“Calling somebody else fat won’t make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smarter.” – Cady Heron, Mean Girls

A startling trend has become apparent in recent years – girls seem to have the need to feel better about themselves by belittling other girls, through social media in particular. In fact, this trend has become such an issue that filmmakers have made many movies to show the true nature of the teenage female, the most well-known being the 2007 film Mean Girls.

Many think the movie overdramatizes the actions of girls when it comes to their aggression – let’s face it, needing to be broken up by the sprinkler system seems highly unlikely – but as more and more girls from both the middle school and high stood up to tell their personal stories, it became apparent that girls are not all sugar and spice and everything nice. To deal with the issue of bullying, the girls of the Cannon Falls High School Student Council got together and created “Girl Talk” for the middle school girls.

The budding women of the middle school filed into the auditorium on a seemingly normal Thursday morning, where they were met with the sight of their high school peers sitting on the edge of the stage. They know why they’re there, but what they don’t know is what to expect. Finally after some coaxing by the high schoolers, the girls settled into chairs and their morning started.

First on the agenda was introductions, which flew by and soon they were getting to the real problems such as conformity, any and all clothing questions, insecurities, backstabbing , the problems of social media, and, most importantly of course, boys.

“It was weird talking about my personal life in front of all of the girls, but

we had a positive impact last year, and wanted that again this year,” Lauren Lecy, one of the leaders of the event, told me.

The morning hit home for everyone present as more and more of the girls from all grades shared their personal stories about how bullying from their peers and even supposed frienemies had affected them. Tears were shed, laughs were shared, and dance parties held when it started to get a bit too heavy for some. The younger girls were challenged to do many things – compliment someone they’ve rarely talked to on something other than their looks, sit with new people at lunch, and go the whole day without saying anything negative about one  another. As Cady Heron says, calling somebody else names won’t make you any better, and the females of CFHS are bonding together to stand up to bullying, one rainbow and smile-filled cake at a time.

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Girl Talk Graphic