Thanks for the story.
“Girls aren’t inherently mean. They strike out at others to protect their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities.”
The very same could be said about boys and should be.
Women are just as complex as any human being, with all the dark and light that entails.
“23% of girls report being bullied by their peers, as compared to 19% for boys.”
I really doubt these statistics as much as I do the purpose behind including this information. It’s another divisive wedge between men and women…see, women suffer more than boys.
The key word is report. Boys and men often don’t report many crimes. The expectation is to suck it up, maybe learn from the bullying and move on.
Please try to avoid this kind of Identity Politics highly subjective writing.
This is a really good heartfelt article, just leave the Identity Politics out of it.
While there are differences between how boys and girls bully and deal with body images and so forth, Dr. Martin Brokenleg, a Lakota elder, offered this information about about boys around 15 years ago, I dare say that it is applicable to adolescent girls (substitute the genitalia) as well:
Three main focal points of the adolescent male and three main concepts they must learn:
- Obsession with the body: how tall or muscular will he be
- Obsession with the sport: He has to have a sport; if he can’t play it, he must follow it, be part of the team in whatever role he can. He must be able to talk about it.
- Obsession with his sexuality: will he be hetrosexual, will he be attractive to women or men or will he be attracted to women or men or both? How ‘big’ will his penis be?
Concepts inherent when moving from an adolescent to an adult:
- Learn how to give and receive a compliment
- Learn how to give and receive an apology
- Learn that work should be love made visible
My point is that both boys and girls suffer from a slew of issues, each of equal importance.
As a former High School counsellor, my experience over 38 years was that boys tend to use physicality to solve ‘issues’ while girls used relationships: especially when bullying.
Near the end of my tenure, I found that more girls were using physicality to entrench their concept of what their social hierarchy was to be. But most psychologists agree that the amygdala responds to psychological as well as physical trauma in much the same way. Words hurt.
I concur with your take on social media and dare I say #Metoo, and others using its format, have created a culture wherein a lack of impulse control, a belief in ‘victim’ entitlement ( often behind a screen of anonymity) and a sense of non-accountability, are enabling even more bullying.
And who wants that?