Teaching girls abroad, I’ve seen that cliques and sass transcend borders

These are my last few days in Vietnam, and for those of you who have been following along you might be sick of my stories from here. A little background for those who don’t know: I am currently in Vietnam for most of the month of June to teach English.

In the classroom it can be very difficult for me to understand and communicate with the kids. We don’t speak the same language apart from the English that I teach them, and they are much younger than I am so I don’t speak the universal language of “fun ten year old.”

While I can’t talk to them too much, I can observe them quite a lot. I see them chatting in their little groups, I can tell who is friends with who and who they don’t want sitting at their tables. There actually are very defined little ~cliques~ the girls have formed, that even an outsider can see are tougher to get into than UVA (still pissed about that rejection letter, guys).

And while I was doing all of this observing, I remembered something that a teacher once said to my class. Some of the girls were being catty and picking fun and excluding another girl (I was sitting quietly in the back, I was never one of the cool kids, probably because I went as a damn hamster for Halloween while all of the other girls went as slutty bees). The teacher told the girls to knock it off and said that if they shouldn’t bully each other, and that they should just be happy to be getting an education like the little girls in Africa would be.

Now before you all start, yes I do know that Vietnam is not in Africa, however it is still a developing country and severely impoverished (especially where I was teaching). So, this made me realize, the cattiness that little girls go through, the attitude, the “whatevers” and the eye rolls, are universal. It is a right of passage that transcends racial, cultural, and economic boundaries. All kinds of little girls will experience this transition, and all kinds of little girls will feel its sting from their other angsty classmates.

So, why is this an issue? Why do all little girls go through the phase where they suddenly feel that they have to make other little girls feel badly about themselves? Instead of being supportive, uplifting, and encouraging, it has somehow become the norm for girls to bully one another, make fun of their clothes and their body types, and belittle each other’s achievements.

I have seen many examples of this in my classroom, and not just to each other, but to me as well! Their teacher! Kids are getting ballsier and ballsier as time goes on. The little girls who I taught (and who I loved very much, they’re great kids but they’re still kids and kids will be kids) would never let anything slide. I came into class one day with a pimple on my forehead, and so when I sat down at one of the tables of little girls, they all pointed to their foreheads. It was seriously almost in sync. They all looked around, made eyes at each other, and then in complete unison all pointed to their heads, it was freaky.

Aside from pointing to my pimples, they have also PULLED ON MY ARM HAIR. Look, I am not Vietnamese, I am not hairless. I have arm hair, and believe me I am very sorry about it, but pulling on it just to let me know that you know that it’s there is out right rude. And, might I add, that they have managed to make fun of me twice with out using any words whatsoever. It’s all forehead gestures and arm hair pull-age now, my friends. They’re evolving.

Of course, this behavior has not just been directed at me, but also at the other students (mainly the little boys). And so, I began to wonder, why did it become cool for little girls to put each other down? It certainly isn’t cool now. When you’re older and constantly putting people down you’re a bitch and no one wants to hang out with you because you make them feel badly about themselves. When you’re younger and you do it, you’re cool and other little girls want to be like you.

Whatever the reason, there has been a huge raise in anxiety in children and bullying, and this behavior most certainly contributes. All young girls are beautiful, with beautiful minds and beautiful faces. Women should stand together and lift us up as a whole instead of putting each other down, and this is clearly a lesson that needs to be taught early on.