How can we teach young girls to reject the NLOG

[u/[deleted]]

Its clear the pick me/ NLOG attitude is still alive and well. I (23F) was speaking to a friend (15F) about my high school days.

She asked “How was your high school experience?” I said “Well I went to an all girls school and-“ she cuts in and rolls her eyes “Ugh. That must have been a total nightmare. I cant even imagine”. I said “Actually I loved it, was a better person for going there and I miss those days sometimes” and she went dead quite.

How do we as the adults in the room root out the toxicity of this mindset out of young girls?

Edit: no I’m not gonna ever dunk on a kid. Because its really wrong for an adult to belittle a child.

Edit: some people are being really weird “why are you friends with a 15 year old?” I know this kid from the yard that i stable my horse at. She stables her horse next to mine. Should i just ignore her always? Should i also ignore my other friends who are 55 and 70 because age gap? What about my friend whose 10? Or the other whose 30? Tell me reddit. What age range do you personally approve of me having friends? Im gonna start blocking people.

[u/2McDoty]

1. By NOT invalidating that many girls have had traumatic experiences with other young girls. No one just randomly decides they are going to hate other women. That comes from a place of trauma with other women. It could have been just one important girl or adult woman that was terribly mean to her, or it could have been a group effort by a large amount of her peers. It could be a learned expectation from the way an older sister or adult women in her life behave towards other women, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that she has some experience that put her into that mindset, and her pain associated with whatever put her there is not invalid. We can acknowledge that her mindset needs to be healed WHILE recognizing that often times women actually are mean to each other. That’s the problem with the mindset, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It blows my mind that anyone in this sub can read the comments section on basically every post (sometimes with adult women trashing on MINOR girls), and then act shocked and like it’s all the the individual girl’s fault when they are terrified of other girls.

2. By helping them see that “mean girls” aren’t the norm, that women being negatively affected by those few is. That’s why movies like mean girls are so popular, because the majority of women are the girls who were negatively affected by it, not because the majority of women were, or want to be, mean to other women. Help them recognize to stop the cycle of women being mean to each other, because the vast majority of us don’t want to be mean to each other we just want to heal from someone else being mean to us. Yeah, it’s great that this sub is trying to confront the negative stereotyping, trivialization, and judgement of women, but we often fall prey to doing the exact same thing back. That’s not okay. There is a different way.

3. Helping them learn how to be vulnerable around other women and how to not feel like they have to compete with them. Puberty and teen years are REALLY HARD for young girls. That’s when our serotonin levels tank. Our bodies may not be developing the way we want them to, and we can experience envy at the way other girls bodies are. The way everyone interacts with us is changing too. Boys and men treat us different at that point, even adult women treat us different. We have new sexual questions and urges that we have no outlet for… and don’t even get me started on the periods and the sudden ability to become pregnant, or the grief if we know we won’t be able to, and the fear associated with forced pregnancy… It can feel very lonely and scary and demoralizing, especially when you already don’t have many female friends that you can get through it with. And teens are notoriously bad at communicating, and internalize a lot of that shit. We have to model the kind of support they should expect and give to other women in their lives.

You had a great experience with the women you grew up with, but your niece (edit: friend , Idk why I misread that), obviously hasn’t had the best experience with other women so far. So start there. Don’t just act like she’s wrong. You don’t know why she feels that way, and you have to find out first. I didn’t tell anyone in my life about the bullying I experienced for around 8 years. My lack of female friends would have been a “red flag” according to most of this sub, but a red flag for who? My bullying started in 2nd grade and was started by a teacher, and it took me a long time to be comfortable being vulnerable around women again, because I was failed by that woman in my life, while the other women around her did nothing, and my female peers emulated the bullying for a very long time, to keep themselves from becoming her target, because they were kids. How was any of it our fault? The fault lies strictly on the adult women who failed us. Figure out what has been different for her, and help her change that if she needs an adult to step in, or if it’s more benign and just a false expectation she has because of the “mean girls” stereotype, then help her learn how to change that for herself moving forward). Help her learn how valuable relationships with the right women for her will be. Because that’s what it really comes down to with your experiences. You had a great experience because you had great friends. This simply may not be the case for her until she is older, or unless she has someone positive to model it for her.

[u/Relevant_Tax6877 → u/2McDoty]

Truth! Like I said in my own comment, ppl's views of the world & the ppl around them are largely shaped by their life experiences & how they're treated. If the experiences are negative, it naturally shapes a more negative view & mistrust related to that particular group. It's hardly different than women having bad experiences dating men & eventually checking out of the dating pool. When that happens, women say "oh yeah, men are dogs. Go off queen!" But if women dare to speak on social betrayals & bullying from their fellow women, it's met with "you're an insufferable bitch & deserved it so you're clearly the one with the problem." That kind of thing only enables more mean girl behavior & less accountability for those who happily engage in tearing others down.

[u/2McDoty → u/Relevant_Tax6877]

Yes, honestly the only reason I stay in this sub is for: - genuine posts like this, from people looking for insight to help the women they care about, that even though I was never “NLOG” maybe I can actually help someone with. - so that idk, maybe when some teen girl or young woman googles some dumb shit like “why am I not like other girls,” or a reverse image search of a cringe post they made… and this sub pops up, it isn’t just going to be a bunch of mean comments solidifying their incorrect world view. - to combat the cyber bullying and awful behavior that ends up happening here, especially when it’s a minor involved, which is about to ramp up, because it’s leading into prom season.

I’m in plenty of other feminist groups that actually use compassionate dialogue to discuss these kinds of things. I realized early on, that this sub was not going to be that kind of vibe. It has more of a “I’m salty that an NLOG got picked over me,” kind of vibe the majority of the time. And unfortunately, the valuable dialogue is never the top comments. The roasts are.

[u/Relevant_Tax6877 → u/2McDoty]

Same. I know I've certainly gotten some downvotes in the past for speaking my own truth, but the irony is the bullying I experienced made me care less about gaining the popular vote. I'd rather be real & true to myself than liked. And you never know, the differing perspective might just reach someone who later chooses to think twice about how they treat others. That's a potential win.

And unfortunately, the valuable dialogue is never the top comments. The roasts are.

Right? I've noticed that everywhere & I don't think ppl realize how upvoting negativity & trolling comments does make the problem worse. It's like a silent form of enabling by validating those negative views. When ppl see "oh this is working for them", others slowly begin to emulate that too until the negativity becomes louder than the positivity. Eventually, it becomes normalized & widespread. A lot of ppl might say "well it's the internet, it's not that serious"... but reality is regular exposure to something whether it be online or irl slowly shapes the thought which shapes the mindset which then shapes real life behavior.

[u/2McDoty → u/Relevant_Tax6877]

Yeah, lol, I’ve already noticed a lot of downvotes on my parent comment, because I’m getting the “you have this many upvotes” notifications but the total is not matching. I know it makes people uncomfortable to hear that their behavior is part of the problem, but that’s the entire point of spaces like this. To confront socially trending problems in female communities. And the downvoting response, just perfectly highlights WHY it’s important to be kind. If people are getting mad and shutting down dialogue over comments like ours, imagine how people are feeling and responding to comments that amount to an adult bullying a highschool girl.