bullies and beeyotches
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
We might as well discuss the shocking story du jour—that gang of girls in Florida who beat up another girl for YouTube fame.
First, allow me to say the obvious: Would the news media be all a-dither if the girls hadn’t been white cheerleaders with names like April, Brittany and Brittini? (Yeah, really.) I say no, but maybe I’m just cynical.
My developmental psychologist friend Lara, who studies popularity and aggression, has blogged on this issue with interesting new insights such as—“the combination of being popular and knowing that you’re popular predicts the very highest levels of physical and relational aggression in a given high school grade.”
You would think popular people would feel so secure they could afford to be nice, but I guess not. Actually, researchers find that being popular and being liked are two different things altogether.
I guess this isn’t surprising, when you think about it.
While popularity wasn’t a huge issue in my high school full of oddballs and artsy-fartsy people, it was big in junior high and I never felt that the really popular girls even liked each other all that much. Rather, they seemed connected in some sort of uneasy bond.
I was not popular in junior high school. The Dedes, Alisons and Amys made fun of me and singled me out for destruction in dodgeball. I wasn’t particularly crushed by this (although evidently, I’ve never forgotten) because I had my own friends outside of school. And that makes all the difference. I suppose not going to a neighborhood school (I was in a horrid private school at the time) helped, since I wasn’t always surrounded by people who didn’t like me. The popular girls lived on the Upper East Side, I lived on the Upper West Side. (Back in the day, this coded as “rich” vs. “not-rich.”) I had friends of my own who were grubby as I.
Among the things researchers know about bullying is that its negative consequences on the bullied are greatly mitigated if that poor soul has one friend. Just one is all it takes. Just one person to confirm that you are not actually the scum of the universe, the butt of all jokes, the whipping post for all. Just one to affirm your humanity.
In junior high, another oddball and I found each other and it then mattered even less that the other girls didn’t like us. Though Eve and I didn’t hang out together outside of school, we both discovered drugs around the same time and bonded over that, transforming ourselves from geeks to freaks and gaining grudging respect that way. (Again, the 1970s. Things were different then.)
Research into childhood abuse at the hands of adults similarly finds that abused children with one adult in their lives who can be trusted implicitly and who advocates for them, are more emotionally resilient than those who don’t.
Which brings me to an interesting op-ed in today’s Dallas Morning News that points out that the only people who can really save kids from kids is kids. Yelling and screaming at schools to end bullying is not productive. Rather, parents need to encourage compassion among their own children. (Unlike, say, the freakshow parents who joined in the MySpace torture of the girl who ultimately killed herself—what a chilling story that was.)
I remember sitting silently and pained a couple of times when school and camp oddballs were tormented—once overtly and once covertly—by the more fortunate. I still feel guilty. Speaking up is horribly difficult under those circumstances, especially for those of us who are not among the chosen.
It was easy in elementary school, when I was both liked and popular, to befriend the girl who was too shy to raise her hand in class and wet the floor instead. I had no fear then and could see past her oddness to her intelligence.
But when you’re unpopular and the attention is directed elsewhere, you learn to bite your tongue and be thankful that for the moment, you are safe.
But perhaps parents of outsider children can teach them of the power and safety of numbers—even if the number is just two.
The last line of Lara’s blog about the YouTube beeyotches is particularly disturbing to me. She writes, “Something tells me this story is being told and retold among their high school peers with a level of awe and respect that would make us cringe.”
Do you think this is true? Are kids this mean these days? And is this the kind of popularity to which outcasts secretly aspire?
If so, what are we doing wrong?
First, allow me to say the obvious: Would the news media be all a-dither if the girls hadn’t been white cheerleaders with names like April, Brittany and Brittini? (Yeah, really.) I say no, but maybe I’m just cynical.
My developmental psychologist friend Lara, who studies popularity and aggression, has blogged on this issue with interesting new insights such as—“the combination of being popular and knowing that you’re popular predicts the very highest levels of physical and relational aggression in a given high school grade.”
You would think popular people would feel so secure they could afford to be nice, but I guess not. Actually, researchers find that being popular and being liked are two different things altogether.
I guess this isn’t surprising, when you think about it.
While popularity wasn’t a huge issue in my high school full of oddballs and artsy-fartsy people, it was big in junior high and I never felt that the really popular girls even liked each other all that much. Rather, they seemed connected in some sort of uneasy bond.
I was not popular in junior high school. The Dedes, Alisons and Amys made fun of me and singled me out for destruction in dodgeball. I wasn’t particularly crushed by this (although evidently, I’ve never forgotten) because I had my own friends outside of school. And that makes all the difference. I suppose not going to a neighborhood school (I was in a horrid private school at the time) helped, since I wasn’t always surrounded by people who didn’t like me. The popular girls lived on the Upper East Side, I lived on the Upper West Side. (Back in the day, this coded as “rich” vs. “not-rich.”) I had friends of my own who were grubby as I.
Among the things researchers know about bullying is that its negative consequences on the bullied are greatly mitigated if that poor soul has one friend. Just one is all it takes. Just one person to confirm that you are not actually the scum of the universe, the butt of all jokes, the whipping post for all. Just one to affirm your humanity.
In junior high, another oddball and I found each other and it then mattered even less that the other girls didn’t like us. Though Eve and I didn’t hang out together outside of school, we both discovered drugs around the same time and bonded over that, transforming ourselves from geeks to freaks and gaining grudging respect that way. (Again, the 1970s. Things were different then.)
Research into childhood abuse at the hands of adults similarly finds that abused children with one adult in their lives who can be trusted implicitly and who advocates for them, are more emotionally resilient than those who don’t.
Which brings me to an interesting op-ed in today’s Dallas Morning News that points out that the only people who can really save kids from kids is kids. Yelling and screaming at schools to end bullying is not productive. Rather, parents need to encourage compassion among their own children. (Unlike, say, the freakshow parents who joined in the MySpace torture of the girl who ultimately killed herself—what a chilling story that was.)
I remember sitting silently and pained a couple of times when school and camp oddballs were tormented—once overtly and once covertly—by the more fortunate. I still feel guilty. Speaking up is horribly difficult under those circumstances, especially for those of us who are not among the chosen.
It was easy in elementary school, when I was both liked and popular, to befriend the girl who was too shy to raise her hand in class and wet the floor instead. I had no fear then and could see past her oddness to her intelligence.
But when you’re unpopular and the attention is directed elsewhere, you learn to bite your tongue and be thankful that for the moment, you are safe.
But perhaps parents of outsider children can teach them of the power and safety of numbers—even if the number is just two.
The last line of Lara’s blog about the YouTube beeyotches is particularly disturbing to me. She writes, “Something tells me this story is being told and retold among their high school peers with a level of awe and respect that would make us cringe.”
Do you think this is true? Are kids this mean these days? And is this the kind of popularity to which outcasts secretly aspire?
If so, what are we doing wrong?
Labels: bullies, bullying, news, personal growth, psychology
bully for them
Friday, March 14, 2008
I’m feeling mighty puny today so I might not bedazzle you with my insights but I’ll do my best.
I’m generally a fan of Jezebel, a snarky site that takes on the news, media and celebrity through feminist eyes. Granted, their posts add up too quickly for me to keep up with—they’re the kudzu in my Google Reader—but I try to skim it every few days.
I was waaaaaay turned off, however, by this post, about kicking commentators off the list—they call it “Commenter Executions”. You have to be approved to post comments on Jezebel and according to the FAQ, you can be given the guillotine if your comments are, “excessively self-promotional, obnoxious, or even worse, boring.”
Wow, doesn’t this slip neatly into the Queen Bees stereotype of popular girls? It’s not enough that the arbiters of snark must boot those who don’t live up to their expectations. The executions must also be public and gleeful. Yuck.
Researchers into popularity, like my friend Lara, might call this social aggression and in its schoolgirl form (perhaps later in life, too, though I don’t think researchers have gotten there yet) it can be as damaging as wedgies and getting beaten up for your lunch money. Bullies is bullies, with fists or words. Or rolling eyes, or exclusion, or rumor mongering. Bullying takes many forms and it’s ugly in all of them.
Actually, if you perused my recent MySpace squabble you witnessed a beautiful example of social aggression/bullying. After all, who else but a bully would boast about mocking people who are weak?
I’m trying to continue enjoying Jezebel but don’t know if I can. I have no respect for bullies.
I’m generally a fan of Jezebel, a snarky site that takes on the news, media and celebrity through feminist eyes. Granted, their posts add up too quickly for me to keep up with—they’re the kudzu in my Google Reader—but I try to skim it every few days.
I was waaaaaay turned off, however, by this post, about kicking commentators off the list—they call it “Commenter Executions”. You have to be approved to post comments on Jezebel and according to the FAQ, you can be given the guillotine if your comments are, “excessively self-promotional, obnoxious, or even worse, boring.”
Wow, doesn’t this slip neatly into the Queen Bees stereotype of popular girls? It’s not enough that the arbiters of snark must boot those who don’t live up to their expectations. The executions must also be public and gleeful. Yuck.
Researchers into popularity, like my friend Lara, might call this social aggression and in its schoolgirl form (perhaps later in life, too, though I don’t think researchers have gotten there yet) it can be as damaging as wedgies and getting beaten up for your lunch money. Bullies is bullies, with fists or words. Or rolling eyes, or exclusion, or rumor mongering. Bullying takes many forms and it’s ugly in all of them.
Actually, if you perused my recent MySpace squabble you witnessed a beautiful example of social aggression/bullying. After all, who else but a bully would boast about mocking people who are weak?
I’m trying to continue enjoying Jezebel but don’t know if I can. I have no respect for bullies.
Labels: bullying, jezebel, personal growth, psychology, social aggression
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