I was reading in Time Magazine's special section about middle school teenagers (partly professional reasons, partly paternal ones) and there was this quote: "I once heard a social scientist say that at age 50, anyone could look at their middle school yearbook and still rank the people in it in order of popularity. That hasn't changed. Girls especially can be incredibly mean to each other in middle school."

Since I have daughters, I'd really dig some insight as to why girls "especially" are mean to each other and what advice I could give to mine on how to handle it when (if?) this happens. Or is it something girls have to fight on their own?