Meanness Has to Do With Age, Not Sex

The media is abuzz with what is being described as a new trend of meanness in girls. The New York Times magazine screams a headline “Girls Just Want to Be Mean.” On TV, Oprah delves into the secret life of mean girls. This media blitz is based on a half-dozen new books about girls and their mean streak. Now the L.A. Times is chiming in, too (“Bullying, Girl-Style,” May 6).

Why are we obsessed on segregating the genders these days? Boys, too, use their relationships to humiliate and shun one another at the bus stop or on the sports field, just as girls today are known to physically attack one another.

This modern-day mean behavior, coined “relational aggression,” is on the upswing because girls can’t play out their aggression like boys can. Mean-spiritedness is a fact of life for both genders during early adolescence, the years between 10 and 15. Mean behavior committed by both genders is part of early adolescent development, exacerbated by a culture that tells kids it’s cool to be mean. Movies cast the popular jocks and queens as condescending and nasty. With TV broadcasting humiliation as entertainment as in “The Weakest Link,” “Judge Judy” and umpteen talk shows, we have bequeathed to our young nasty values.

During middle school, peers preoccupy boys and girls. Friendships are seen as exclusive and thus exclusionary. Meanness is not some byproduct of feminist evolution. It is a pattern that needs to be eliminated, not explained away. Not until we as a culture tout “It’s cool to be kind” will relational aggression ebb among girls and boys.

This current expose has turned into an en masse confessional for women. They want to “tell all” and be forgiven for past bullying. Wasn’t the point of these books to turn things around? I hope today’s moms don’t get sidetracked in their own mea culpas. I hope their effort to undo junior high social crimes does not eclipse the urgent need for mothers and fathers to arm daughters and sons with skills to survive their difficult period.

MARGARET SAGARESE

Islip, N.Y.

Sagarese is co-author of “Clique: 8 Steps to Help Your Child Survive the Social Jungle.”

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What About Good

Old-Fashioned Families?

(Re: “Dating in a Family Way,” May 7) Our country is based upon the family unit. Certain leaders have noted the correlation between single mothers and poverty in youths. Everyone knows that a child needs a father and a mother active in their life.

How can the L.A. Times accept and promote women getting pregnant without a spouse? Do they wish to promote poor child care and no moral values in our society? On the other hand, the L.A. Times should congratulate men who marry women who already have children, men who step up to the plate and accept the responsibility of being a father.

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ED LAROSCHE

Huntsville, Ala.

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I found Lisa Rosen’s article on the supposedly positive aspects of the single and pregnant woman dating scene to be completely bewildering. Doctors will confirm that most pregnant women experience a decrease in sexual libido, not an increase, and demographic statistics prove that, sadly, single mothers suffer from more depression, lower income and greater hardship than married women. Postpartum depression is an unfortunate example of this tendency.

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MICHAEL GAGLIANO

Los Angeles

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Smoking Is Deadly,

Not Glamorous

No matter how exotic you name it, tobacco is tobacco be it sheesha or a Cuban cigar (“Passing the Pipe,” May 1). I am perplexed as to why The Times has chosen to feature smoking in whatever form as chic even as the federal government and the medical profession have been trying so hard to erase its Joe Camel or Marlboro Man image from our cultural consciousness.

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JOHN T. CHIU

Newport Beach

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Comic Strip Seen

as Offensive to Israel

I found the Doonesbury comic on May 1 to be very distasteful. I lost a very dear friend in the Sbarro pizza bombing in Israel, and when Garry Trudeau equates Ariel Sharon with a homicide bomber whose only objective is to kill as many people as he or she can, I find it distasteful. Sharon would not do such a thing. It is not part of the Israeli mentality to intentionally kill innocent people, and in trying to avoid this, Israel has lost many soldiers in booby traps.

It’s sad when a paper’s anti-Israel leanings go to its comics section. This was not entertainment. It encourages anti-Jewish rhetoric.

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SHARLENE BALTER

Los Angeles

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