuck with being them.

Meantime, those who pulled me up by my bootstraps when I was a despairing, suicidal teenager? Other girls.

@ZeroFuchsGiven - I'm so sorry you seem to have had an equally horrible childhood.

This thread is awful.

Don’t want to put a downer on this idea for you and my situation was hopefully very different to your daughter, with a big visual reason to why I was bullied daily, but I specifically asked to go to an all girls school to get away from the bullying boys, but the secondary school girls were just as bad, if not worse. They made my life hell and I’d do anything to get out of going. I just don’t want you or your daughter to be under the illusion that going to an all girls school will stop her being bullied. The good things nowadays though, is bullying is talked about alot more and our children work on bullying issues from primary through to secondary, so hopefully things will work out fine. My daughter is going to be going to an all girls school as well, but again she (thank goodness) doesn’t have the same problems that I had. She is very sensitive, but she stands up for what is right and ive taught her not to take any shit from anyone. Your daughter sounds like a strong girl with not letting her insecurities show, something I was never good at and cried at everything, so I wish her all the best. It’s a scary time for us parents!!

They become life coaches or D&I leads - or the ones I knew from school did. Either no self awareness or they had some sort of awakening and changed their ways

I’ve always been thankful to have had boys. My friends with girls have almost all been through the anxieties of some level of mean/bullying/spiteful girls’ behaviour. Even at uni.

In my experience, boys are just simpler and nicer. We never had a moment’s problem with our sons or their friends.

Think it depends how posh your school was.

I went to really rough school full of chavvy bitches with bad perms and names like Kerri ( the dot of the ‘I’ written as a love heart). they were awful to the ‘posh’ ( ie academic) girls.

Now mid 40s and some have done ok, but most end up in shit jobs, so that’s been amusing on trips back home.

but posh mean girls usually end up in high paying jobs and are living in places like Putney and Chiswick. Usually the ones bitching in ‘Gail’s’ about the teenage the au pair.

Miranda? Fleabag? Katherine Ryan? I want to know lol!

“I've always wondered do they realise they were the mean girls when they grow up?”

I don’t think they realise most of the bullying they do. We had awful girls in our form. But they didn’t single out/bully just one person. They were just nasty and horrible. They would make fun of people. I’ve overheard really nasty comments about me despite sitting at the table next to them. I saw one of them the other day opposite me at the traffic lights. She was with her partner and baby. I felt so upset. I occasionally stalked the girls and other people I’ve known to be nasty. Truth is they have great lives which is not what you want to hear. When your single, alone and have no friends and you see your bully get married, Have kids etc it’s just so unfair.

Another girl that was downright nasty to me at uni is the most successful one in our uni group. She’s also the prettiest. I don’t know why she was so horrible to me when I didn’t nothing to her.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

We were three-and-a-half pages down before anyone thought to ask what happened to the mean boys, or questioned why only unpleasant females rather than males were being lambasted here.

But it's a thread about mean girls. There are plenty of threads about controlling and mean men.

Totally agree with this!! Went on a weekend with some mums and big group of kids. The boys just got on with it and got on great.

so many fights, power struggle and bullying with the girls. Couldn’t believe how some parents just tolerate it.

One is in her third marriage and looks rough and overweight. She always had issues around her weight and hated me because I was thin (at the time!) she seems happy atm though - and her new husband seems to adore her, as do her kids. She ruined my chosen career tbh, it never recovered after her "input". She was senior to me and just bitched and undermined me relentlessly to anyone who would listen. I was only 21 and just didn't know how to deal with it. It is what it is though. Things work out how they're supposed to I guess.

The second one has drug and alcohol issues and repeatedly relapses.. Shes done prison time for drug and violent offences and at least one of her children is on the same path. The others have minimal contact with her which she laments endlessly on FB. It seems clear to me now that she had an abusive childhood and likely had ADHD, which was viciously disciplined by an overbearing father and unsympathetic school system, resulting in a serious personality disorder and MH issues. I feel sorry for her more than anything but dear me she terrified the life out of me at school. She was mostly gob though and I had loads of friends who stood with me so it never went too far.

Went to a private day school.

Most of the mean girls became lot nicer as they grew up a bit. By the time we were 18 there was only one left in our year who was still quite nasty. She now lives abroad.

I did hear that when she visited our home town about 5-6 years ago, the party organised for her return was a flop as so few people could be bothered to turn up.

The worst bully, she actually died hitting a wall being driven at 60 in a 30 by a drunk boyfriend.

The other one, was kicked out of her home by parents and lived in a hostel, then had kids.

Oh and another one had kids.

Yeah I think they just resign to breeding their own meanies.

@DillDanding If only that were true for me. I was picked on due to a prominent physical imperfection. Most of the bullying I had the worst, was from boys. They were physical, one walked behind me whenever we lined up as a class and had to go somewhere, and I'm not sure how to explain it, but stepped on/ground down on my ankles so the heel of my shoe would start to come off my foot. Another kicked me really hard on the pubic bone one time. Other girls could make mean comments but I'd take those again any day over to boy bullies. I never wanted to boys because of how boisterous and physical they can get especially when they bully others.

while many have done well on paper (good job, nice house, and shiny husband), I do think that many of them end up in unhappy marriages, have few real friends etc.

they are so status obsessed that they’ll never be content.

In my experience, Mean Girls seem to do really well. The Mean Boys however, who were far worse in my experience, seem to be in tumultuous relationships and physical low paid jobs.

No @converseandjeans, I'm with @MarieIVanArkleStinks with this.

The majority of 'meangirls' are mean because of a man's actions.

Shitty upbringings and abuse, which is where these young women spring from is usually the fault of men.

Mean girls are a direct result of dysfunctional families. And dysfunctional families are 95% the result of dysfunctional men and their actions.

As I said earlier, I saw all the mean girls at school as young women just trying to survive a horrible background. I saw it! I was someone from a steady and privileged background, I saw their struggle, and I saw the fault.

The whole ecosystem is is self-sustaining. And it's not begat of the fucking womb.

This does not surprise me in the slightest. In my experience of EDI people, it won’t be that they’ve had some sort of awakening.

The mean girls who bullied me relentlessly, are all now working in average low-paid jobs in the same shit town we grew up in, have a few kids and are stuck in the stereotypical cycle of going on holiday to Benidorm-type places each year, and never ever doing anything remotely different in their life, working in supermarkets etc no interest in well, anything in life.* They spent too much time focused on taking the piss out of other people to ever succeed in school and do more, although some of them absolutely could have done well. They aren't unpleasant adults but not the type of person I'd associate with.

1 is a nurse, and 1 is a lawyer. Both of them were the "fringe" mean girls who very obviously didn't want to be a bully, but were scared to stand against the rest for fear of being bullied themselves. Both are very lovely adults and we've chatted since.

The mean girls who bullied me for being "goth" now often copy my former fashion because it's trendy now.

*not that there is anything wrong if you are happy with this type of life, but they used to act insanely superior to me, despite coming from the exact same background as me. I've moved away, and I'm very very happy with my life and the direct it has gone

That's absolutely horrible!

oh and most of them are in some shit pyramid scheme selling snake oil.

Yep, same here. Girls only giggled or made snide comments. The boys were typical boys at least in my opinion at the time all rough and physically violent. I could take the giggling and snide comments, but the physical assaults always made me feel worse.

A new colleague joined our office recently and when she told me her maiden name, I recognised her as a mean girl from secondary school. She’s a couple of years older than me and I was scared of her back in the day, although all she really did was make catty remarks and embarrass me in front of others.

She remembers herself as having being rebellious and lazy, but not unkind. She has had a lot of issues since leaving school and hasn’t fulfilled her potential (she had a particular talent). I ended up liking her. She isn’t mean or scary anymore.

My experience - from my school - they didn't do very well in life. I have met a few at work - one got fired after bullying staff for years. Another from work eventually quit after failing to progress, nobody knows where she is.

I suspect school bullies are the bullies we work with and those you see at the school gates. It takes a lot for someone to change.

They become teachers or work with children or in hospitals and constantly post #bekind on social media.