Aggression and Females in the Media

Prior to this presentation I did not think a large amount about the rise of female aggression. I had heard of this new 'phenomenon' but I did not give it much thought. I thought it was interesting that female aggression was okay as long as it was for male enjoyment and nobody was really getting hurt (i.e. the advertisement for ky wrestling and the WWE match). Female aggression was just for entertainment. Now, though, more girls in school are becoming aggressors and people are starting to pay attention to female aggression in more than in just an entertainment manner. I think it is ridiculous to treat female and male aggression differently. To me, aggression is aggression, and it probably feels similar for everybody. They encourage males to play sports while they have 'friend circles' or group meetings for girls. If I were still in high school, and was feeling a lot of frustration and needed to let out some aggression, I would much rather punch a punching bag or play a sport than sit around and talk. I don't think I am an aggressive person by nature, but being told to sit and talk rather than to work frustration out would make me angrier. The quote that Aly read from a female administrator made me mad too. It was about how girls need to be taught that being aggressive is not natural for them and that is not how they work things out. That's perpetuating gender stereotypes. While I think the need for aggression to be looked at is imperative, exemplified by the beating of a fellow classmate to get famous, I believe that similar actions should be taken for boys and girls. Teaching all students about how to handle their aggression and giving them positive outlits makes the most sense to me. This may even relieve some violence in schools. I thought this presentation was interesting, and that it really related back to some of our original discussions of nature vs. nuture. Are females innately aggressive like men, or is it learned? What I got out of it was that women are aggressive, but they are socialized to handle it differently. They are taught (not necessarily formally) growing up how to handle themselves in a conflict with a boy or with a girl. The trailor from Mean Girls said it all (about handling female aggression at least), when they showed Lindsay Lohan's character saying like "i knew how this would be handled in the animal world, but this was girl world, where everything had to be handled differently...more subtle" you have to know how to play the game to survive in girl world.