Queen Bees and WannaBees- The Evolution of Club Girl Psychology

Queen Bees and WannaBees By Rosalind Wiseman is not only the basis for the movie "Mean Girls" with Lindsay Lohan, it's also the first realistic, no holds barred, no sugarcoating book about how girls grow up and become socialized into the superficial world of popularity and beauty, which inevitably leads to cliques, fights, boy drama and all the fun stuff that we as guys have all been left scratching our heads and wondering about.

This book is by far the best thing I've ever read on female psychology as well as the overall psychology of club girls and "9s and 10s".

Below you'll find over 12 pages of notes and quotes that I found fascinating from the book. But to really show you how applicable this book is to modern life, tomor I'll be starting a four part series where I take the ideas taught in Queen Bee and WannaBees and show you how they apply in real life conflicts with my favorite ridiculous Orange County Housewives, as that cast has 4 Queen Bees and a whole lot of powerplays, fake apologies, and text dirty bombs. All of which can be explained through the social Heirarchies and lessons in QBs and WBS.

So enjoy the notes today, and tomor I'll have part one of QBs and WBs applied: a portrait of the most unapologetic Queen Bee in all of TV Land Vicki Gundvalsen.


Enjoy my notes:


Chapter 1: Technology, The Media , And Girl World

How People Of All Ages Act Online:

1.They do things online they wouldn’t do in real life.
2.People fight differently through technology than they would in real life.
3.Information is quicker to disseminate online.
4.People post personal information despite knowing it can become public.
5.Technology fans the flames of paranoia. Inspires people to think EVERYONE is looking at them.
6.They are addicted to being connected. Technology provides a constantly updating picture of everyone’s life.

Sexting: Girls Betraying Themselves.

Sexting generally starts as a way to impress older boys and can even happen in the middle of a normal family environment. Thus sexting becomes a secret thrill. Technology becomes a buffer where a girl can try to impress a guy with her sexuality without fear of getting pressured to have sex right then and there.

Chapter 2: Is It Really Happening So Much Younger?

Cliques, Girlworld, bullying, bystanding etc… All begin anywhere from age 7 to 11.

Girls begin being selectively truthful with parents.

Girls aren’t just mean to other girls, they can be just as cruel as boys.

Using Web technology to be mean can start this young

By the time girls are in 4th and 5th grade they cite Youtube as the website they go to most often.

By fourth grade there will be girls in every class going through puberty

There will also be girls becoming boy crazy in 4th grade as well.

Inside jokes, secret languages, and clubs are normal but become hurtful because they begin as harmless fun.

What’s The Difference between Good Teasing and Bad Teasing?

Good Teasing: You feel liked by the teaser, you don’t feel the teaser’s intention is to put you down, the teasing would stop if you decide you don’t like it and say something.

Unintentional Bad Teasing: You don’t like it, the teaser doesn’t know you don’t like it or dismisses your feelings, If you tell them to stop they do.

Mean Teasing: Teasing is done to make you feel bad, insecure and embarrassed, you’re teased about something others know you feel insecure about, if you defend yourself you’re blown off for being “ too sensitive” or for “ not being able to take a joke.” If you tell them to stop, they tease you more.

Why just Joking is Never Funny:

When someone says something mean and then says “ Just kidding” they’re hurting you and then denying your right to be upset. This is supermanipulative. Worse, girls can then threaten to break up with their friends. Girls are forced to either bury their emotions to keep their friends or lose their friends.

Social Dynamics Become a Real Factor in Girls Lives as early as Carpools.

Chapter 3: Cliques and Popularity

Cliques reinforce girls bond’s with they’re friends, they also weaken bonds with parents as they teach girls to turn to and exclusively depend on the members of this clique when she’s in trouble. As a result girls become simultaneously self aware and off center morally. The Worst thing a girl can learn from a clique is that it’s more important to maintain a relationship at all costs regardless of how they are treated within the relationship.

Popularity: For some girls, popularity is magical, it conveys an unmatched sense of power, girls assume if they can achieve it all their problems will go away, some girls become obsessed and measure and report about they’re popularity daily, Others dismiss it as ridiculous, still others are angry and deny they care even though they often do.

Girls deny cliques when asked about them in public classrooms. When asked to write about it in secrecy all girls admit cliques and a social hierarchy of “coolness” exists. Cliques silence girls from telling the truth about popularity cliques etc, this is where what TD once called the secret society is born.

Popular girls like any other priviledged group of individuals don’t recognize their priviledge because they are blind to it. They literaly cannot see what it's like to live any other kind of life except the one of priviledge and popularity. This also explains why it's soo hard for pretty popular girls to understand why guys need courses to meet women.

Good Popularity Versus Mean Popularity:

Good popularity occurs when a girl is genuinely liked.

Bad popularity happens when the other girls are grateful when she is nice to them and terrified when she’s angry.

The Queen Bee and her Court:

The Queen Bee- The Epitome of teen girl perfection. Through a combination of money, charisma, force, looks, will and social intelligence this girl reigns supreme and weakens other girls friendships with others, thus strengthening her power and influence.

The Queen Bee:

Friends do what they want
She is not intimidated by other girls
She complains about other people copying her, never leaving her alone, or being too sensitive.
When she’s hanging in a group she’s the center of attention
She can argue everyone down, parents, teachers included.
She makes other girls feel special by anointing them special friends.
She’s strategically affectionate.
She won’t take responsibility when she hurts someone’s feelings.
If she thinks she’s been wronged she feels she has the rights to seek revenge and will do so.

The Sidekick:

She’s the lieutenant or second in command. The Queen Bee and Sidekick are often the first interested in boys and are often interested in older boys. Sidekicks also can stage a coup and become the Queen Bee. She is jealous of anyone else being the Queen Bees friend. The Queen Bee is her authority figure, She feels like it’s just her and the Queen Bee and everyone else is a wannabe

The Banker:

Information about people is currency in girl world. Whoever has the most information is known as the Banker. She creates chaos by banking information about girls in her social sphere and dispensing it at strategic intervals. She can cause conflict and strengthen her status at the same time. She can get girls to trust her because she doesn’t pump them for information in a gossipy way but in an I’m there for you way. She is extremely secretive, she thinks in complex strategic ways, she’s rarely the subject of fights, and she’s rarely excluded from the group.

The Messenger:

The messenger trades information and gossip about others but she differs in that her motivation is to reconcile the conflict. She hopes to gain recognition and social power. She lives for drama and is obvious about it, she loves to “help” people out when they are fighting, she gets an adrenaline rush from being in the middle of conflict. She feels better about herself when other girls come to her for help.

The Pleaser/Wannabe :

This person will do almost anything to be in the group or gain favor from the queen bee or sidekick. She often observes and imitates their behavior, clothes, and interests but never feels completely in the group. As a result she can lose sight of what is important to her. Other girls opinions are more important to her than her own. Her opinions on dress, style and fashion are constantly changing according to what the Queen Bee does and says. She has trouble developing personal boundaries and communicating them to others. She can’t tell the difference between what she wants and what the group wants. She’s desperate to have the right look. She’ll stop doing the things she likes because she fears the clique’s disapproval. She avoids conflict her standard response is "Whatever you want, it doesn’t matter to me. “

The Torn Bystander:

She doesn’t want to go against the group but wants to help the target of the bullying. She always finds herself in situations where she has to choose between her friends, she tries to accommodate everyone, she’s not good at saying no to her friends, she wants everyone to get along.

The Target:
She is the girl who is set up to be humiliated, made fun of or excluded. These are your typical “Losers”. Girls are generally outside of the clique when they are targeted but could become targets if they challenge the Queen Bee. Sometimes these girls pre-empt the rejection by first rejecting everyone by saying they don’t like anyone.

Teenage Girls Description of High Social Status:

The Act Like A Woman Box: What society and their friends expect them to be to be cool and "feminine"

Pretty
Popular
Thin but with the right curves
Good Hair
Athletic but not bulky
Confident
Money
Right Brands of Clothing
Cell Phones, etc
In Control
Smart but not too intense about it
Guys think you’re hot

Low Social Status: Outside The Box

Tries Too hard
Gay/Dyke/Lez
Inexperienced with guys
Bad Skin
Fat
Too Masculine
Poor
Uptight
Wrong style/clothes
Slut
Disabilities
Passionate about uncool things

Chapter 5 The Beauty Pageant: Who wants to be Miss Congeniality?

Beauty’s Impact: Adolescense is a beauty pageant.

Issues of beauty for girls start at a really young age. 8 year olds have strong opinions on who is and isn’t beautiful.

Girls are constantly comparing themselves with each other.

Most girls will not admit what they like about themselves physically in fear of being labeled vain.

Girls obsess over anything they don’t like about their appearance.

Girls need constant reassurance from each other that they look good and fit in.

Girls know the media holds them up to an impossible standard of beauty but that doesn’t stop them from holding themselves to it as well.

The way a girl chooses to mark herself from piercings to hair to brands identify how she sees herself and what group she belongs to. It also reveals her relationship to the Act like a Woman box.

Miss Congeniality:

When girls are among friends, they put themselves down and compliment their friends. Girls must degrade themselves after being complimented as to not appear vain. Girls also must leap to another girls defense when they put themselves down, so that other girls will do the same for them. Girls must be aware of not doing this too much or it will look like they are begging for compliments all the time.

Chapter 6: Mean Girls: Teasing, Gossiping and Reputations.

99.99% of girls gossip

Girls will almost always blame their behavior on something or someone else.

Once they’re over 12 they have been called and called other girls sluts/bitches and worse

Technology increases the power and damage of gossip

What Girls Like About Their Friendships with other girls:

Be Yourself

Tell her Anything

Trust her

Depend on her for support

Be Silly

Hang Out

Share Clothes and Secrets


What Girls Don’t like About their friendships with other girls:

Talk behind your back

Gossip about you

Be two faced

Be jealous

Be competitive

Be critical

Be judgmental

Tell Your Secrets

Be a tagalong

Take your boyfriend

Make you choose friends

Betray you

Reputations:

Gossip causes reputations.

Reputations are dangerous because girls can get them for nothing and eventually they do influence her sense of self.

Reputations Girls Talk About:

Drama Queen: Has to be the center of attention, she decides what boys like what girls, etc… She is bossy.

Girly Girl: Loves pink and possibly purple, wants to be a princess, hates dirt, interested in fashion, clothes and princesses.

Suck Up: Untrustworthy and annoying. Often enforces rules and judgments.

Tomboy: Prefers to hang out with the boys and do activities with them.

Perfect Girl: Everyone thinks she is perfect while she feels like a fraud and fears that any moment someone will remove the curtain and expose her. Tries hard to avoid mistakes and is impossibly hard on herself. Finds fault with herself easily and never thinks she is doing enough. Either avoids drugs because she fears a loss of control or binges to escape the pressure she’s under.

Guy’s Girl: Insists she gets along better with guys because women girls are too dramatic. Guy’s girl’s back up boys when they argue about politics or gender issues. She pretends she isn’t attached to boys often she ends up treating herself like a sex object. She tells herself she’s powerful to sleep at night.

Preppy:Likes school, always has a boyfriend, is on all the committees etc.

Emo/Goth Girl:Black hair dye, dark music, cynical and morose.

Social Climber: Constantly changes herself to fit in with the girls she emulates and the guys she likes. She looks to others for her opinions. Behind her back people laugh at her for trying too hard.

The Slut:Girls get accused of two things acting like a slut and being a slut. The fear of being accused of acting like a slut controls girls actions in particular situation. Acting like a slut is a label a girl gets from her appearance and behavior in public.

Chapter 7: Power Plays and Politics: Speaking The Truth In Girl World.

Power Plays teach girls to dismiss their own feelings. The person is mad but she feels like she can’t complain about it.

Power plays occur when girls reinforce their power without leaving concrete evidence of their actions.

Rules Of Anger In Girl World
Internalize it and suffer silently

Laugh it off to convince yourself you don’t have to take your feelings seriously.

Give the person the silent treatment until they ask what’s wrong, then respond with
nothing or it’s fine. Get mad at the person for not being able to read your mind.

Finally ask for the behavior to stop but the other person dismisses it with:
You can’t take a joke, you’re uptight, a bitch, or I’m just sarcastic.

Internalize until you explode in tears/screaming.

Have a “ You have no idea who you’re messing with" attitude and try to destroy everyone

Verbally or physically fight

Use drugs or alcohol to deaden emotions.

Chapter 8 : Boy World

Femininity:

Dictionary Definiton: The quality of nature of the female sex

Girl World Definition: You have a great body, guys like you, you’re not a prude, but you’re not a slut, you’re in control, not uptight, and smart enough to get people to do what you want them to without them even noticing.

Masculinity:

Dictionary Definition: The qualities or appearance traditionally associated with a man; for example strength and aggressiveness.

Boy World Definition: Nothing is ever serious. You don’t make an bvious effort for anything, especially not for the right style or body ( If it’s not effortless and your goal is to look good, you’ll be called gay) you laugh off emotional and physical pain. The right girls like you, and you like all the attention the girls give you. You’re competitive about everything and by five years of age you can discuss sports, or cars with authority.

Act Like A Man Box:

Strong
Verbal
Tall
Tough
Athletic
Likes Girls
Girls Like Him
Money
Funny (Nothing is serious)
Good Style
Good at video games but not obsessed

Outside the Box (Losers):

Backs Down
Weak
Short
Poor
Acts like a girl/effeminate/flamboyant
Whipped
Awkward
Gay
Snitch


When Girls Get Mad At Guys?

The most common way girls confront boys is with other girls at their side for support. This publicly humiliates the guy without her even realizing she’s doing it. It also weakens the girl's personal power as she is not standing up for herself but using group think to express her feelings, this sets her up to become a pushover when alone.

Chapter 9: Girl World Meets Boy World

Around 12 years old girls bonding often extends beyond navigating their friendships with other girls to include boys.

If one girl is more boy crazy than her friends this will strain their friendship.

At some point girls will act less capable/smart etc around a boy they like.

Her friends will see that be embarrassed for her and then talk behind her back

Girls often communicate unclearly with boys because they don’t want to ruin the relationship.

Girls will have crushes on people who don’t treat her or others well. She’ll know this but won’t stop liking the other person.

Crushes

Typical descriptions of crushes:

“ I get butterflies in my stomach.”

“ I get so excited, I can’t breathe, and then I start to giggle uncontrollably. It’s humiliating and also fun at the same time.”

“I’m so nervous. I’m sure I’ll do or say something stupid.”

Obsessions

Why are girls obsessed with celebrities?

It’s easier to fall in love with someone you have no actual chance of meeting. That way you are free to fall in love as intensely as you want without having to deal with all the unnerving feelings of sexuality.

Chapter 10: Pleasing Boys, Betraying Yourself

Getting validation from boys boosts a girl’s self esteem and confirms that she fits into the Act Like a Woman box. Girls understand that their social status and identity are tied to relationships with boys.

Girls may sacrifice boundaries and defy common sense to please boys.

In trying to please a boy she may betray and sacrifice her friendships with girls.

At some point most girls will lie, connive and or backstab to get the boy they want.

Technology encourages girls to present themselves in ever increasingly sexual ways to prove their not uptight and to get boy attention.

Dating Vs Hooking Up- Dating is one on one and rare. Hooking up covers everything from literally hanging out to having sex.

Queen Bees have dating immunity, but are careful to date someone who fits into the Act like a man box to protect her image.

Group approval is most important when it comes to dating. There’s even pressure for a girl to discount her feelings and standards to date someone who superficially looks good even if he doesn’t treat her well.

When Boys are the better offer.

Girls can blow their female friends off to hang out with a boy and as long as they apologize their friends will always take them back. This is dangerous because it teaches girls that their friendships are less important than their romantic relationships.

Boyfriend Stealing:

Girls friendships can be broken by boys which can have two negative repurcussions, when girls don’t trust each other, they lose out on lasting friendships and miss out on watching out for each other.

Communicating with Boys:

Girls define a great relationship as one in which the other person knows what you’re thinking and you can finish each others sentences, you’re totally in sync with each other. This is essential to girls’ closest friendships and they expect it with the boys they like. When they don’t get it, they feel betrayed. They want to be understood without having to explain everything.

Chapter 11: Sex Drugs and Partying in Girl World

Teens Trust one another, at parties it’s common for girls to meet someone she doesn’t know well but feels she knows well because they go to nearby schools or have friends in common. In these situations it’s common for girls to trust someone she shouldn’t

Girls love having a reputation for having a high tolerance for alcohol, and will drink themselves silly to prove it.

Pregaming is a sacred ritual where girls get together to eat, get dressed and dance. They don’t eat because it makes it harder to get drunk.

The postgame analysis is also a sacred ritual where girls eat, discuss who got together with whom, who humiliated themselves and who got totally wasted.

Ok That should wrap up the notes, as well as sicken everyone that this kind of thinking and acting starts so young and is so common among young women. Now at least it explains why girls act like that in clubs and bars etc though right?

Talk to ya tomor when I show you how these various elements come to fruition in real life( or at least Reality TV)

JS- The King Of Content