Free The Nice Girl Syndrome by Beverly Engel

voiced, and the skills to handle a conflict are absent, the problem that is causing their anger is never brought up and therefore never resolved.
    Sociologist Anne Campbell, in her interviews with adults, found that whereas men viewed aggression as a means to control their envi- ronment and integrity, women believed showing it would terminate their relationships. Rachel Simmons discovered identical attitudes in her conversations with girls: “Expressing fear that even everyday acts of conflict, not to mention severe aggressive outbursts, would result in the loss of the people they most cared about, they refused to engage in even the most basic acts of conflict. Their equation was simple: conflict = loss.”
    Carol Gilligan found that girls equate danger in their lives with isolation. Most girls and women will do anything to avoid alienating someone they care for by not speaking up when they disagree with the person. For girls and women, the fear of being alone is over- powering. Many try to avoid being alone at all costs, even if it means remaining in an abusive friendship or romantic relationship.
    As Simmons explained it, “In a world that socializes girls to prize relationships and care above all else, the fear of isolation and loss casts a long shadow over girls’ decisions around conflicts, driving them away from direct confrontation.” Many of the girls she inter- viewed expressed the fear that even everyday acts of conflict would result in the loss of the people they most cared about. A seventh grader explained, “If I tell my friends I’m angry with them, I’ll have another enemy. It’s a vicious cycle.”

False Belief #9: There Is Good in Everyone, and If You Give Someone Enough Chances, He or She Will Eventually Show It to You
    Women, far more than men, give people too many chances. This is often due to the expectation that girls and women be compassionate and forgiving. As nurturers and mothers, we are supposed to have infinite patience and tolerance. The fact is, we are biologically programmed to have these very qualities when it comes to our own
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    children. When you think about it, the qualities of a good mother (or parent) include patience, tolerance, unconditional love, and for- giveness. So it is within our very nature to give people a second chance, to believe someone who tells us he or she won’t do some- thing again or, at the very least, that he or she will try not to. But as women, we need to rein in this tendency. Giving someone a second chance is a good idea if the person has shown us in the past that he or she deserves it or if there is reason to believe the individual will, in fact, change. Otherwise, giving a second chance is usually a bad idea, especially when it comes to abusive behavior.

False Belief #10: Women Need Men to Protect Them and Support Them Financially
    It is not surprising that women believe this. We have been condi- tioned to believe that we are the weaker sex and therefore need men to take care of us. Women feel especially vulnerable in the world, given the facts that we are generally not as physically strong as men and the world is becoming a more dangerous place every day. Women are more vulnerable than men: not only can we get mugged, we can get raped. As hundreds of thousands of rape victims know, an act of rape is so violent a violation that it can shatter the self-worth a woman has taken a lifetime to build.
    But as mentioned earlier in the book, women can no longer depend on men to protect them or rescue them from danger. We must protect ourselves.
    This includes being able to take care of ourselves financially. No matter what a woman’s situation is—whether she is single or married—she needs to maintain her own bank account with enough savings that she is not dependent on a man for her livelihood. Unfortunately, many women end up staying with men they are unhappy with or who are abusive just because they don’t have enough money