Lady Blazers lock horns

It had started with ugly whisperings behind their backs. Sophomores Myshia Armstrong and Julissa Rogers can't remember the names of their tormentors from two years ago, but the insults still ring clear in their minds. "They were calling us [expletive], spreading rumors that we were doing stuff with boys and that we couldn't fight," says Armstrong.

Then one day at East Wayne Park, Armstrong and Rogers chanced upon the two sisters who had started the rumors. A fight erupted, according to Rogers, after one of the sisters threw the first punch. In retaliation, Armstrong and Rogers threw the sisters to the ground and started kicking them. Rogers remembers even reaching for a stick at one point.

As more and more media attention has been heaped on girl aggression and female bullying in recent years, stories like Armstrong and Rogers's have become increasingly common, and there is evidence that the attention is not misplaced. According to the Center for Disease Control's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance report, 25 percent of girls in 2003 reported having fought physically within the last 12 months, up five percent from 2001. The FBI's Uniform Crime Report presents a similar picture: Between 2000 and 2004, the number of girls arrested for simple assault — attacks without a weapon — increased 16 percent.

At Blair, a trend of increasing girl violence may also be taking shape. Security assistant Tanesha Taylor notes that girl fights have outnumbered boy fights in recent months. In the classroom, social studies teacher Amy Thomas says she has more problems with girl fights than with boy fights. Whether their fights take place in class, in the hallways or off the Blair campus, many lady Blazers are realizing that verbal putdowns are not the only weapons in their arsenals.

"Talking smack"

By all appearances, senior Kaliza Lee is an easy-going girl. Talkative and quick to smile, she leans casually to one side of Blair Boulevard one day last month, not far from where she got caught in a girl fight last year.

Lee remembers the fight vividly. She had been walking with her friends to the SAC at lunch when they encountered another clique clustered around one of the light poles. One of the girls in the clique — Lee can't recall her name — had bad blood with one of Lee's friends. The two exchanged angry words, and the girl swung a fist at Lee's friend.

Lee jumped in to separate the two and tried to calm them down as the girls from the clique jeered and hurled insults. She and her friends ignored them, choosing instead to walk away.

But Lee's friend was in a rage. Twisting free from the group, she ran back and punched the girl. Lee jumped in with her, and the brawl began.

A year later, Lee still feels her actions were justified: She was just helping her friend, she says. Lee also believes that, to some extent, the girls deserved it. "The girls kept running their mouths, talking smack," she says. "Saying all kinds of stuff, like about my mom."

Verbal aggression was also the trigger for freshmen Shenee and Jenee Holden when they fought with another girl last year. The two sisters had been walking home from school with a large crowd of friends when an argument broke out between the sisters' male cousin and another girl. According to the sisters, the cousin had approached the girl with a friendly introduction, but the girl responded with hostility. "She had attitude," Shenee says. "She said, `What you say `hi' to me for?'"

Other girls in the crowd, indignant on the cousin's behalf, began insulting the girl and calling her names. The girl backed away from the crowd, but moments later, her mother and aunt pulled up in a car, blocking the Holden sisters from crossing the street.

Trapped in the street, Shenee and the girl exchanged punches. The girl's aunt then joined the fray, shoving Jenee to the ground. Jenee remembers the girl's mother yelling, "Get her, get her!" But luckily, the police came to break up the fight.

"Beefing"

Shenee still cannot understand why the girl targeted her and her sister in particular. She believes that the girl had simply never liked her.

Lee says that hostility between girls can be bottled up for a long time. The conflict between her friend and the other girl, for example, had been festering for several months before it culminated in their fight last year. Lee believes the behavior is more characteristic of girls than boys. "Say I don't like you," she says. "We could be beefing for years before we fight. If it were guys, they'd fight right then and there."

Rachel Simmons, author of "Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls," has noticed the same phenomenon with many of the hundreds of girls she interviewed for her book. "Girls describe their social communities as worlds in which unresolved conflicts hang like leaking gas in the air, creating a treacherous emotional terrain," she writes in her book.

Despite — or perhaps because of — their experiences with violence, most girls who have been in fights agree that physical conflict is a last resort. "A girl will talk-fight before she fist-fights," says Jenee.

Lee believes that in this respect, gender does play a significant role in the decision to fight. "Girls fight over stupid things, like boys," she explains. "But guys will barely have a reason to fight."

Connections teacher Megan Webb puts the sentiment in a different way. "Girls will get into more personal arguments," she says. "Boys fight over more general things." In October, Webb conducted a unit about female aggression in her Connections classes for the first time. Webb says she put the unit together partly in response to the fatal Sept. 23 stabbing at Blake, which involved a fight between girls.

According to Peter Ralston, lab coordinator for the Crick Social Development Lab at the University of Minnesota, Webb's observations are not far off the mark. "Girls in general are more in tune to relationship dynamics," he says. But he warns about making sweeping generalizations involving genders. "There's a lot of overlap," he explains. "You can't say boys do it one way, and girls do it another. It all falls on a spectrum."

It is a spectrum that includes both Armstrong and Rogers. Two years after their fight, the two friends have set the memory aside, and neither has gotten into any major scuffles since. Today, Rogers can even bring herself to joke about the incident. "[Armstrong's] blood got onto my shirt, and the stain won't never come off," she says, laughing.