The Floater

561 Words3 Pages

“Our best politicians and diplomats couldn’t do better than a teen girl does in understanding the social intrigue and political landscape that lead to power.”(Wiseman)(346) This statement made by Roaslind Wiseman, in her article “The Queen Bee and Her Court,” is full of the honest truth. Wiseman gives several roles a teenage girl and her friends encounter everyday throughout high school. Although each role is broken down in detail to describe the actions of that specific role, the motive behind the role is always unclear. There are a few perceptible reasons for girls to act out, but the intentions of such cliquey behavior is one of the world’s greatest mysteries. If the best politicians and diplomats are lost in understanding the social and political landscape that leads to power, how lost would you expect a hormonal teenage girl to be. The different roles Wiseman mentions are: Queen Bee, Sidekick, Banker, Floater, Torn Bystander, Pleaser/Wannabe/Messenger, Target. All of the roles are affected by some type of peer pressure. The majority of the perpetrators are inflicted with negative peer pressure. When any teenage girl reads this article, they automatically start to try and categorize each individual in their clique. I am …show more content…

True, it is valuable to have many different friend groups, but wouldn’t it be even better to have a permanent, sturdy friend group that stuck together no matter what? Negative peer pressure, somewhere along the way, has inflicted ‘The Floater’ in a way that has broken her trust. She can’t put her full trust into a group of girls because of the possibilities of the other vindictive roles mentioned in Wiseman’s article. Even though this peer pressure might have eventually helped ‘The Floater’ to see other possible friend groups, it still caused negative thoughts/actions leading up to gaining that