Female-female aggression is indirect and involves slandering, taunting and ostracizing one vulnerable female target, which is what happened in the South Hadley, Mass., tragedy. Often, envy of a girl’s beauty or brains, but just as often, the slightest difference (whether someone is new, an immigrant from another country, or school) will be seized upon by a female clique and treated as a high crime, an opportunity to tribally bond with one another  and as permission to torment the chosen outsider.

Phyllis Chesler

New York, April 2, 2010

The writer is the author of “Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman.”

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To the Editor:

Statistics about the violence of “mean girls” don’t tell the entire story. Bullying consists not only of violence and the threat of violence, but it can be subtle, consisting of isolation, humiliation and making someone feel unwanted and friendless.

This type of bullying is insidious, and can most assuredly have the same effects as physical intimidation.

While I applaud the efforts of better education and earlier intervention in the schools, along with legislation to prohibit this type of behavior, I have not seen anything that will provide for serious consequences for those who commit the offenses.

Laws should be changed so that schools would have the ability to suspend students for their behavior and have the students’ permanent records reflect their heinous actions, allowing colleges to take this facet of one’s character into consideration. If students and, more important, parents understand that bullies will have this stain on them into adulthood, perhaps they will take this issue more seriously, and parents will feel a pressing need to get involved.