Female Aggressive Relationships within Play (Putallaz)

Wendy Welch

The most significant recent research done on female aggression has come from Martha Putallaz and Karen Bierman. The main theories are that girls are more socially aggressive and less physically aggressive than boys, that abused girls grow up to be abusive, and that girls have less opportunity to work out aggression as part of team-building because of the different ways in which boys and girls playing (and particularly playing sports) are viewed and socially accepted. Prevailing theory suggests that girls prefer social aggression such as gossip, name-calling, and making threats, rather than the physical violence of hitting and fighting exhibited by boys. Girls learn at early ages how to wound with words, and how to withhold favors such as attendance at a party or friendship, or even to invoke the infamous silent treatment unless the victim conforms to the requested behavior of the threatmaker. Although the wisdom of the ages ...

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