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WHY SO MEAN, GIRLS?
I have asked myself many times this week – why are girls so nasty to each other?
What happens between the ages of about 8 and 12 that they go from being best friends five minutes after meeting each other, to being manipulative and cruel the minute they meet each other?
Is it a combination of what they see in the media and how they see the women in their lives interact?
Once were friends… Michelle and Barack Obama with Oprah Winfrey. A new book claims the First Lady is jealous of the access and influence the media personality has over the President.
New research has found about about one in 10 students has been cyber bullied, with schoolgirls more likely to be the victim or perpetrator, according to psychologist and bullying expert Evelyn Field.
“Girls are more likely to use their phone or computer because they are much more adept at verbalising and using words at that age,” she said.
“A 14-year-old boy pretty much just grunts, but girls can have quite a way with words.”
I am loathe to admit it but I wonder at the behaviour of grown women sometimes, myself included, and think we may be more to blame than we realise.
I recently watched on Ms 9’s first day at a new school as a really gorgeous and beautifully dressed woman tried to strike up conversation with one of the other new school mums. The other mum, less glamorously dressed, looked hard at this woman, offered a monosyllabic reply and turned away. I could see the first mum was hurt. Every afternoon since I’ve seen her at pick-up standing slightly away from the other mums. I am working up the courage to go and say hi to her.
A recent women’s magazine cover depicted Elizabeth Hurley and Shane Warne’s ex-wife, Simone in their swimmers declaring “bikini wars”; another edition says Simone is furious because her kids call Liz “mum”.
Then there’s the story that Michelle Obama banished Oprah Winfrey from the White House because she thought Oprah had too much influence over the President. “Michelle Hates Fat People” said the headline on news.com.au.
What hope have our girls got when two of the world’s most influential women are portrayed as fighting like alley cats?
I think we set girls up early to be nasty to each other and it starts around age 11 or 12.
Ms 9 just started a new school and came home on the first day with three new friends. By the end of the week she’d been invited to a birthday party and had a whole new social circle.
Ms 12 started high school and was immediately thrown into the cutthroat world of teenage girls where one wrong step can impact to the point that you are an outcast before you know what you did wrong.
Throw text messaging and social media into the mix and you are in a minefield so dangerous you barely know where to walk for fear of a catastrophic explosion!
I don’t know why this happens and why it follows us into adulthood. One theory I have is that women are always set up to compete with each other.
As a divorced woman I often find my single status alone makes other women assume I’m a predator, seeking out their husbands so I can seduce them. This is absolutely not the case.
In the media we are shown pictures of women heavily airbrushed and told this is what you should look like, the worst of these are the “six-week post-baby body” photos. We have television dating shows where hundreds of women are lined up and compete with each other to have a man they’ve never met choose them as their girlfriend/wife.
Is it any wonder that girls turn on each other? This is what they see.
I am trying to teach my daughters to negotiate their way in the world without stomping on other people, especially other women.
To do this, I am taking a good look at my own behaviour. I am, after all, the first female role model they had and it’s up to me to do my best to show them the way.
Wish me luck because I am really going to need it!
RELATED ARTICLES
Wild girls… the new moral panic
*Alice Shaw is a fledgling writer, seeker of social justice, mother of two fabulous girls, friend, silver-lining seeker and cynical optimist. Lover of shoes and a well-made cappuccino.
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WHAT I WEAR WHEN…
The theme of this year’s blockbuster show at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is an imagined conversation between fashion visionaries Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada.
And between the grand opening (aka the Met Ball) on Monday and the various installations I’ve seen in photos of the show, I’m clearly having a subliminal Prada moment, as today’s outfit was definitely working with Miuccia’s spring/summer palette of pale and navy blues with flashes of red and peach (look out for me channelling Schiap in a lobster hat next week!).
But seriously, it all began with the shoes. The freakishly warm autumn weather was cause for celebration and what better way than with some sparkles?
Doing: meeting Megan Gale and checking out her new range of swimwear for Isola (lots of florals, plus many styles now available in an E cup); lunch at the beautiful Bondi Icebergs with Fernando Cadavid, the global make-up artist for Chantecaille (he sold me on the brand’s new roll-on eye serum, which uses gold and is available at Mecca Cosmetica); hearing about the latest in skincare from Ego Pharmaceuticals.
Wearing: Scanlan & Theodore cardigan; Bassike tank; 3.1 Phillip Lim skirt; Miu Miu heels.
RELATED ARTICLES
Rachel Ward’s Franco Style File
Fashion comeback: Novelty knits
*Michelle Bateman is a freelance writer and editor who blogs about fashion, beauty and the arts on The Modernity Project, as well as contributing to Australian Vogue, Women’s Health, Harper’s Bazaar and Emporium, among other titles. When not testing new lipsticks (and the occasional gloss), she can be found rearranging her wardrobe in a perpetual quest for more space. This season, she is enjoying mixing patterns and clashing colours; she has always been a sucker for a good leopard print. -
HILLARY’S NAKED, BRAVE FACE!
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JOB SHARING IN THE NATION’S FUTURE
Boo hoo, big business.
So you have to fill out an extra form to keep making money. Diddums. In the words of that great philosopher Chopper Read, “Harden the f*#k up”.
Jennifer Turano, right, and Joan O’Rourke share an ad sales job at Glamour magazine in the US. Colleagues refer to them as a unified entity – “Jen and Joan”. Source: New York Times.
The Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry are reportedly fighting federal government plans to increase gender equity in the workplace.
These are the proposed laws to ‘name and shame’ large companies with low numbers of female employees. They would also be excluded from government contracts and grants.
Daniel Mammone from the ACCI has told Fairfax it would create too much red tape: “Business should be encouraged and not punished.”
Sorry, Daniel, but any parent knows you have to use carrots AND sticks.
In her submission to the review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act, Anne Summers wrote, “Previous attempts to encourage employers to ‘do the right thing’ have been largely unsuccessful”.
In the past 30 years, the labor force participation rate of women has increased just 15 percent.
The Director of EOWA, Helen Conway, puts it like this: “As a parent, do you believe it’s right that your daughter doesn’t have the same opportunities as your son?”
The emotional argument is backed up by cold hard facts – of which big business is usually enamoured.
The World Economic Forum argues, “Reducing gender inequality enhances productivity and economic growth. Over time, a nation’s competitiveness depends… on whether and how it educates and utilises its female talent”.
According to Goldman Sachs JB Were, closing the gap would boost Australia’s GDP by 11 percent. One of the major areas which needs to be addressed is flexibility, in the form of paid parental leave, on-site child care, and job sharing.
Job sharing. It’s an arrangement that would suit many workers , but we don’t hear as much about it as we should.
Take the case of a friend who wanted to job share after the birth of her fourth child. She found another senior female journalist who was willing to enter into this arrangement. Then, she collated data on the increase in productivity this would bring to her newsroom.
The manager looked at the documents, threw them on the table, and said, “Well, I’m going to say no, because it hasn’t been done here before”.
Fortunately, a rival newsroom saw the benefits. Ten years later, the Seven Network in Melbourne has two award-winning health reporters, for the price of one.
Another colleague received a similar answer from her boss, when she asked to job share so she could study law part-time to improve her chances of promotion.
“I wouldn’t know how to fill out the forms for job sharing,” the boss replied. “Sorry.”
Touted in the 80s as the way of the future, job sharing has been a slow starter with only 165,000 women and 23,000 men in such arrangements.
But times are changing.
Example: Two female middle managers from a leading Australian bank (with five children between them) work as a team to share one job. They juggle parental duties with work and, after hours, live and breathe ways to make the business better. No wonder they have been head-hunted by the most prestigious firms in the country.
At Matrix Resources in Atlanta, Donnell-Ping is among the top four performers every year. She has one desk, email address and phone line, but is two people: Shawn Donnell and Emily Ping.
It’s worked so well, Matrix now has six job-sharing teams among its 180 employees.
Although women are driving the trend, it’s not gender specific. Increasingly, men want to spend more time with their kids.
A study by Watson Wyatt Worldwide has found companies with flexible workforces have a higher return to shareholders, improved staff retention, and reduced absenteeism.
You only have to be a fly on the wall at any office to know this. The hardest workers are inevitably women in the sandwich generation, holding down a job while caring for children and/or elderly parents.
Why businesses aren’t falling over themselves to hold on to workers like this – during a skills shortage – is beyond me.
It’s a sad indictment that the government has to resort to naming and shaming to help companies help themselves.
As the former MD of Apple, Di Ryall, told a seminar recently, “I used to say ‘no targets, no quotas’. But I’m fed up with the way Australia’s corporate sector continues to discriminate against women”.
This is why Diversity Council Australia has launched its Get Flexible campaign, of which I’m proud to be an ambassador. You can check out the website here.
Really, the sky’s the limit.
Why couldn’t there be job-sharing CEOs who brainstorm about the future direction of their company? A feature in Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine, which canvassed both the horror and success stories, concluded, “Despite the obvious problems with power sharing, a number of companies have made it work”.
What about the entertainment field? Who wouldn’t be happy with half the dose of Kyle Sandilands?
Unfortunately many managers are in denial about the benefits of flexibility. They’re like gorillas, slowly dragging their knuckles across the polished concrete floors of the workplaces of the future.
It’s time they got a rap over those oversized knuckles with a bloody big stick.
MORE SPICER’S SPOTLIGHT
Should Our Charity End at Home?
Is Bill Shorten Crossing the Line?
*Tracey Spicer is a respected journalist who has worked for many years in radio, print and television.Channel Nine and 10 news presenter and reporter; 2UE and Vega broadcaster; News Ltd. columnist; Sky News anchor …it’s been a dream career for the Brisbane schoolgirl with a passion for news and current affairs.
Tracey is a passionate advocate for issues as diverse as voluntary euthanasia, childhood vaccinations, breastfeeding, better regulation of foreign investment in Australia’s farmland, and curtailed opening hours for pubs and clubs.
She is an Ambassador for World Vision, ActionAid, WWF, the Royal Hospital for Women’s Newborn Care Centre and the Penguin Foundation, Patron of Cancer Council NSW and The National Premmie Foundation, and the face of the Garvan Institute’s research into pancreatic cancer, which killed her beloved mother Marcia 11 years ago.
But Tracey’s favourite job, with her husband, is bringing up two beautiful children – six-year-old Taj and five-year-old Grace. Visit Tracey’s website at www.spicercommunications.biz or follow her on Twitter @spicertracey
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MAY AT THE MOVIES
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LUCY KIPPIST’S MAY ALMANAC
Hip, hip, hooray! By all accounts we should feel happier in May.
Derived from the Latin, “Maia” May means “greatest one”. Even this month’s flower, Lily of the Valley, is said to be a symbol of happy times ahead.
We could start by eating ourselves happier. Check out this season’s produce: pears, quince, persimmons, silverbeet, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and Chinese greens. The only one I’m stuck on is persmimmons*. I can’t imagine what you’d make with those.
Happiness can be such an elusive emotion. That’s probably why so many of us spend a large chunk of our lives either coveting or chasing it.
Some people envy what they consider to be the “increased” happiness of those around them. Others feel inspired by it. Then, of course, there’s a whole heap of other people who once they do find happiness, straight away begin wondering how they’ll ever manage to hold onto it.I’ve always thought people are born with exactly the same capacity for happiness, it’s just that every person’s life path has a unique way of testing it. Even in the worst, most horrible times, happiness is there. “It” doesn’t disappear, but your ability to find it sometimes does.
I recently read a book about the Gyuto monks of Tibet, the Dalai Lama’s monks. Like most Buddhists, the Gyuto monks believe happiness is found by giving to others, without ever expecting anything in return. This is a beautiful sentiment, albeit difficult for most people operating in the normal world, but it’s something to aspire to all the same.
Many people feel happy when they spend time alone. The human relationship to solitude was the subject of a recent ABC Radio National piece for Life Matters, led by the host Natasha Mitchell and also Dr Elizabeth Shaw. It’s a very balanced discussion that’s worth the 15 minutes or so it takes to listen. As they’re quick to point out, solitude is not for everyone. Many people find it overwhelming or scary, particularly when they are forced to be alone, as a result of a break-up, move, health problem, or some other factor completely outside of their own control. Other people crave it. Like one of the callers who said for her, solitude is a vital part of her life and she can’t function without it.
Queen Victoria was one person who probably did not have much time for herself. Britain’s longest-reigning monarch (63 years) was queen by 18 and mother, alongside husband Albert, to nine children. Some clever person over at the British Royal Household has put together an online scrapbook of Queen Victoria’s life and her own Diamond Jubilee celebration, to coincide with the same celebration for the current Queen Elizabeth in July this year.
Queen Vic’s scrapbook is lovely to look at, full of photographs and scanned documents and you don’t even have to like royal stuff to enjoy it. In fact the best part about these documents is the social history it preserves. For example, Prince Albert’s memo on the royal children’s education and a terrific section on all the myriad innovations from the Victorian period. Like the telephone, and the beginnings of the British welfare system.
Get out your pricing gun (c’mon, we both know you’ve got one) because almost 6,000 garages around Australia are opening up to the public on May 5 with over 500,000 items on sale with a combined value of well in excess of $2 million – as the third annual Garage Sale Trail takes place across the nation.It’s a means to de-clutter, make some pocket money or fundraise, meet your neighbours, do something positive for the community and have a little fun too.
Households, makers and creators, cultural institutions, charities, schools, libraries, local businesses and community groups are hosting sales as part of the biggest real-world, community-based market-place in Australia. Garage Sale Trail encourages its participants to contribute a percentage of their takings to a good cause and this year over 20 per cent of participants are digging deep.
There’s everything on sale from vintage fashion, to collectable vinyl, kids clothes, house and gardening equipment. A keen seller in Bondi has even listed his apartment for sale!
Get on the Garage Sale Trail!
For some tips on how to do it, go to Good Housekeeping. In true form, their editors have a whole list of tips designed to help you get the most out of your sale. My favourite tip has to be number eight: “Don’t be afraid of rain”. Why? Because you’ve got a garage full of perfectly preserved plastic tarps in your shed, of course! Sigh. If only they lived as the rest of us did. In the real world.
Bold Palates: If you can’t bear the royals of any generation or you’ve a penchant for our long Aussie tradition of bucking all things British, then look no further than this new book by South Australian culinary historian, Professor Barbara Santich, called Bold Palates. It’s the story of Aussie food from our colonial days till now, and the ways we’ve appropriated dishes from our ancestors like pumpkin scones, lamb roast, shepherds’ pie, etc and made them our own.MAY’S FULL MOON FALLS ON SUNDAY THE 6TH. Pro-tip: watch one full moon over a beach at nighttime. I did this recently and was completely blown away by the stars! According to indigenous Australian witter Evelyn Crawford, some Aboriginal people learned to predict weather patterns from the shape and the number of rings around the moon. A big ring indicated a big rain, while one off-set to one side of the moon, warned of a big blustery wind.
Stationery with a specific purpose makes me happy. As do foolscap lined notepads – the type you can buy at the supermarket in packs of three for about $2. So imagine my glee when I stumbled upon this. It’s the poshest shopping list I have ever had because it’s not the back of an envelope or receipt from a previous shopping list.Yes, it might be a foolscap lined notebook cut into three. Yes, I could have made it myself. But I didn’t. I bought them in a pack of three for about $1 and I love them so much I’ve begun to wonder if there is any way I could festoon its perfect lines into an appropriate first wedding anniversary present.
May’s letter would go to Yalda Hakim, the presenter of SBS Dateline and one of my heroes. (Mostly because she is doing the job of my dreams!) She also has a tremendous personal story – arriving in Australia with her family after her father smuggled them out of Afghanistan on horseback to escape the Soviet invasion. Yalda recently gave an interview to The Australian where she talked about the danger and adventure involved in chasing a story about the Kandahar massacre. You can watch it here. LUCY’S JUNE TO-DO LIST:
1. I’m going to Daylesford at the end of this month (lucky me) and I can’t wait to dip my toe in a mineral spring. I fully expect to resemble the elegant Aussie actress Isabel Lucas from those ads for the region when I do it.
2. Read this piece from The New York Times section on living in New York about Lillian Jacobs, 102, (above) who has lived on East 84th Street since she was two years of age. I wish we had a section like this in one of our newspapers, because they capture social history in such an interesting, read-able way. It’s unbeatable.
3. I’d like to correct my earlier point about being stuck on ideas for persimmons. I said that before I discovered this – it’s an entire website devoted to persimmon or the “secret” fruit. I’ve got to at least try one of these…
A question of etiquette… and for this I need your help, dear readers. Imagine for a moment you have some bad news to break. Is it appropriate to send a text message or an email to close friends and family? And is one more or less offensive, or inclined to upset, than the other? Or should we do neither and pick up the phone instead?
RELATED ARTICLES
*Lucy Kippist has nursed her ambition to be a journalist since 1987 when at the age of seven she announced her intention to the family video camera with steely determination. Born in Victoria but raised in NSW, she worked in the subscription department of Murdoch Magazines before completing an undergraduate degree in history at UNSW. She then followed a whole bunch of other people her age to work and play in the UK – a period most notable for snow, warm beer, slippery sidewalks and a stint on the news desk of The Sun in Dublin. She returned to Australia in 2004 and started a postgraduate degree in journalism at UTS. An internship at the Village Voice (Sydney not New York), writing for free press and a stint producing news stories on local radio followed until Lucy joined CareerOne.com.au as a careers writer. In mid 2009 she joined team at The Punch. -
BLANCHE LARGE SLIM WALLET
Elegant and slender. This wallet is a great organiser and a special Mother’s Day present.
The Blanche Large Slim Wallet from Allora Accessories is available in pink or black and features 12 credit card pockets, two full-length note compartments and a separate coin section.Made from leather it has an Italian leather lining and is priced at $120.
To buy click here.
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EASTER GIFT IDEAS
Give something gorgeous this Easter. We love these cute egg and bunny themed gifts from hardtofind.
Necklace with sterling silver bunny charm
By little lamb $60.00
Eggmen Series: Mr. Blooey
By Happee Monkee $15.00
Egg Lamp
By Driftnet $160.00
Anna-Carin Dahl Tealight Holders
By Elevate Design $70.00 -
BOYS AND THEIR TOYS. BRRRRMMM!
OMG! The time that woman has saved.
This is what she had to say:
*Lisa Hensley is a highly respected Australian actor who has played many roles in various feature films, TV shows and mini series. She is a regular on Richard Glover’s successful drive program on ABC radio. She began writing for magazines four years ago and is a regular contributor to Harpers Bazaar.
Specialist collector Andy Reed holds a matchbox toy Lincoln Continental valued at 1,500 pounds ($2,635).