Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

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There is little sugar but lots of spice in journalist Rachel Simmons's brave and brilliant book that skewers the stereotype of girls as the kinder, gentler gender. Odd Girl Out begins with the premise that girls are socialized to be sweet with a double bind: they must value friendships; but they must not express the anger that might destroy them. Lacking cultural permission to acknowledge conflict, girls develop what Simmons calls "a hidden culture of silent and indirect aggression."

The author, who visited 30 schools and talked to 300 girls, catalogues chilling and heartbreaking acts of aggression, including the silent treatment, note-passing, glaring, gossiping, ganging up, fashion police, and being nice in private/mean in public. She decodes the vocabulary of these sneak attacks, explaining, for example, three ways to parse the meaning of "I'm fat."

Simmons is a gifted writer who is skilled at describing destructive patterns and prescribing clear-cut strategies for parents, teachers, and girls to resist them. "The heart of resistance is truth telling," advises Simmons. She guides readers to nurture emotional honesty in girls and to discover a language for public discussions of bullying. She offers innovative ideas for changing the dynamics of the classroom, sample dialogues for talking to daughters, and exercises for girls and their friends to explore and resolve messy feelings and conflicts head-on.

One intriguing chapter contrasts truth telling in white middle class, African-American, Latino, and working-class communities. Odd Girl Out is that rare book with the power to touch individual lives and transform the culture that constrains girls--and boys--from speaking the truth. --Barbara Mackoff

Book Description

Dirty looks and taunting notes are just a few examples of girl bullying that girls and women have long suffered through silently and painfully. With this book Rachel Simmons elevated the nation's consciousness and has shown millions of girls, parents, counselors, and teachers how to deal with this devastating problem. Poised to reach a wider audience in paperback, including the teenagers who are its subject, Odd Girl Out puts the spotlight on this issue, using real-life examples from both the perspective of the victim and of the bully.

Customer Reviews:

On the upside..........2007-06-09

What an incredible walk through our nation's schools--though only eye-opening because I didn't realize how prevalent my own experiences were among others. How sad that girlhood aggression has been labeled a "culture". On the upside, that ought to give it the attention that such destructive behavior is due. I know, I know, it's been said before: EVERY girl and her mother needs to read this.

Good to get it out there.......2007-05-02

I think the value in this book is its ablility to open up discussions about this subject. For generations, nothing has been said about it. Parents, teachers, school administrators, nobody wanted to talk about it. Without that discussion, nothing will ever change.

Odd Girl Out is beautifully written, sometimes heart-breaking, often maddening. I would have liked to have seen the author offer more solutions to the problem, but overall, I think it is a very valuable book and would recommend it to anyone with daughters.

Odd Girl Out---the book.......2007-04-15

Great book, very easy to read. Parents and girls should read this.

Interesting interviews, but feels repetitive and incomplete........2007-04-10

In Rachel Simmons' book, "Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls," she introduces us to three hundred girls from thirty schools across the country. Blasting the stereotype that girls are the kinder, gentler sex, Simmons' premise is that girls are taught to "be nice" and to "make friends," and, as a result, are unable to express anger that might destroy the façade of friendship. Because our culture does not grant girls "permission" to confront conflict directly, Simmons asserts, there exists a "hidden culture of silent and indirect aggression" consisting of "backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling, and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on targeted victims." Simmons remembers how she felt when a third grader named Abby told the other girls not to play with her; she remembers her own responsibility in giving another girl the silent treatment. It is from that base of personal experience that Simmons conducted her interviews.

The book consists of Simmons interviews...many, many interviews. Over time, the interviews begin to seem mind-numbingly similar. Natalie's story, Lisa's story, Molly's story, Dina's story...each story becomes repetitive. At one point, I set the book aside for a week and found that I had lost my place. I attempted to find the exact page where I had stopped reading, but I found that it was impossible to do so. Since none of the stories stood out distinctly in my mind, I gave up my search for the "right" page; I picked a random early chapter that I knew I must have read already and resumed my reading.

I enjoyed reading the book, even given its repetitiveness problems, and with a lifetime of experience being the "odd girl out," I found it somewhat cathartic to read stories of young women who had experienced similar trauma. Simmons does some things well. Her explanation of the devastating impact of girls' aggression is compelling, and she does an excellent job of describing the dynamics of the hidden aggression. In addition, Simmons relates the various interviews in a compassionate and thoughtful manner.

Where she does not succeed, however, is in giving her readers tangible suggestions about ways to address the problems she emphasizes.
Odd Girl Out contains two hundred and seventy pages, but it is only during the last thirty of those pages that Simmons addresses possible solutions to the problems she outlines. In those thirty pages, Simmons tells readers to talk to their daughters, to tell teachers about what is happening, and to make sure that teachers take the problems seriously. Those are reasonable suggestions, but I wanted more. I did not find a plan to keep these things from happening to my young adult daughter in the first place, nor did I find a plan of action in the event these things happen to my daughter. It is not enough to recommend we talk to our daughters and to their teachers - my friends and I could suggest that plan to one another over a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Simmons has made a good first step in raising awareness of the problem. She needed to work harder, though, to provide parents and teachers with skills and with plans for action when facing these issues.

Now I understand why some girls are suddenly so mean!.......2007-03-14

I read this book in preparation for my daughter's middle school years. I can honestly say it helped prepare me the first time she came home in distress over a friendship that had taken a negative turn. It gives insight into what might be going on in a girl's mind when she suddenly starts displaying RA tactics, and the devastating effects it has on both the aggressor and the victim.

My daughter took great comfort from this book as well as the companion book, Odd Girl Speaks Out - they helped her understand her friend's possible motives and gave her some tools to use to turn the situation around. It also helped me open up a dialogue with her school, who were very responsive. RA can be overcome, but you have to educate yourself and your community. Sometimes this has to start with the parent, not the teachers. This book is a fantastic first step.

Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

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Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0641528191

Product Description

From the Publisher If your daughter has ever come home from school upset because her friends didn't walk with her to lunch, if she has wanted to stay home or has run up to her room in tears and won't tell you why, you may need this book. These may seem like minor problems - who cares about notes passed behind your back, or a nasty look, or a party you're not invited to - but they aren't, and they can have a lasting effect on a girl's-esteem. In fact, as Rachel Simmons shows in Odd Girl Out, the secret world of girls' aggression is just as harmful as the aggression of boys, but it's harder to recognize. Girls are not encouraged to express their anger, and so it goes underground. The importance of relationships to women has long been understood. For girls, losing friends or becoming the object of a clique's derision can be devastating. Yet most teachers don't have time to notice and cope with the problem, and parents feel frustrated and hopeless in combating it. Every generation has struggled with this, and often parents still hold on to their own memories of suffering, making it more difficult when the time comes to help their children. Now, Odd Girl Out shines the light of understanding on the secret lives of girls. By articulating the dynamics of this behavior, she helps us see where it comes from and offers parents and teachers ways in which to help our daughters.

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Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
Rachel Simmons
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJGC18

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Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
Rachel Simmons
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJI950

Book Description

This work provides detailed accounts of labor regulation, with a focus on law, in East Asian nations. The book also discusses the differences in labor regulation between those nations and between East Asian and Western societies. Countries covered include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Customer Reviews:

A long-needed reference work!.......2007-06-12

This book is primarily a reference work for those looking for deeply detailed information from primary sources. It has other excellent background material as well, but if you want to see a nice cross-section of actual Sousa Band programs, or you want to find out if your great-grandfather actually played in Sousa's Band like your grandmother always told you, this is the most definitive reference available.

Sousa the Great!.......2007-05-23

This author has written extensively about Sousa and his band before. Much of that information is repeated here, but there are some new additions as well. The author has nicely highlighted each aspect of Sousa's career which makes for easy reading.

The problem with Sousa is that we tend to exclude all other band composers and their music. There were many other great band composers around including R. B. Hall, Karl King, and Henry Fillmore to name some of the prominent American ones. Their music deserves notice as well, as Sousa often played their works.

Sousa's band also tends to be somewhat over-rated by hero worship. Sure it was a great band, probably the best in the US at that time. But it was not the greatest in the world! Too many other European bands were around to deny Sousa that title. Sousa knew that any British Guards band like the Coldstream Guards, Scots Guards etc. was certainly as good. The French Garde Republicanne were also. In Prussia you had William Wieprect who did much to modernize the modern military band. His combined Prussian Guards band got top ratings in Paris during a band festival there just before the Franco-Prussian War. How ironic indeed!

So Sousa was not the only around with a great band, and any serious reader should know this. Certainly Sousa did. But what Sousa did was market himself far better than anyone else. He saw that as a civy street guy he could make a lot more fame and money than he was as director of the US Marine band. This was Sousa's main advantage, and he knew how to make the most of it. His conducting style was flamboyant, his programing entertaining and interesting. The whole concept of the encore march after a long piece of music was unique, and introduced excitment to his concerts. These things are what made him and his band great.

Unfortunately Sousa developed the cult of his personality so much for his concerts that when he was not on the podium concert hall attendence often suffered. This indicated that his band would not likely outlive him. Americans came to see Sousa the man as much as the great music his superb band played. I doubt Sousa could have promoted his works any other way in this country. In that regard he was the first super-star who got his name all over the media. Many have followed in his foot-steps since.

Some might think I am trying to downgrade Sousa and his great band here. Certainly not. One should merely have a little sense of perspective when reading about him. His marches were first-rate. He wrote 136 of them, of which only the top 10-15 often get played now. Most of them were excellent, some certainly were better than others. While this sounds like a lot of music, keep in mind some famous German march composers wrote hundreds of marches. Blackenberg is believed to have composed over a thousand! Kenneth Alford, the Great British march composer did only about 20, but they are all classics. Alford was a regimental bandmaster, and thus did not have the means to promote himself like Sousa did.

Sousa should also be known for his many opperettas, novelty pieces, and classical transcriptions. In this regard he greatly expanded the musical level in the US during this time. Orchestras were around as well, but these did not travel like Sousa. There were also other great bands, like the Allentown band, far odler than Sousa's from 1828. In fact Sousa took many players from this great band which still exists today, and which probably recreates the approximate sound and style of Sousa better than any other.

The great strength of this book are the many details provided of the personnel who played in the band, as well as concert programs, and tour iternary. There is one chapter devoted entirely to a band memebers diary recording his expereinces during Sousa's great World Tour of 1911. Great stuff, if perhaps a little too much at times. There is a lot of detail here, perhaps excessive at times, but obviously a labor of love by the author. This is certainly THE book to have about Sousa and his incredible band who left their mark in the world's concert halls.

Book Description

Packed with step by step information, hints and tips, this book provides all the basic information needed to production manage a film or video from beginning to end - from idea to delivery.

Production Management for Film and Video gives all the basic information needed to production manage a film or video from beginning to end - from idea to delivery.

Aspiring young film producers, programme makers and students of film or video production will find this an essential source of information, as indeed will anybody wishing to improve their knowledge and skills in the field. One is guided from the script or proposal, right through the various stages of production management to include:

· script breakdown
· crossplotting
· scheduling
· budgeting
· preparation
· the shoot
· editing and post-production
· delivery

Now in its third edition, Production Management for Film and Video has been further revised to include:
· information on health and safety requirements
· the need to be aware of computer generated imagery
· the effect this kind of programme making has on schedules and budgets.

Different kinds of management for different productions are also covered - from features through to documentaries - and advice is offered on how to run a production more effectively. Examples, taken from actual productions, demonstrate the kind of documentation needed to develop, run and control a production. Emphasis is placed on the basic principles of good management that apply to all the different kinds of film that can be produced.

Richard Gates is a freelance producer/production manager and has been involved in over 40 productions of different kinds. He also lectures extensively on production and production management techniques.

Budgeting sections revised
Post production (editing) methods updated
A new, more reader-friendly layout

Book Description

It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to get highly paid to do it . . .
·Detailed "Deck of 52" chapter reveals each Card's location and bounty value
·Discover how to unlock each support item at the Mafia's shop
·Complete list of military and civilian vehicles
·Weapon penetration/damage ratings vs. armor stats
·Labeled maps reveal the locations of each bounty and challenge
·"Playground of Destruction Mode" unlocked
·All hidden characters and skins revealed

Customer Reviews:

MERCENARIES STRATEGY GUIDE.......2007-09-15

AN EXCELLENT STRATEGY GUIDE FOR AN EXCELLENT GAME.TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW AND WELL WORTH PURCHASING FOR HELP WITH THIS EXCELLENT GAME.

Awesome.......2006-03-10

Very awesome merchandise. Amazon is very awesome to do business with, and i will certainly be doing business again with amazon.

Excellent Concepts, OK Quality.......2006-03-01

The strategies are well put together, but the collectibles section have some errors with the locations. Also, the pages don't stick to the spine of the book well. Overall, it seems like an OK book.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides)

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Mercenaries 2: World in Flames: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides)
David Hodgson
Manufacturer: Prima Games
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Video Games | Games & Strategy Guides | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Video & Electronic Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0761556311
Release Date: 2008-02-05

Book Description

Mission Intel: Full debriefing on all the missions and jobs you can take on.
Maps: Detailed area maps to get you to the objectives and get you out with minimum damage.
Arsenal Load Outs: Complete run down on all the weapons, vehicles, and gear to spend your mission pay on. If you see it in game, you can use it so you'd better know how.
Co-Op Play: Expert tips on how to best utilize extra Mercs during hairy missions.

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