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By Nur Dianah Suhuimi Salleh

 

They're popular, they move around in cliques, and they pick on other girls.
HER classmates complained that she had body odour. So the girl bought herself some deodorant.
But when the popular girls found it in her locker, they laughed and told everyone in class she would smell worse.
Sounds like a scene right out of that popular movie Mean Girls, right? But it happened right here, in a girls' school.

In the Lindsay Lohan movie, now showing in cinemas, a group of pretty, popular and privileged girls called the Plastics rules the high school - and makes life hell for people considered to be outcasts.
The movie was based on a best-selling self-help book called Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, And Other Realities Of Adolescence by Rosalind Wiseman.
Here in Singapore, secondary schools also have their share of Queen Bees.

HOW TO DEAL WITH THE STING
FEELING the sting of a Queen Bee? Don't just be a Wannabe, take this advice, from psychiatrist Brian Yeo:
• Focus on your academic grades.

They should be your foremost priority. Study hard and pay less attention to your social worries.
• There is life outside school.

Take up useful activities outside school, for example, in various voluntary or cultural organisations. These outside school activities will offer you a new set of friends and a new lease of life. This will be good for your self-esteem.
• Always remember that you are not alone.

There are many other people out there suffering from the same fate so you are not the only one in the world without friends.
• Talk to your family.

Instead of keeping your problems to yourself, talk to your mother, who might have had similar experiences when she was a teenager. Watch the movie Mean Girls with your mother because it creates a strong opportunity for you to bond and open up to her.
• With time, things will change.

There are only four years to life in secondary school. Everyone will move on to different schools and maybe then you will be able to develop a new set of friends.
• Boys will come into the picture

Boys will come into the picture and you will realise that there are other things to life than winning the approval of your female peers.
•Consider a school transfer 

If you are truly unhappy in your school and feel there is no other way out, you might want to talk to your parents and consider a school transfer.

Because teens have to wear uniforms in school, these popular girls are not the designer-togged teens who tote Dior bags like the characters in the movie. Instead, it is girls who are sporty and outspoken who rule.
'Sporty girls are usually more popular in school because being physically capable, they have lots of confidence in themselves. Everyone finds confidence an attractive characteristic in a friend,' explains Rachel Toh, 16, from a co-ed neighbourhood secondary school.
"Being sporty and healthy also makes one look good," said Ally Le from a top girls' school.
The 14-year-old said: 'Usually, the sporty girls in school are the ones with nice faces and nice legs. Maybe that's why girls tend to respect and admire them.'
She said that popular girls are more likely to be voted for leadership positions in class and co-curricular activities. '
'Naturally, we vote for our own friends for positions like class or house representatives. So popular girls with more friends will usually get more votes, while those who are less popular stand a smaller chance of getting voted for leadership positions,' she added.
Even though Singapore's popular girls are different in some ways from their American counterparts, some have at least one thing in common - a mean streak. A multiracial clique of 13 popular girls from a girls' school told Gen Y about how a friend of theirs posted some nasty comments about a classmate they termed an outcast.
'Our friend wrote on her blog that this classmate was a bitch and a loser and that the whole class hated her,' said a member of the clique, Sheereen, who is 15.
Unfortunately, their classmate chanced upon the blog and went crying to the teacher. The teacher scolded the blogger and the entire class was also told off for being mean to their classmate.
But nothing could change the girls' feelings towards their classmate. 'The more she complains to the teacher, the more we hate her because she gets us into trouble,' said Sheereen's friend, Shukriah, also 15.
'Why couldn't she settle things in a more mature manner by talking to us rather than running off to the teacher? That was very childish.'
Do these girls ever feel guilty about being nasty?
'Yes, we do feel guilty sometimes,' said Sheereen sheepishly. 'We know it was mean of us but it is really difficult to rectify things because these girls are really unbearable.'

So why are mean girls mean?
Consultant psychiatrist Brian Yeo said this is a common group behaviour among girls, and it stems from their need to congregate and belong in a group.
The girls find their strength in numbers and this 'popular girls culture', as he calls it, includes being collectively mean towards other girls.
The current Miss Singapore Universe, Ms Sandy Chua, a former Katong Convent student, threw up another reason.
She reckons some girls behave this way because they might want to draw attention away from their own inadequacies.
'These girls put others down and highlight others' faults so that they feel better about themselves,' the 19-year-old beauty queen said.
Worrying as this phenomenon may be, Dr Yeo said the mean streak is but a mere passing phase which tends to go away once boys enter the picture.
'Girls will grow up and realise that they have other interests, like boys. They'd want to spend more time with the boys and have less time to make fun of others with their group of friends,' he said.
But what should you do if you're being tortured by an army of Plastics?
Go watch the movie, said Dr Yeo.
'Victims of such situations always feel they're alone but when you watch the movie, you will realise that there are also others out there in the same boat.
'There are other ways of coping with such situations, like focusing on your studies and getting yourself involved in activities at church or with voluntary organisations, which offers you a new set of friends.'
After all, even beauty queens once had their unglamorous moments.
Not only was Ms Chua once the class clown who played pranks on her teachers, but she was also a little overweight when she was in Secondary 2.
Now a beauty queen and an engineering undergraduate, she is someone many girls dream to be.
And this is her advice: 'Life is too short to care about other people's opinion of you. There are only four years in secondary school, so you should enjoy every single day of it.
'Always focus on your studies because there is no way to wind back the clock.'

Extracted from Straits Times 18 July 2004