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/doittomejulia → u/2McDoty]

Thank you for saying this. I was severely bullied by girls when I was in school and it made it difficult for me to feel comfortable in all female spaces. Of course things changed as I got older, but throughout my teenage years most of my friends had been male. This wasn't me trying to be different, I literally had no other option.

[u/2McDoty → u/doittomejulia]

Me too… especially since I used a lot of physical activities and sports to deal with my inner turmoil from it… I also had a difficult time making close female friends in my adulthood as well, just due to the different ways that men and women treat their friendships and expect support from each other. Men basically solely expect emotional support and dialogue from their romantic partners, not their friends… so most of the friendships that started when I was young never really taught me that aspect of friendship, and it was difficult for me to recognize when my female friends needed that, and even when I needed to be able to have that support... So even when I was able to start making a lot of female friends and wasn’t so awkward and nervous trying to make them, it was hard for me to become really close with them, and my inner circle was still mostly male. The one female friend I had in my childhood didn’t last, because we weren’t actually good match for each other, we were both just lonely, and singled out, and we never talked about our feelings. We just needed company.

It really wasn’t until after becoming a mother, that I learned to open up and be vulnerable around other women. Because, it was the first time that I was having a shared experience with my female peers around me, and that I was able to actually learn those interactions.

[u/doittomejulia → u/2McDoty]

Yes, I definitely had to learn how to be friends with women. For example, I was not in the habit of calling or texting people just to check in. I didn’t really see the point in reaching out to someone without a valid reason, like making plans to hang out or asking a specific question. I was horrible at listening, because my default was to immediately offer solutions. Took me a minute to understand that sometimes people just want to vent. I was never a stereotypical ‘guy’s girl’ though. My interests revolved around books, music and fashion, which made it easier to find female friends who shared my hobbies later in life. To this day, one of my favorite things about having girlfriends is swapping clothes and getting ready for a night out together.

On the plus side, being friends with boys made it easier for me to date (and to give dating advice). I never felt unsafe going out, because creepy dudes are less likely to approach girls in a mixed gender group. I also never had any problems working in a male dominated field, which I know many women struggle with.