什么样的女人最成功：伽玛女孩的崛起

白露为霜注：几天前奥巴马总统提名珍妮特-耶伦(Janet Yellen)成为新任的联储局主席。如果顺利就职她将成为担任这个职务的第一位女性。这位行将成为全球最有影响力的人在年轻的时候是什么样的呢？我做了一些快速查询，结果不出所料…

家有女儿的人都知道，美国长大的十来岁的女孩生活在一个古怪的并行宇宙里，同自己长大的经历完全不一样。在学业上的压力也许小一点，可在社交方面的压力一点也不小。学校里严格的等级制度有时压的人喘不过气来。女孩在青少年社会中担任的角色对其一生有重大的影响。可哪种女孩子最成功呢？是风头出足的人气女孩还是被人嘲笑的书虫女？答案可能让你吃惊。本文是小女儿小宝在高中时为一家英文报纸写的专栏，发表于2007年。

伽玛女孩的崛起

同伴压力，小集团和社会统一化(social conformity)是十几岁的女孩子每天都要面对的问题。有人也许会这样宣称，“我不在乎别人怎么看”，但每个人都有一种潜意识的声音在问，“他/她们会怎样想？”那么这种本能又是从哪里来的呢？每个人都天生具备社会意识的声音吗？其实，这些本能并不是天生的，而是由父母孕育，环境塑造，并在全国的学校里强制执行。在她2003年出版的《蜂后和崇拜者》(Queen Bees and Wannabes)，作者怀斯曼(Rosalind Wiseman)详细介绍了不同女孩在青少年社会里所担任的角色。它为成年人了解初中高中少女的奇异世界提供了有价值的视角。

有些女孩子一辈子都在试图成为受欢迎的，却一直做不到。她们在人气女孩(popular girl)周围徘徊试图引起她们的注意和接受，往往是无功而返。她们一直停留在“贝塔”(Beta)，或'崇拜者'的位置动弹不得。

有些女生对自己是否受欢迎并不关心，更愿意把时间花在思考自己的前途而不是自己的服装上。她们在学业上以及体育，音乐等课外活动中表现出色。有些人甚至喜欢自己的父母。这些就是所谓的“伽玛”(Gamma)女孩。

最后是学校的统治者，又被称为“阿尔法女孩”(Alpha)，“人气女孩”，或者“蜂后”。这些阿尔法被视为金字塔的顶端，是每个女孩的努力方向。但她们又是怎样爬到这个位子的呢？当然，有些人和善可爱，风趣幽默，漂亮气质佳，成为“人气女孩”名符其实。但也有人爬上去靠的是背后捅刀子，散布闲言碎语，成为恶毒的女孩(mean girls)。她们靠着警觉，谎言，和手段恶劣来维持自己的地位。

然而尽管阿尔法在中学里很成功，她们好像很少在成年人的世界里爬得很高。不管她们是多么爱出风头，这些阿尔法女孩最终在以后的生活中被她们书呆子伽玛同学压的粉碎。但是为什么会这样的呢？难道成人社会不是与青少年社会大同小异吗？统领学校的“社交花蝴蝶”在长大后不是照样会被加冕为女王吗？

但事实上阿尔法女孩很少在职场有突出表现。纽约时报文章“恶意，卑劣，和失踪”( Mean, Nasty and Missing)声称，爬到顶部的阿尔法女孩似乎要么被开除了（惠普的Carly Fiorina），要么进了监狱（玛莎·斯图尔特，Martha Stewart )。更多的前阿尔法做着平庸的工作或者压根儿就不工作。

阿尔法女孩在长大后玩消失并不完全令人惊讶。在学校里她们忙于衣服，容貌，男孩，受欢迎程度等琐碎的追求。她们中很少有人进了一流的大学或有个严肃的职业。许多人早早结婚，成为全职妈妈，照顾她们的阿尔法丈夫和阿尔法孩子。其他大部的时光都花在非生产性的事情上。

伽玛女孩似乎做得更好。这些人在学校里是老师的宠物，书呆子，学生会主席，全校第一(valedictorians)，在社会图腾柱的位置处于阿尔法女孩的下面。然而在成人世界中，她们却完成了惊天大翻转。伽玛女孩的努力使她们进入好的大学和主修有份量的专业。后来，她们成了专业人士，公司主管，或者老板，那些在中学里让她们吃足苦头的女孩却在手下打工，这是回报的时候了。

赖斯(Condoleezza Rice)，希拉莉(Hillary Clinton)和佩洛西(Nancy Pelosi)只是伽玛女孩的一些代表。纽约时报唯一的女性社论作家Maureen Dowd是这样评论的，“希拉莉·克林顿在白宫的时候像是一个阿尔法，但在参议院却更像一个伽玛。南希·佩洛西在众议院只是一个带着鞭子的伽玛。” 如今南希是众议院议长，康迪是国务卿，希拉莉是一个有竞争力的总统候选人，2007的确是伽玛女孩标志性的一年 (注：文章是2007年写的，后来赖斯渐退出政坛，回到斯坦福教书；佩洛西成为众议院少数派领袖；希拉莉在担任过国务卿后正雄心勃勃地准备2016年总统选举)。
 
受欢迎的确有很多好处，但获取它的代价不菲。对许多女孩来说，成为人气女以及保持这种地位成了她们的全职工作。长远而言，成功的阿尔法女生并不多见。另一方面，伽玛女孩却将眼睛盯着更大的奖品，把精力集中在更重要的事情，比如学习上，这使她们以后的生活中有一种后劲。也许我们应该停止养育对体重痴迷，对人气发疯的阿尔法女孩，转而鼓励她们成为伽玛女孩。

阿尔法女孩在中学里风光无限，但伽玛女孩才是比赛的最终赢家。这是初中和高中里的一个很少人知道的秘密。

白露为霜注：联储局主席候选人耶伦在高中时是校报的主编，她又是全校第一(valedictorian)，不折不扣的书虫女。她在校报的一篇文章里谈到自己对矿石和旅行的热爱。后来她以优异成绩在布朗大学毕业(summa cum laude或“最高荣誉”)，并获得耶鲁大学经济学博士。

在男人世界里混，走得远的女人还是要靠真本事。旁门左道也许一时有效，终难成大事。

前国务卿康迪-赖斯的高中照片

The Rise of Gamma Girls

Peer pressure, cliques and social conformity are just some of problems that teenage girls have to face every day. No matter how much one may claim, “I don’t care what others say,” everyone has a subconscious voice that says, “What will the Joneses think?” Where do these instincts come from? Is everyone born with a society-conscious inner voice? Actually, these instincts are not born, but bred by their parents, shaped by the environment and enforced in schools throughout the country. In her 2003 book “Queen Bees and Wannabes”, Rosalind Wiseman detailed the different social roles girls play in adolescent society. It provides valuable insights into the parallel universe of teenage girls.

Some girls spend their whole lives trying to become popular, and never quite make it. They hover around the popular girls trying to get their attentions and acceptance, often without success. They stay stuck in their beta, or ‘wannabe’ position.

Some girls don’t care much about popularity; spend time thinking about their futures rather than their clothes. They do well in school and in extra-curriculum activities such as music and sports. Some may even like their parents. These are the so called the gamma girls.

And then, there are the rulers of the school: the alpha girls, a.k.a. ‘popular girls’ or ‘queen bees’. These alphas are looked up to as the top of the pyramid, what every girl strives for. But how did these girls get up there in the first place? True, some are nice, funny, pretty, and really deserve to be popular. But others got up there by backstabbing, gossiping, and by being mean girls. They stay popular with a mixture of vigilance, lies, and nastiness.

However, despite the early success of alphas in school, it seems like that few of them ever make it to the top in the adult world. No matter how pushy they are, these alpha girls end up being crushed by their nerdy gamma peers later on in life. But why? Isn’t adult society very much the same as the teenage one, the same ‘social butterflies’ that reigned at school would still be crowned ladies as adults?

The fact is that few alphas are prominent in the job world. New York Times article “Mean, Nasty and Missing” claimed, the alpha girls who make it to the top seem to always end up fired (Carly Fiorina of HP) or in jail (Martha Stewart). And many former alphas are working at mediocre jobs or not working at all.

The disappearing of alphas in adult world is not entirely surprising. In school, they were distracting themselves with trivial pursuits of clothes, looks, boys and popularity. Few of them got into good colleges and had a serious career. Many of them married early and became stay-at-home moms, taking care of their alpha husbands and alpha kids. The rest of their lives were spent doing rather unproductive things.

Gammas seemed to have done better. These girls were teacher’s pets, bookworms, class presidents, valedictorians, underneath the alpha girls on the social totem pole. But in the adult world, they somehow managed to flip the hierarchy over. Gamma girls worked hard in school which enabled them to go into top universities and take a serious major. Now, they are the professionals and bosses of the company, and the girls who once made their lives miserable are working for them. It’s payback time.

Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are just some of representatives of gamma girls. According to Maureen Dowd, New York Times’ the only female editorialist, “There was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was an alpha at the White House but acts more like a gamma in the Senate. In the House, Nancy Pelosi is just a gamma with a whip.” Now with Nancy as the speaker of the House, Condi as the Secretary of State and Hillary as a leading presidential candidate, 2007 is indeed a banner year for gamma girls.

Being popular does have many perks, but it also comes with high price tag. For many girls, becoming and staying popular are their full-time job. In long run, successful alpha women are really few and far between. On the other hand, gamma girls have their eyes on larger prizes and focus their energy on something that is more important, like learning; this gives them an edge later in life. Perhaps it is a good idea to stop raising kids to be weight-obsessed and popularity-crazy alphas, rather, encourage them to become gammas.

Alpha girls get all the attentions, but gamma girls are the ultimate winners of the race. This is the best kept secret of middle and high school.