One of my favorite books about women is Patricia Pearson’s When She Was Bad, which eviscerates popular notions that females are nonviolent little buttercups in such a dispassionately clinical fashion, one could be forgiven for suspecting the author was a male. Pearson argues that up until puberty, boys and girls express aggression similarly—they hit one another. But as adolescence kicks in and boys gain a strength advantage, women develop far more sophisticated and Machiavellian modes of aggression such as malicious gossiping, spreading false rumors, and fabricating criminal accusations.
It always reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George talk about how boys give one another wedgies, which leads Elaine to declare that “Boys are sick.” When asked what women do, Elaine says, “We just tease someone ‘til they develop an eating disorder.”
