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       what are the consequences?
        
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       These boys were from a respectable private school where nice middle-
       class parents sent their nice sons. We girls were from a similarly
       respectable school for nice daughters. At the time, I thought our
       friendships were proof that girls and boys really could be just
       friends. We went to school dances together, wrote each other inane
       notes about our days and traded them after school in the food court.
       We'd make each other laugh and drink Midori stolen from our parents'
       liquor cabinets and not make out. It all felt so innocent and so fun,
       until it didn't.
        
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       I knew that if I got upset or, worse, got mad, it would only further
       reduce my chances that one day - assuming I would be lucky enough to
       have the kind of ugly duckling glow-up that was the plot line for most
       teen movies of the era - one of them might see me as something more
       than just the ugly friend with straight teeth. So, instead of telling
       them where to go, I did what most girls do. I turned inwards, made a
       mental list of all the categories I didn't make the cut in and got to
       work punishing myself for my deficits.
        
       And that's the problem. That's what these seemingly unintentionally
       brutal games and lists do to girls. They create burning shame and hurt
       that festers. They make them believe that when someone does actually
       think they're beautiful, they're being set up to be the butt of
       another cruel joke.
        
       Two decades on, even when all of that has been unlearned, and you
       realise that what a couple of teenagers with developing prefrontal
       cortices thought of you isn't true and doesn't matter, it's still
       there. All that hurt and shame and uncertainty has metastasised and
       evolved.
        
       But now it's an instantaneous, unbridled rage that breaks through to
       the surface when we find out that another generation of girls are
       being labelled "mid" or "get out" or "unrapable". Twenty years of
       social change, conversations and what feels like real progress. Yet
       somehow, after all that, teenage boys can still crush girls' self-
       esteem with a single list.
        
        **Katy Hall is deputy opinion editor.**
        
        **Support is available from the** **National Sexual Assault, Domestic
       Family Violence Counselling Service** **at 1800RESPECT (1800 737
       732).**
        
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