Professional Readings
printer friendly >
Professional Readings Archives >
Professional Readings includes reviews of recent publications and highlights of reports on current issues that affect schools. Your contributions are welcome. Send them to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.
Queen Bees and Wannabes
by Kathy Cameron
Wiseman, Rosalind. Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002.
Girl World, or the world as experienced by middle and high school girls, can seem like an entirely different universe to educators. Pressure to establish their role in a social group can lead girls to be downright sneaky and mean. Even the sweetest and kindest student in your class can be a perpetrator or victim in Girl World. Adolescent girls can leave parents and teachers wondering what happened to the nice, joyful child they once knew. Frustrations can mount in all relationships. Those who work with or live with adolescent girls must seek to become acquainted with the culture that comprises Girl World so they can be proactive in creating the healthiest environment possible for the girls to experience adolescence safely.
Rosalind Wiseman, through more than a decade of research, has created a resource for parents, teachers, and anyone who works with adolescents to help understand how to handle Girl World. Wiseman is the cofounder and president of the Empower Program, and she has spent thousands of hours talking to girls between the ages of 10 and 21 about everything from gossip and cliques to rape and abusive relationships. These interviews served as the major research for her book, Queen Bees and Wannabes. Queen Bees and Wannabes was the inspiration for the movie, Mean Girls, which was released in 2004 by Paramount Pictures.
This book candidly and honestly covers such topics as cliques, communication, clothing, parenting types, teasing, gossip, reputations, group dynamics, relationships with boys, sex, drugs, alcohol, self-images of girls, and how to get help when it is needed. Wiseman does an excellent job covering difficult subjects in a very readable manner, full of real-life situations and comments from teens and parents. Whether or not they are a queen bee or a wannabe, nearly every adolescent girl will at least be exposed to the situations highlighted by Wiseman, and adolescent boys are certainly not exempt from the impact of Girl World. Wiseman’s book is a quick and easy way for those who work with or live with adolescents to avoid being oblivious to Girl World.
