Barbara, a 15-year-old from Addison, explains the dynamic among the girls in her 9th grade class: "They don't dress sexy for the guys, they dress sexy to [irk] other girls. They just try to get to the girls through the boys."

Without a psychology degree, a manuscript under her belt or thousands of observational studies, Barbara has summarized the same findings that a number of nationwide experts have taken hundreds of pages and as many footnotes to say. Over a six-week period this spring, more than five unrelated books have been published exploring the ways and whys girls taunt, tease and sometimes torture one another.

In a post-Columbine world, physical violence perpetrated by boys became the task-force topic, the danger that parents and school administrators worked to eradicate. Now that most schools have a zero-tolerance policy toward guns and physical aggression among students, the national debate is shifting to the more subtle, but no less damaging, psychological type of bullying that girls inflict on one another. The experts call this "relational aggression," but Barbara and peers just call it real life.

"We have not talked about this until now, because we have defined aggression as something physical. This kind of injury has always been there, but it was not accorded any kind of legitimacy," says Rachel Simmons, author of "Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls" (Harcourt, $25). "People will now redefine what is acceptable. Girls won't be left unprotected."

Simmons, like many authors with new tomes on the topic, interviewed hundreds of girls about the way they treat one another.

While the authors' methodologies differed, the specifics of the observed behavior were universal, regardless of age, socioeconomic class or geography: passing notes, refusing to make space at the lunch table or branding the prematurely pubescent girl a slut.

Such slights have long been considered rites of passage, but academic research over the last two decades, summarized in many of these books, suggests that the way girls bully one another, in fact, may contribute to longer-lasting problems than not having anyone to sit with at lunch. Teaching girls to internalize pain and anger may contribute to increased incidence of depression and eating disorders in women, and sets patterns for the way adult women relate to one another in what Simmons calls "a new glass ceiling," affecting assertiveness in the workplace.

Phyllis Chesler, a New York psychologist, women's rights activist and author of "Woman's Inhumanity to Woman" (Thunder's Mouth Press, $22.95), the most ambitious and academic book of the bunch, agrees.

"Women are not allowed to start a fight or end a fight. We're the gender that smiles a lot, nods and looks sympathetic," says Chesler, whose exhaustive research found that even chimpanzees have these sorts of gender divisions when it comes to displaying aggression. "Women are taught communication skills that are essentially emotional grooming that can leave them with an utter lack of independence. When you are exposed to this kind of wicked, vicious behavior, it is the equivalent of bankrupting your credit rating. Your life is changed forever. Most of the adult women do not get over it."

Reputations unjustly hurt
That's what Emily White, journalist and author of "Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut" (Scribner, $22), found when specifically studying girls who developed reputations for being promiscuous.

White spoke with a number of girls who were virgins, who had displayed no lascivious behavior, but had gotten themselves noticed in other ways, such as speaking out against mainstream teenage culture. That sort of attention, or even simply developing breasts earlier than other girls, often made them the subject of rumors, such as performing oral sex on the football team. White says that particular story (and its variations) is an urban myth, yet powerful. "This is the rumor that she can never get out from under."

White found that the cruelty of girls to other girls was much worse than from boys to girls, especially when it came to sexual innuendo. Boys, she says, were not threatened by a sexual girl (alleged or otherwise). They tended to be relieved that someone else might be thinking about sex. But girls tended to feel threatened by a girl who challenged them to think about their own sexuality.

"Girls are repressed sexually, longing for knowledge. If they can express all of their highly colored emotions on one girl, it makes it easier," says Chesler. "Grown women are not good with women who are open, sexual and straightforward either."

Contrary to the pop culture portrayal, the issue of relational aggression isn't just one of the popular girls ganging up against the nerds, but happens between girls in the same social circle, even among girls who consider themselves friends.

With friends like these . . .
"I have two friends, I call them my best friends, but sometimes I wonder why," Barbara says. "I'm also friends with another girl, who my friends don't like. They started a rumor that this one girl was a lesbo. They put it on AOL and all of the sudden I became bisexual, even though I like guys, because I'm friends with this girl. I lost the majority of friends and everybody was looking at me weird."

Thanks to the Internet, gossip spreads faster than when note- passing was the most reliable form of teenage communication. But Esther, a 12-year-old from Northbrook, says the pressure to take sides when rumors start to fly is intense.

"When girls are in fights, all they do is try to get people on their side. They'll go to other people and tell them stuff that the other friend said just so that they'll take sides," says Esther, who concedes it is difficult not to go with the flow.

"My school is so, so, so much based on if you shop at the coolest stores. My friends were making fun of one of the girls behind her back because of what she wore. One time I tried [to get them to stop] and they were getting a little mad at me--`Why are you defending her?' I guess if they were doing it to the girl's face, I would say something, I would not let the girl suffer, but behind her back, maybe she won't know."

Rules are confusing
Esther, who says many of her friends sport the hip brands, finds the rules confusing. "Brands became a huge deal this year. If you don't have the cool clothes, then you are not cool. But if you have the cool clothes, you are spoiled."

Simmons' research revealed similar contradictions. The ideal girl, students said, is fit but not athletic or strong; she's happy, but not excessively cheerful.

Preoccupation with who is saying what and wearing what is "really toxic for schools," says Rosalind Wiseman, founder of the Empower Program in Washington, D.C., and author of "Queen Bees & Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends & Other Realities of Adolescence" (Crown Publishers, $24).

Wiseman, Chesler and others say schools should adopt policies that define eye-rolling, note-passing and rumor-mongering as behaviors that won't be tolerated, as well as spell out consequences, much as they have for carrying guns and threatening physical violence.

"The bottom line is that kids have a right to be educated, and if they feel scared, unsafe or embarrassed, that's violating their right to an education. That's not OK," says Laurie Flanagan, prevention educator for the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago in DuPage County. Primarily a rape crisis center, Flanagan's program also conducts violence prevention work in 52 elementary schools and 14 junior highs (and has a waiting list for others). "We start working with them as early as kindergarten, trying to reduce bullying behaviors at a young age."

Holly Nishimura, assistant director of The Ophelia Project, an Erie, Pa.-based girls' leadership program, says such efforts work to reduce girls' aggressive activities, even if results are difficult to measure. "It is like making a strong case for immunization," Nishimura says. "I cannot tell you how many cases of measles I prevented, but I can tell you how many I immunized."

How to cope with young queens of pain
Whether your daughter is the bully or the brunt of it, you don't have to--and experts say shouldn't--sit idly by and watch her writhe in junior-high pain. But knowing when and how to intervene--like everything else relating to parenting a teen--is a delicate balancing act. Esther, the 6th grader from Northbrook, says her favorite teacher is one who knows when to get involved in a student fight, and when to let them work it out themselves.

Experts offer these tips:
1. Don't downplay it. Being left off the invitation list to a graduation party may not be the first sign of the apocalypse, but it feels like it is to a 17-year-old, so don't tell her otherwise. Experts say nothing gets a girl to clam up as fast as an adult who isn't taking her problems seriously.

2. Prepare them. Relational aggression occurs in almost every school, often as early as 2nd or 3rd grade. Discussing this kind of cruelty before it takes place can help girls cope. "Parents have to tell girls, you will lose a best friend at some point and it is not going to be your fault. There may not be anything you can do about it," says Phyllis Chesler, author of "Woman's Inhumanity to Woman" (Thunder's Mouth Press, $22.95).

3. Admit that your daughter can be mean. The real world is rarely as clearly defined as a John Hughes flick. Girls who are tormented by one clique can turn around and torture another girl. Few parents want to admit that their daughter is the bully, in part because of society's feelings about aggressive women, says Rosalind Wiseman, author of "Queen Bees & Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends & Other Realities of Adolescence" (Crown Publishers, $24). But bullies need to be held accountable for their actions. Often girls who manipulate other girls also manipulate parents and teachers, something other kids interpret as an acceptance of the bullying, further encouraging them not to speak up.

4. Don't force her to make nice. Much of the problem with relational aggression stems from the fact that girls feel like they always have to be nice to everyone. No one likes everyone, says Sharon Lamb, author of "The Secret Lives of Girls: What Good Girls Really Do: Sex Play, Aggression and Their Guilt" (Free Press, $24). Lamb prefers teaching girls to cope with someone they don't like, rather than reinforcing the nice-to-the-face/gossip-behind-the-back standard.

Rachel Simmons, author of "Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls" (Harcourt, $25), encourages girls to address one another when they feel angry or jealous, rather than engaging in the rumor mill. It can be as simple as encouraging your daughter to tell her friend, "It bummed me out when you flirted with that guy I liked," rather than spreading gossip that her friend is a slut because she flirted with her boyfriend.

5. Redirect aggressive energies. "These same girls who are being catty can be interested in social justice," Lamb says. "When we make one girl the victim, then we make these other girls monsters. But the desire to have power can be good; it can be directed in other ways. Say, `You have leadership qualities,' not `Be nice.' " Parents who suspect that their daughter is the ringleader of a popular clique that puts other girls down can help move their daughters toward activities where power and leadership are constructive: sports teams, after-school associations for causes the girl values, theater or other activities. Focusing on the benefits of being strong and powerful, rather than victimizing the girls she doesn't like, can help her feel comfortable with her power, rather than abuse it.

6. Define friendship. An affiliation with a group is the No. 1 value young girls have, says Holly Nishimura, assistant director of The Ophelia Project, an Erie, Pa.-based girls' leadership program. Because of that, few girls are able to distinguish popularity from friendship. Talking about the qualities they expect from friends can help them both cultivate those attributes in themselves and seek them in others.

-- Margaret Littman
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.