Odd Girl Out Analysis

To Promote an Understanding of Gender Differences Studies focusing on adolescent aggression don’t attempt to mask the fact that gender is a factor which affects the ways in which students interact with each other. Rachel Simmons’ Odd Girl Out looks closely at adolescent female interactions and the way in which the internet has shaped them: the ability to always be in contact and to use this ability to gain social status is often exploited by girls. Boys, on the other hand, are less prone to use technology in aggressive behaviors. In Real Boys, William Pollack unpacks the male tendency to mask emotions when faced with bullying as opposed to the female tendency to elevate the aggression in a manipulative way. Bullying is no surprise to middle-school
In this sense, it seems logical to focus on raising awareness for those who deal with these behaviors in their children and students. Simmons’ book is aging in a world where interconnectedness has become an even more ubiquitous standard, but the idea that “when neither families nor schools police cyberbullying, it becomes all too easy” holds a great deal of weight. My own experience in middle and high school since this books’ publishing in 2002 has shown an increased awareness and policing of cyberbullying and the effects of communicating online. Pollack’s concept of boys, however, that they are “hiding behind a mask, and using it to hide his deepest thoughts and feelings” feels both universally present and yet equally
However, targeting the adolescents themselves would be ineffective; I say this as somebody who was in that place not too long ago—boys don’t want to be told to be emotional. Pollack proposes two steps to breaking the mask boys wear: first, to “become sensitive to the early signs of the masking of feelings,” and second, to “learn a new way to talk to boys so that they don’t feel afraid or ashamed to share their true feelings” (8-9). I believe that the most effective way to raise awareness for this characteristic of boys is to create a pervasive sense of knowledge about the subject. While this could be done in a number of ways, I propose first creating a centralized place where this information, based largely on Pollack’s book, can be found: a website. This website could be geared towards parents and educators, giving them a place to learn more about the emotional development of child and adolescent boys, as well as a place where they could pose questions and receive answers from others dealing with the same