Schools
A queen bee in a school setting is sometimes referred to as a school diva or school princess. These queen bees are often stereotyped in media as attractive, charismatic, manipulative, and wealthy, holding positions of social status such as head cheerleader, prom queen, or homecoming queen. The phenomenon of queen bees is common in finishing schools.
Queen bees may wield substantial influence and power over their cliques, and are considered role models by clique members and outsiders. Her actions are closely followed and imitated. Sussana Stern identifies the following qualities as characteristic of queen bees:
- Having an overly-heightened self-esteem, which may lead to arrogance
- Being overly-aggressive, selfish, manipulative and strong-willed
- Behaving as a bully
- Being wealthy and/or "spoiled"
- Being pretty, popular, talented, rich, or privileged
- Being hated by female peers
Fictional portrayals of queen bees in schools include the films Heathers and Mean Girls. The latter was partially adapted from the nonfiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes. The television series Gossip Girl is highlighted for its portrayal of Blair Waldorf as a queen bee, as she has a league of minions for friends and is frequently referred as 'Queen B' by herself and her peers.
Read more about this topic: School Diva
Famous quotes containing the word schools:
“In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Diety, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
“The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion—these are the most valuable coin of the thinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized and is associated somehow with laziness.”
—Jerome S. Bruner (b. 1915)