Girls’ hierarchies are much less stable than those of boys’, and so girls’ are acutely aware of subtle nuances of inclusion and exclusion. Girls’ emphasis on closeness and intimacy and understanding (/basics/empathy) ­does not always lead to nice and thoughtful behaviour.

— Why do girls engage in those terrible friendships?

This article is more like a story that narrate my childhood. When I was in elementary school, we four girls were the famous group in our class. We were, in the eyes of others, good friends. However, things were much more complicated than just good friends. A group of four is surely not a small size for girls, so we normally broke into two pairs. It was normal except the members of each pair always changed. For example, on Monday, A and me were closer but later on, B came and told me something bad about A, whether she did something weird or A said something bad behind me. So on Wednesday, B and me were closer and we tried to exclude A out of our four-member group. Then A would be excluded from our group for several days, and once I played with A again, she soon came back to our group. It was like a circle that everyone in our group had at least one time to be A. However, till we graduated from elementary school, no one was really excluded and we were still good friends in the eyes of others.

I agree that the author regard the friendship between girls as a war, where everyone uses multiple strategies to try to “beat” (exclude) her “enemy” (someone she dislikes) out of the field. I have heard that some teachers said the “fight” between girls is not a big thing, since it is just about inclusion and exclusion, and they feel it is better to let girls figure out the problems by themselves. I, however, hold different opinions. Wars between girls are sometimes more harmful than physical fights between boys. As the author mentioned, girls are acutely aware if she is excluded or included. While friendship and study are two main issues for every student, the awareness of being excluded by “friends” often leads to a great emotional change. Kids are seeking for being accepted by a group, once a kid is aware that she is excluded, she may be super depressed. The feeling of being excluded can cause huge problems — being distracted from study, feeling distressed on everything… In this sense, I feel issues on friendship should also be included in the curriculum, for the reason that a positive guidance can reduce numerous avoidable “wars”. Surely educators want friendship to play a positive role in students’ study instead of bothering them and affecting their academic performance.