Invisible Social Rules: Girl Code-- The Rules of Female Interaction

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There is a basic code of behavior that governs female interaction, referred to in the vernacular as “girl code.” These unspoken rules are largely based on an assumption of trust and respect among the women in a particular social circle and only apply to women who are considered friends or colleagues. “Girl code” is also firmly rooted in the idea of female competition, particularly in regards to viewing males as potential suitors. A careful analysis of a few of these rules through the three main sociological perspectives will illuminate the underlying themes and meanings in the interactions of women.
THE BODY BASHING RULE
One of the fundamental rules of “girl code” concerns body bashing—the act of making negative comments about your own body in a semipublic setting. This rule states that if body bashing is initiated by one of the women in a social circle, all the women must participate by offering critical commentary about their own bodies.
Symbolic Interactionism
From the perspective of symbolic interactionism, which is the sociological theory that focuses on the subjective meaning of human behavior on a micro-scale, body bashing allows the women involved to achieve a consensus regarding the definition of the situation. In other words, body bashing creates a bond between women that creates a shared understanding of the meaning of the situation. By sharing their insecurities, women show each other their vulnerability and are thus united in the trust they develop as a group. This gives the social circle a cohesiveness on which the individual women can start to build more complex relationships with one another.
Functionalism
On a larger scale, body bashing upholds the popular American value of femininity by reinforcing a self-ima...

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... in supporting feminine values. The buddy system ensures that a woman who may have a diverse perspective is checked and re-socialized to harmonize with other women, creating a widespread viewpoint across a society.
Conflict Theory
The persistence and encouragement of group mobility deters women from acting individually; instead, they act as a group, or an amorphous representation of all women, perpetuating the idea that women are not singular autonomous beings, but rather vulnerable creatures of the “weaker sex.”
OVERVIEW OF GIRL CODE
These four rules do not account for the wide variety of social laws governing “girl code,” but they give us a broad idea of how female interaction gives meaning to individual relationships among females and how it partakes in a larger social environment, both objectively and as interpreted through the conception of justice and equality.

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