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Bullying (Part 9): Power

  • Posted on November 16, 2010 at 1:41 AM

Power is everything.

At least, that’s what some would have us believe. 

They believe it.  To them, power is above morality, above duty, above right and wrong.  What is moral, but what the people in power claim it to be?  What is duty, but what the people in power say it to be?  What is right and wrong, but that they tell us it is so?  And, because they are the ones with power those things—morality, duty, right and wrong—don’t really apply to them, unless there is someone with more power to declare that it does.

I believe in truth.  I believe right and wrong are absolutes, but that we—being finite and subjective—cannot always perceive them accurately.  I believe morality is our imperfect pursuit to perceive right and wrong.  And I believe our sense of duty is derived from our morality.  I do not believe the absolute versions of these things are subject to human power.  But our perceptions of them are.  And, in our finite and subjective existence, our perceptions are all we really have.

Power is abstract—it is not seen, but it is experienced.  It is derived from both influence and force.  Ideally, power is exercised through influence—we persuade one another, changing each other’s perceptions until common ground is found and a common effort is exerted.  This is the power of advocacy. 

Often, power is exercised through force.  On the national and international level, we make laws and we enforce them.  We go to war.  We enforce treaties.  We withhold trade.  On an individual level, we sue.  We fight.  We argue.  We pick up our disobedient child and carry them away—away to bed, away from the busy street, away from the candy aisle.

Force is not the ideal.  It may not be right, in an absolute sense.  But, sometimes it is necessary.  Sometimes, in our finite and subjective existences, it is the best we can manage, and our reasons for using force are worth the costs.  Because we’re not perfect.  Because our systems are not perfect.  Because, however much we should be able to persuade our children not to run into the street, however much we should be able to persuade nations not to bomb the hell out of each other, however much we should be able to persuade people not to kill each other—sometimes we can’t, sometimes we fail, and so we resort to force.

To exert force, there must be power.  For our societies and our systems to function, there must be power.  We don’t know another way—at least not one that is widely effective.

But power corrupts.

Corrupted power leads to influence and force being exerted, not for the sake of the good, but for the sake of the people in power.  For those who believe power is everything, being the one in power is the goal.  Whether they began as corrupted individuals or were corrupted by the power they exercised, they corrupt the power they use.  They exercise what power they have to maintain that power, and to get more.

Bullying is one form of corrupted power exercised through force.  Bullying, as exercised in the adult world, is often—if not always—an abuse of power.

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Bullying (Part 8): Bullying Differences – The Solution

  • Posted on November 12, 2010 at 12:00 PM

In my previous post, I discussed the problem.  It is my opinion (it would by a hypothesis if I had the means and training to test it), that much of bullying based on prejudice stems from systemic flaw:  A “foreign” element is introduced into an environment that is perceived to be homogenous without the people within the environment having the skills to cope with the disturbance.  (This intentionally excludes the harassment and abuse that stems from prejudice, which involves much more violent intentions and, presumably, must stronger feelings and weaker morals.)

Two things stand out to me in this statement.  First, it is based on perception.  A group is perceived to be homogenous, and the “foreign element” is perceived to not fit within that homogenous group.  The reality is that we’re all different.  Homogenous groups are a matter of perception, not reality; thus if we change the perception of those individuals within the group and open their minds to the differences that already exist within the seemingly homogenous group, then I expect “new” differences would seem less threatening—after all, they’ve already worked with people who are different, they just were not aware of all the differences.  Second, the people within the seemingly homogenous group lack the skills to cope with other differences.  I believe both are cultural problems, or problems that have been culturally reinforced.

Rugged Individualism is a standard concept in American culture.  We cherish our individuality, or so it’s claimed.  But, personally, I’ve never really understood that claim.  The American Melting Pot isn’t about difference, but about sameness and integration.  While we are a nation of immigrants, those immigrants are expected to conform.  The individuals raised in public education are taught to conform.  Conformity and homogeneity are prized values that make our social system run; yet, our beliefs in freedom are in direct conflict with those values of conformity and homogeneity.  Instead of addressing that conflict and finding a harmonious way to create a nation based on diversity, we convince ourselves we’re “rugged individualists” despite the evidence to the contrary.

Difference is bad.  We fight differences.  We try to find a way, either by forcing “foreign elements” to change or by tricking ourselves that differences aren’t real.  We want to think everyone is the same or should be the same.  But equality, the value we espouse, isn’t about sameness; it’s about rights, opportunities and responsibilities.

Recently, Dave Hingsburger addressed a related topic:

Why do I mention disability so much in my workshop? Cause I want to say, ‘but ya are Blanche, ya are!’ Difference, Diversity, Disability ... all part of the vastness of the social world, all part of the vastness of the human experience, all part of the whole community. Difference, Diversity, Disability ... we make community and the community would be less without us. Difference, Diversity, Disability ... we bring with us challenge and demand for change, just like every single other member of every single other community. We are the same in what we want, but we are proudly different of who we are when asking.

We shouldn’t have to hide our differences or whisper about them in dark corners.  The differences are real, and we’re all richer for it—if we’d just let ourselves be.

I believe that if we can bring our differences to the conscious level—if we can look at them and see them for what they are—then maybe we could see them without regarding them as a threat.  Instead, as a society, we try not to see them.  We ignore them whenever and however we can.  And when we can’t, we fight them, disparage them, and exclude those who force us to look at them.

We need to be able to deal with differences.  We need to be able to see them, to cope with them, to tolerate them, and to accept them.  We need to be able to work together—in our communities and in our workplaces—without being threatened by the diversity that is all around us.

And our society—our school systems and our social values—have failed us in this regard.  But awareness is rising and changes are demanded from many groups and many sectors.  Changes are happening.  Diversity training is part of that change.  It is, when done effectively, a very important part of that change.

And yet we resist.  Because so many of us don’t want to have to change.  I mean, why should we change?  Really?  Can’t he just stop wearing glasses?

For so long, our society has relied on changing those who were different or hiding and excluding those they could not change.  But that solution won’t be tolerated any more.  Instead, we must brave face our differences and find it within ourselves to embrace them.  After all, those differences are in each and every one of us.  If we could only let ourselves see them.

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Bullying (Part 7): Bullying Differences – The Problem

  • Posted on November 8, 2010 at 7:13 PM

One of the things that spurred my series on bullying—before the news decided that bullying was a hot issue and before I realized October was Bullying Awareness month—was a post written by Clay.

The post is about some of the challenges that autistic adults face in the working world, specifically some of the challenges Clay has faced as a working adult on the spectrum.  Among those challenges is workplace bullying and harassment.  In the comments, he said:

It does take a lot of inner strength to persevere against those who would ‘take you down’, just for the hell of it.

My response was:

For some, I’m sure it’s accurate to say they would “take you down, just for the hell of it.” For many, it is a coping mechanism. People they don’t understand seem elevated—the mystery itself is intolerable—so, they do what they can to depreciate that person, because they think that makes the person understandable. I’m not saying it’s logical or it makes sense, but that’s the way sociologists and psychologists describe the behavior. Of course, as someone who was picked on throughout childhood, I never found their feelings of inferiority very consoling, even in retrospect. But what I do take from that is that it is important to share knowledge to change behavior—if people who are different could still be different, but also be more understandable, that would presumably help those people to cope with that difference without resorting to physical or emotional violence.

Clay said:

I thought it was just for the hell of it, but now I think I want to know more about that coping mechanism thing. Sometimes, I had thought that some people were jealous, but couldn’t understand why. Please, make this a topic for your blog.

I went the long way around to get back to this, but I haven’t forgotten.

Common victims of bullying in the adult world are those who are different, particularly those who are different in a way that seems to make them less successful by social standards.  This measurement of success may be based on career goals, financial means, appearance, or just about any other standard.  Often the disadvantage of being bullied is even greater than the disadvantage(s) that hamper success; meaning that the bullying hampers success even more than the difference.

As is true for children, adults bully for two basic reasons:  1) because they enjoy it, and/or 2) as a coping mechanism.  In regards to bullying as a coping mechanism, some do it because they are being bullied (this is often true of bullying that pervades hierarchical organizations), but they may be coping with something else—such as prejudice, fear and misunderstanding. 

As I suggested to Clay, bullies within an organization or system who are bullying someone at the same level as them because of perceived differences may do so just “for the hell of it,” because they enjoy hurting others or enjoy the feeling of having power over others.  This enjoyment is both a human failing and a culturally reinforced trait.

However, that is not the only reason adults bully.  They also do so in order to cope with the sudden emergence of a foreign element in their environment.  Whether the difference is racial, gender, neurological, intellectual or ability, the bullies perceive the different individual as a threat (at least, on an instinctual level), and they respond with physical, emotional or verbal violence.  I’ve read theories (though I don’t know how strong the evidence that supports these theories are) that if these bullies were somehow de-sensitized to the differences, then they would not respond to those differences by bullying.

In short, opening up an organization to diversity creates an environment ripe for bullying; but by training individuals on diversity, equipping them to cope with and get past their discomfort with differences, and integrating diversity into the organizational system, the organization creates an environment ripe for mutual success.  Responsible businesses are pursuing this approach, often after failed attempts to open their organizations up to diversity without an effective means of transition.

Diversity training is often derided, but it is most often derided by people who falsely believe they work in a homogenous environment and are entitled to continue to work in their homogenous environment.  The foreign elements are supposed to conform to the environment or leave.

And that’s a problem, because diversity is far more real than the myth of homogeneity.  But homogeneity is reinforced by bullying.  The greater demand for fair workplaces without the proper training to make fair workplaces possible, the more bullying we’re likely to see.

I do recommend you read Clay’s post.  I also recommend you read this example of workplace bullying.  The bullying is very real.  It’s not something you just grow out of.

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Bullying (Part 6): Bullying in the Adult World

  • Posted on November 6, 2010 at 5:33 PM

One of the messages I’ve seen lately is that “it gets better.”  This message is coming from adults in relatively powerful positions who are shouting out to youth about the need to survive bullying.  On the surface, I have nothing against these messages.  Messages of hope are important.  Showing kids that adults have overcome bullying to attain societal significance are also important.

But, these messages are also skewed.  Even though these are anti-bullying messages, there is a bit of internalized “bullying is a rite of passage” in the messages.  The message implies that if you only live long enough to grow up, you’ll grow out of being bullied.

Growing up is not the solution to bullying.

The sad reality is that:  For some people it doesn’t get better.  Some people face bullying all their lives.  For some people the bullying actually gets worse as they get older.

In the adult world, bullying—and once again I’m distinguishing this from harassment or abuse—is alive and well.  Some adults who faced bullying as children continue to face bullying as adults, and often for the same reasons.  Some adults who faced little bullying as children wake up to a world that isn’t fair, to a world where the power of individuals or the power of organizations can be wielded to take away their rights, and they discover that those individuals or organizations are not above bullying to get their way.  Bullying is also used to reinforce status—it is institutionalized in organizational structures, in government, and in our society.  And, of course, bullying is still idolized or excused in the fiction written for adults and in the heroes we hold up as a standard for our own behavior.

Bullying doesn’t just stop.  Perhaps, if you’re like Joel Burns or President Obama, and you gain a position of power, you can turn the tables on bullying.  But few of us are Joel Burnses or President Obamas.  Few of us are CEOs or whatever it takes to rise sufficiently in status to be too high to be bullied.

Many of us get through adulthood with relatively little bullying.  Others suffer the effects of bullying almost every day of their lives.  Still others face it every single day, with no escape and no respite—but then again, that often goes beyond bullying.  I’m not sure what it is, denotatively speaking, because I don’t think we, as a society, want to acknowledge it happens.  Certainly it doesn’t happen here in the Land of the Free.  Certainly not.

But it does.  It happens.  Until we can look bullying in the eye, as adults, and see it for what it is, bullying wins.  Until we can look up and see bullying all around ourselves, pervading our society, bullying wins.  And as long as bullying wins, we can’t save the adult victims of bullying.  We can’t even save ourselves.  We certainly cannot save our children.

We need to open our eyes and see the bullying.  Maybe then we can stop it—not completely, but enough.  Maybe just seeing it is enough to start the change.

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Bullying (Part 5): Why Do Children Bully?

  • Posted on November 1, 2010 at 3:29 PM

After a few distractions, I’m back to the issue of bullying.  I started with a description of bullying, where I attempted to distinguish between bullying, harassment and abuse.  Then, I discussed boys bullying and girls bullying.  I left off with a thought for bullies, because it is my experience that many bullies are victims themselves.

Now, I would like to explore some of the other reasons for bullying.

Two Basic Reasons

There are two basic reasons children engage in bullying behavior: (1) to buoy the self-esteem of the bully, and (2) to sink the self-esteem of the victim.  These are two different, distinct motives.

Victims of bullying and abuse often need to boost their self-esteem.  There are many ways people attempt to do this.  One way, as I mentioned earlier, is to engage in bullying.  Those surrounding this individual—parents, teachers, other supportive adults, and their own peers—can help this person find productive ways to build self-esteem, and thus eliminate the need to bully.  It’s not always easy, especially when the abusive situations that trigger the need cannot be resolved, but it’s worth the effort.

Not all bullies are like that, though.  Not all bullies are needy children stuck in an unendurable situation they don’t know how to deal with.  Some kids bully for fun.  These people bully not to boost their own self-esteem, but because they like to witness the effects on others’ self-esteem.

In my lay opinion, I consider this behavior pathological.  Perhaps there is already a psychological diagnosis for this kind of behavior, but I suspect our society is too enamored and forgiving regarding bullying for this to be the case.  Disabilities and disorders, after all, are determined on the basis of what society considers normal or acceptable.  If being morally challenged isn’t pathological, why would bullying be so?

America Loves Bullies

The increase in bullying (or, perhaps, the increase in our attention on bullying) has been called “epidemic.”  And part of that epidemic is that bullying is an acceptable pastime in our culture. 

I would say most kids are good kids.  But not all kids are good.  Some kids are bad.  Kids who take pleasure in other peoples’ pain and suffering and inflict pain and suffering for the sake of their own fun are not good kids.  (If this behavior is pathological, however, that “badness” can be addressed and remedied, much like the bad behavior of addicts can be addressed by addressing their addiction.)

And yet we not only tolerate this behavior, there are forces in our culture that actually encourage it.  Bullying is celebrated in television, in movies, in music, in advertisements, in books and short stories and even in news articles.  Bullying pervades our culture.  Adults, kids, corporations, public organizations, and even non-profit organizations and civil rights movements engage in bullying because it works.  Not only does it work—meaning that bullying can help you achieve the results you want—but for those willing to take pleasure in other people’s suffering, it feels good.  It makes you feel powerful.  And that feeling is honest, if not true.  (You are exercising power, but the power wasn’t rightfully yours.)

So, What Can We Do?

For bullies that use this behavior as a coping mechanism, the “solution” is to discover why and to stop it, if possible, while providing the child with other coping mechanisms.  It’s not easy, but it is rather straightforward.

For bullies that use this behavior because they enjoy it or because they perceive bullying as the cultural norm, the “solution” is neither easy nor simple.  Assuming that we’re not going to get these kids in therapy any time soon, we can only do so much.  We can attempt to change the culture.  And that = HARD and LONG-TERM COMMITMENT.  There are those who have been making that effort and investing their time.  I applaud them, especially Bullying Stories.  The recent emphasis in the news is also a good thing, or it could be if less attention was paid to why the victims were bullied (i.e., the implication that bullying = homophobia) and more attention was paid to the fact that the problem isn’t new and that people with many kinds of differences are the victims of bullies.

We also have to be vigilant.  As parents (of the bully or the victim) and as “the village” (i.e., the bystanders), we have to notice bullying and we have to take steps to stop it.  We have to assert that these behaviors are not acceptable.  We have to acknowledge that bullying is not a rite of passage.  We have to allow our minds to acknowledge that bullying, harassment and abuse are different and that none of these behaviors are acceptable.

Next, to “prove” that bullying is not a rite of passage, as some claim, I will demonstrate that bullying continues on into the adult world.  And, as much as I appreciate Joel Burns willingness to speak out, I have to say, sometimes it doesn’t get better as you get older.  Sometimes it gets worse

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Statement of Values: Indiana Workers Recommend Dropping Kids

  • Posted on October 27, 2010 at 9:25 PM

Here’s another distraction from bullying:

Indiana’s budget crunch has become so severe that some state workers have suggested leaving severely disabled people at homeless shelters if they can't be cared for at home, parents and advocates said.

It’s all about the budget crunch.  No, really! 

Oh, wait…

But some families have been on waiting lists for waivers for 10 years. The lists contained more than 20,000 names last month, and one advocacy group predicted they will only grow longer because Gov. Mitch Daniels ordered budget cuts that have eliminated 2,000 waiver slots since July.

(emphasis added)

So, is it just me, or does that imply it’s not about the budget cuts at all?  Sure, the budget cuts are making for a longer waiting list because Governor Mitch Daniels doesn’t care enough to find another solution.  But, really?  Waiting 10 years for services.  And this is just becoming a problem now?  I don’t think so!

Budget cuts also have resulted in the state moving foster children with disabilities to a lower cost program that doesn't provide services for special needs and eliminating a grocery benefit for hundreds of developmentally disabled adults.

See, maybe it’s just me.  But I see this and I don’t start thinking, “Oh, Indiana must be really hard-up for cash!”  No, I start thinking that Indiana’s government doesn’t care about people with disabilities.  That—in Indiana—people with disabilities just aren’t worth spending money on.

Maybe it’s just me.  Or maybe…

Maybe environmentally-friendly roads are more important than people with disabilities.

Or maybe holding onto their cash is more important than people with disabilities.

Maybe the election season is just too damned important to give the people of Indiana the services they need to survive.

Some parents said homeless shelters have also been suggested - or threatened - as an option by private care providers.

Daunna Minnich of Bloomington said Indiana Department of Education funding for residential treatment for her 18-year-old daughter, Sabrina, is due to run out Sunday. She said officials at Damar Services Inc. of Indianapolis told her during a meeting that unless she took Sabrina home with her, the agency would drop the teen off at a homeless shelter.

Sabrina, who’s bipolar and has anxiety attacks, has attempted suicide, run away during home visits and threatened her older sister, Minnich said. Bringing Sabrina home isn’t a viable option, but the two group home placements BDDS offered weren't appropriate, she said.

“I don't want to see the state of Indiana hasten her demise by putting her in a one-size-fits-all solution that will drive her to desperate acts,” Minnich said.

Jim Dalton, Dama’s chief operating officer, said he could not comment directly on any specific case but his nonprofit would never leave a client at a homeless shelter - even though it is caring for some for free after they got too old for school-funded services and haven’t yet been granted Medicaid waivers.

“We’re talking about youth that absolutely require services, and no one is willing to fund them anymore,” Dalton said.

(emphasis added)

Really, this isn’t about money, people.  It’s about value—or the lack of value Indiana officials see in people with disabilities.  It's government-sanctioned abuse.  And it’s got to stop!

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Offending Autism Speaks

  • Posted on October 26, 2010 at 2:16 AM

Okay, so I didn’t intend to take a break from my bullying series until I’d finished with it.  But, I think this is worth it.

For those who don’t know, I am a professional writer—a professional writer at the beginning of my career, but a professional writer nonetheless.  I write full-time.  I make money.  I have been professionally published.  I’m writing two novels and a non-fiction book, along with many other shorter projects.  I market my skills to local businesses (and sometimes not-so-local businesses) and I get paid well for my work.

My point is that I have many interests.  One of the interests I’m resurrecting, after years of studying business, is my fiction.  I’ve neglected my fiction sorely over the last decade of child-bearing, autism-diagnosing, and degree-getting.  Now it’s time for that passion to be re-born.

While I make some effort to keep my variety of interests separate, there is some overlap.  The main character of one of my novels is rather Aspie-ish.  (Though, I’m not going to call her an Aspie—if, for no other reason, then because she’s a fairy.)  My other novel, which is being co-written by a friend of mine, has strong “outsider” themes.  My non-fiction book melds my interests in autism and business and confronts one point where those interests overlap.

Then, there are other, less pleasant, intersections.

I receive many newsletters for writers, including Writing World.  I scan the articles and choose which ones I’ll read in detail.  One I chose to read in detail was about dark fiction markets, written by C. M. Saunders.  This article recommended The Dark Fiction Spotlight as a token-paying market that publishes dark fiction.  So, I checked it out.  As I was scanning pages on the website I found a sub-tab called “Anthology for Autism.” 

Hmm, I thought.  Now, that could be cool!  I have an idea of for a short story that is both dark, science fiction and involving an autistic main character.  The story isn’t written; it’s one of many projects that has been postponed due to time-constraints.  But, I figured if there’s actually a market for it…

So, I started reading about this anthology, and it starts with:

About Autism Speaks:

Autism Speaks was founded in February 2005 by Bob and Suzanne Wright, grandparents of a child with autism. Since then, Autism Speaks has grown into the nation’s largest autism science and advocacy organization, dedicated to funding research into the causes, prevention, treatments and a cure for autism; increasing awareness of autism spectrum disorders; and advocating for the needs of individuals with autism and their families. We are proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish and look forward to continued successes in the years ahead.

Oh, dear.  It didn’t look quite so promising any more.  But, I kept reading.  Maybe they’re open-minded.  But, then…

I repeat:

Anything that will offend Autism Speaks will offend me and will not be considered.

Honestly, my story would definitely offend Autism Speaks.  And, frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I remember trying to interview someone at Autism Speaks once.  It didn’t go well.  It wasn’t even an advocacy piece, but that didn’t matter.  Even a piece designed to inform parents of their information options offended the Autism Speaks representative I spoke with.  They were only willing to participate if they had full control over what I wrote, which is an ethical no-no in the journalism world.

So, I took a break from my bullying series to warn my fellow speculative fiction writers and autism advocates that The Dark Fiction Spotlight or Lady Luck Publishing might not be publishers you want to patronize or write for.  As much as I hate to write off potential markets, I won’t be pursuing any opportunities with them.

* * *

For those who read this blog and don’t already know, this last part provides reasons why such an affiliation with Autism Speaks requires me to boycott this company and it’s zines.

In a sense, all of this is about bullying. 

Autism Speaks claims they exist to advocate for families with autism, but only 4% of the donations goes to those families.  They fund research, and one of their major projects seeks a way to diagnose autism in utero, which is a form of eugenics.

That is why I disagree with Autism Speaks’ agenda.  But that, in and of itself, does not warrant boycotting (though it is why I would not donate to their organization).

Autism Speaks goes even further than this.  Autism Speaks is an organization that intentionally spreads fear and despair.  They use advertisements that amount to hate speech against autistics.  They encourage parents to fantasize on camera about killing their autistic children, and use this as a reason why autistics should be eliminated from society.

They use “Autism Speaks” as their name to claim that they speak for autistics; they don’t.  Autistics can and do speak for themselves, like these protesters.  On the site for the anthology, there’s this branding slogan: “Autism Speaks. It’s time to listen.”  Autistics, in return, says: “Autism Speaks needs to listen.”  Instead, Autism Speaks actively tries to silence those not in agreement with their eugenics agenda.

If this wasn’t bad enough, they engage in unethical business practices.  They mislead donors as they raise funds for their research.  They try to control media elements, as they did when I tried to interview one of their representatives.  And they bully their way through politics and the social landscape.  Their message is clear:  If you don’t feel bad (or even homicidal) about having an autistic child, then there’s something wrong with you, because autism has stolen your child’s soul.  (Yes, the soul-stealing is paraphrased, but with their very words one of their representatives has used.)

As an organization, Autism Speaks is a bully—a well-funded, politically powerful bully that believes that eugenics is the solution to autism.  And that offends me.  They use their size and their wealth to attempt to stomp out disagreement.

And they create anthologies where one point of view is all that can be expressed, because they don’t want their audience to become aware of differing points of view.

That offends me.  Autism Speaks offends me.  As a business person who believes in ethical business practices and as a parent of three children with diagnoses of autism, Autism Speaks offends me.  And I cannot write honestly and not offend them in turn.

I wouldn’t change that even if I could.

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Bullying (Part 4): A Thought for the Bully

  • Posted on October 23, 2010 at 4:22 AM

I could stop at bullying is bad; there’s a difference between bullying, harassment and abuse; and both boys and girls can be bullies, but the bullying behavior doesn’t usually look the same.  I could stop there and just move onto bullying in the adult world.

But I can’t really.  Bullying is bad.  Bullies are behaving badly.  But that doesn’t mean that bullies themselves are necessarily bad.  Perhaps that seems like an argument in semantics.  Perhaps I may come across overly empathetic.  But…it’s not, and I’m not.

My Defense

Semantics:  I try not to tell my kids “you’re naughty.”  Semantics, perhaps, but I believe it sends the wrong message, especially to literal-minded youngsters.  Instead, I say “that’s naughty,” referring to the behavior.  I wasn’t raised with that distinction, but I believe in making it.  Like any other imperfect parent, sometimes I fail, but that’s not the point.  My kids are good kids, and they need to know that.  Sometimes my kids do bad things, and they need to know that, too. 

It’s more than semantics.  The first is a statement of being; whereas, the second is a statement of doing.  There is a real difference there, and I believe that this difference can be unconsciously, unintentionally internalized.  I can’t prove that.  I’m not a psychologist or a sociologist.  But I believe if kids grow up hearing they’re bad or naughty all the time, they’re going to believe it so strongly that they become what you said they were (without outside interference).  So I do make that distinction.

Overly-Empathetic:  I’ve known, both as an adult and as a child, a variety of children who engage in bullying behaviors.  Often, if you delve deeply enough, there is something significantly wrong in a child’s life that leads to bullying, though it is not always direct or readily apparent.  If you address what’s going wrong in that child’s life, you may be able to stop the bullying—both as a current behavior and as a coping mechanism.  In effect, when one child is bullying another, what you’re often seeing are two children who are hurting badly, not just one.

My Argument

Most kids are good kids—they’re good kids who occasionally do bad things.  Bullying is one of the many bad things a child may do.  Saying it doesn’t make the bullying any less bad, nor does it make it any less important to stop the bullying.  But in order to stop the bullying you often need to understand the whys behind the behavior.

I know a child who used to engage in bullying behavior.  It was rather shocking, because this child was young and bullying was not tolerated in the environment in which I interacted with the child.  (Yes, I’m being vague to protect the identity of the child.)  My first reaction was to try to stomp out the bullying behaviors—and I took a very authoritarian approach to this.  The child was young enough for me to pick him up kicking and screaming (literally) in order to discipline him.  And I did.  His behavior was unacceptable, and he had to know that.

But it didn’t work.  The bullying behaviors, along with other unacceptable behaviors, continued.  Sometimes the victims would change, but the bullying didn’t stop, because the need for bullying didn’t stop.

The calmer, more rational I got, the more I saw that this was a child in pain.  Because of my relationship with this child I was able to get close enough to see that pain and identify the cause (it took years, sadly).  The child was being emotionally abused—not in the environment in which I interacted with him, but in his home environment.  The child’s negative behaviors were coping mechanisms.  He was in pain and his world was unstable.  He felt he had no control, and bullying was a means of obtaining some control over his world.

I tried to confront the abuser, but she didn’t see her behavior as abuse.  She refused to acknowledge the abuse.  I researched parental abuse to see how to report it, and in my research I discovered that the state I lived in does not even acknowledge this kind of behavior as abuse.  I talked to as many people as I could, but I could not find a way to make it stop.

Then, I got creative.  I could do nothing about the parent.  But I had limited access to the child.  I could affect him.  So, while his mother tore him down, I built him up.  I enlisted others to help me.  I’m proud to say that he now has a healthy dose of both self-esteem and empathy.  He was even brave enough to confront his mother and put a stop to some of the abuse.  I’m proud, not of my own cleverness, but of him.  He is a good kid, and he knows it.  And, yes, sometimes he still does bad things, but he’s not bad and he’s not a bully.

I have seen other kids who engage in bullying behaviors as coping mechanisms.  These kids are, in my experience, often bullied, harassed or abused by adults in their life—adults who they should be able to trust, who should be taking care of them, who are hurting them instead.  If bullying is all a child knows—or even just what the child knows best—the child is likely to engage in bullying behaviors.  And for a few moments out of his or her day that child is going to be the one on top instead of the one being crushed.

I say this not to defend bullying behavior.  These behaviors are damaging to the bully and to the victim and they should not be tolerated.  But addressing the behaviors requires a willingness to explore the root cause(s) of the behaviors.  If we do not, we risk the possibility that we’re ignoring warning signs of a serious situation that will, if not address, create worse problems in the future.

Of course, not all bullies engage in bullying behaviors as a coping mechanism.  There are other reasons children engage in bullying behaviors.  And that’s something I will cover in my next post.

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Bullying (Part 3): “Girls Will Be Girls”

  • Posted on October 18, 2010 at 5:14 PM

For some reason, bullying is associated with boys in American culture.  Worse than dismissing boys’ bullying as “boys will be boys,” girls’ bullying is simply not acknowledged.  Sometimes it’s even celebrated.  When conforming to gender norms, girls’ bullying behaviors are different from those exhibited by boys.  It’s different, but it’s not “better.”  It’s certainly no less bullying, neither is it less harmful to the victim or to the bully.

What does “girls will be girls” mean?  Girls gossip.  They talk about other people behind their backs—what they’re doing, what they’re wearing, how they look, how they speak, and who they’re dating and why.  Girls travel in cliques.  They go to the bathroom together and walk down the halls together.  They talk on the telephone, sometimes when they’re standing right next to each other in the halls.

Girls put others down over the silliest of things.  Some girls do this so reflexively they’re not even aware that they’ve done it.  When girls are being girls, anyone can end up with the sharp point of a girl’s tongue sticking in their ear.  One day you’re putting down your best friend for doing something that is socially unacceptable, the next day it’s the girl who sits next to you in math.  It’s not nice, but it is ‘girls being girls.’  However unfortunate these behaviors may be, it is not bullying.

Bullying is pervasive, usually against people perceived as inferior in some way.  Girls bully by badgering and intimidating others.  It’s a means of controlling situations through force of self—and, in the case of girls, physical dominance rarely has anything to do with it.  In my experience, a girl who is a bully often disguises herself as the friend of her victim(s).  This may involve a twisted, heightened form of peer-pressure from the queen of a clique; or it may be between two playmates.

The girl bully that is prominent in my childhood was an example of the latter.  You see, one of the hardest things about not going to summer camp as a child was that there were long stretches of the summer when all my regular friends were gone—often to the same camp together, which left me feeling even more excluded.  For one or two agonizing weeks I had to stretch myself socially just to have anyone to play with.  This was always difficult; making friends was hard enough without having to do so as the one left behind.

One summer I played with an older girl who was visiting her grandparents.  She was mean.  She was bossy.  She was also the only one around for me to play with.  All my ideas were stupid.  But when she put my ideas into her own words they became brilliant games we could play.  She was always the leader, always the princess or whatever plumb role our game might happen to have.  And the worst part of it all was how she was able to manipulate me into feeling privileged because she was willing to play with me.

This is bullying.  It’s about dominance; but emotional dominance is the stock and trade of girls, not physical dominance.  But, don’t let that dissuade you; it’s still bullying.

When girls’ bullying escalates into harassment, it takes on a more cutting, more heavily targeted tone.  Consider for a moment that girls, when conforming to neurological and gender norms, gossip about others.  Now imagine for a moment that all that gossip, backbiting, and meanness is targeted on a single individual.  Imagine that the victim is targeted not by one girl, but by a clique of girls who travel together and try to one-up each other as they tear apart their victim emotionally.  That is harassment, and it happens a lot.

As a child, I was never very popular.  I didn’t travel in the popular circles.  But I usually had one friend in those circles who saw me as quirky instead of weird.  Such a small thing can make a really big difference.  That one friend acted as something of a barrier between me and constant, female-style harassment.  But being on the outside, I witnessed that harassment of others and felt powerless to stop it.  However much I stood up for or validated the victim, I couldn’t stop the harassment itself.  Like the gossiping and the bullying, girls’ harassment tends to be primarily emotional, but nonetheless devastating.

Finally, girls can be just as abusive as boys.  The physical violence is often less obvious.  Girls, when conforming to gender norms, do not roll around on the ground and pull each other’s hair as is sometimes portrayed in movies.  Cat fights tend to be prevalent in certain sub-cultures, but it is not the mainstream.  This does not mean girls cannot or are not abusive.  The violence, as I said, is subtler, but can often be more dangerous because of that subtlety.  The violence girls inflict on each other can range from “poisoning” with non-lethal (but still dangerous) chemicals—like slipping an overdose of laxatives in a girl’s drink—to reckless endangerment, where a girl chased another girl (who was on foot) in a car, driving on the sidewalk to better make her point.  It can also include manipulating the guys in the girls’ clique to sexually harass their victim, which is often with the intent of setting the girl up for public humiliation when it’s revealed the guy(s) didn’t even want her to begin with.  (I’ve seen guys try to do this on their own, too, but it never seems to work as effectively.)

This violence is rarely one on one.  It’s often done in a collective manner.  The girls who are daring enough to perform these acts are often well-thought-of by the adults in their lives, and feel sufficiently secure in their reputations that, even if their victim were foolish enough to tell she wouldn’t be believed by anyone with the authority to act.  (If you’ve seen Cruel Intentions, then you’ve seen a dramatized version of this—most girls that try it, however, are not quite that successful or resourceful.)  To further isolate themselves from repercussions, the bully-girls work diligently to maintain their reputation with adults, while performing acts that are attributed to their victim in such a way that puts their victim’s reputation in jeopardy, further eroding the possibility that one “trouble-maker’s” word would trump their collective word as to what happened.

The bullying girls inflict on other girls is insidious and subtle, but it is no less brutal, no less tragic for that.  In some ways, it is more so.  Girls often cannot show off their bruises or their scars.  It’s all internal.  Even when their life is endangered with abuse, there is rarely any visible evidence to attest to the danger they were placed in by their peers.  Girls will be girls.  But girls should not be allowed to inflict others with their cruelty.  And yet it goes on, because, after all, girls aren’t really bullies.  That’s just boy-stuff and it’s all good.

 

[Coming Next:  “You’ve Got to Wonder Why?”]

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Bullying (Part 2): “Boys Will Be Boys”

  • Posted on October 15, 2010 at 11:15 PM

Boys will be boys, but what does that mean? 

When conforming to cultural gender norms, “boys will be boys” refers to the tendency for young males to enjoy getting dirty, playing rough and doing things that girls (when conforming to gender norms) consider icky.

In relation to the bullying behaviors attributed to “boys will be boys,” it refers to pushing, fighting and calling each other names.  But despite the pressure to dismiss bullying as “boys being boys,” there is a difference.

Yes, boys will be boys, as my children prove.  Brandon and Will don’t always get along, but sometimes they do.  Whether they’re getting along or not, they often play roughly with each other.  They wrestle.  They try to pin each other to the ground.  They chase each other and call each other names.  They tease and make fun of each other.  They poke and prod at each other’s weak spots—mentally, physically and emotionally.

This is boys being boys.  It is also sibling rivalry.

This is not bullying.  This is not harassment.  This is not abuse.

What’s the difference?  Despite the persistence of Brandon and Will’s rivalry, they are not doing this to hurt one another or to dominate each other.  They’re having fun.  Even when one of them is physically or emotionally hurt, they’re back at it in a few moments—laughing and smiling.  They both enjoy interacting with each other in this manner.

I remember, as a child, having a bully nearby.  The memories are rather vague.  I was very young—five or six—and have lived several places since then.  I don’t remember his name.  But I do remember he often tried to intimidate the younger kids, myself included, into doing what he wanted.  He would put his shoulders back and puff out his chest, towering over us, and tell us what to do.  As much as we tried to avoid him, he seemed to prefer playing with younger kids, because he could make us do what he wanted.  His whole demeanor changed whenever my brother or any of the other older kids came around.

This isn’t “boys being boys.”  It’s bullying.  He wasn’t physically violent and he didn’t target anyone in particular, besides those weaker and smaller than he was, so it wasn’t abuse or harassment.  He was just a bully—unpleasant, but not particularly dangerous.  Most of the self-assertive techniques I read about in the papers these days would probably have worked on him.

In junior high school, there was another child—the same age as me—who was more than a bully.  We first met when I arrived at the elementary school he attended in sixth grade.  Up until that point, this boy was recognized as the smartest kid in class.  He was also cool.  He was also surprisingly friendly to me that first day.  Having looked at my scholastic record, the principal put me in a differentiated English class, which is the first I’d ever encountered a “gifted and talented” class.  That class was in the morning, so I didn’t participate until the second day.  This boy was, of course, the star of that class.  As I said, up until that class he’d been quite nice to me.  Then, as we sat in the circle, I made a mistake. 

The teacher told me that since I had not read the book they were discussing, I wasn’t expected to do more than listen.  And for the first twenty minutes I did exactly that.  Then, the teacher asked a question about the book that none of the other students—including the star of the class—could answer.  They’d (presumably) read the book and they couldn’t answer the question.  I waited and waited and waited, but no matter how she tried to lead them to the answer, none of them knew it.  So I raised my hand.  And I answered the question.  I knew the answer from the discussion and because I understood plot and character motive on an instinctive level.  I answered a question about a book I hadn’t read that he couldn’t answer even though he’d read the book.  And I became the star of the class. 

And that was the start of it all.  For the next 3 years he tormented me.  It wasn’t simple bullying.  It wasn’t merely intimidation and badgering.  It started that way, but it escalated.  At first, he tried to best me academically, but there were subjects that I always won at (though, I didn’t regard it as a competition).  When he couldn’t best me academically, he bullied me.  When bullying didn’t make me stop “showing off” by answering questions and showing my intelligence and creativity, he started harassing me.  He tormented me in school and he threatened and chased me outside of school.  It was targeted harassment; it was personal; it was revenge for a crime I didn’t even realize I’d committed.  I tried standing up to him and I tried ignoring; it didn’t help.  He had a very strong, very personal motive for his behavior.  He got something out of it, and he wasn’t going to stop.  It probably would have continued indefinitely—at least as long as I stayed there—if he hadn’t made a mistake.

One day when I was walking down a bike path in the woods, he and a group of his friends saw me.  They threw rocks at me (though it was obvious that they were not trying to hit me—they all had better aim than that).  They taunted and teased me.  I ran.  They chased me.  I hid.  They hunted me.  They weren’t trying to catch me, but they were trying to make me afraid—and they succeeded.

Then, I caught up with two other students.  One of these guys was friends with my brother; I was friends with his sister.  The other was kind-of-sort-of friends with the boy who was tormenting me.  They were both the “boys will be boys” type of boys; they weren’t particularly nice to me, but they also didn’t tolerate boys hurting girls.  They saw me and they started teasing me about running like I was.  Then they realized that I was really afraid.  And then the boy who was tormenting me, along with his cronies, topped the rise on their bicycles.  My brother’s friend asked me what was going on, and I told him.  He asked me why, and I told him I didn’t know.  So, my brother’s friend went over to the boys who were chasing me and explained, quite sensibly, that if they didn’t leave me alone, then he would tell my brother what they were up to and my brother (who was three years older than us and quite big—football-muscles big) would get a bunch of his friends together and they’d kick their f***in’ a**es for f***in’ with his little sister.  While he did that, the other guy asked me if I really didn’t know why the tormenter had targeted me.  I told him I really didn’t.  So, he explained it to me; from that moment in sixth grade and all the supposed slights in between—the boy who tormented me couldn’t stand it that a girl was smarter than him and didn’t have the decency not to show it.  I said, “That’s absurd.”  The guy shrugged.  “But that’s just it.  I mean, really.  It’s stupid.  It’s f***ed up.  But no.  You say ‘absurd.’”

It took me quite a while to fully grasp what he meant by that.  I’m still not entirely sure I understand why my tormenter’s self-esteem was such that my being smarter than him was perceived as such a threat.  However much I do not understand the misogyny or the neurotypicality that makes my tormenter’s motive make sense, I do know his behavior wasn’t just bullying.  It was harassment.  And much of what I have heard and read about that is being labeled bullying is this sort of harassment.  The motives may be different, but the motives are more complicated and more personal than mere bullying.  The children (and adults) who are targeted for harassment are targeted for more than just their relative weakness; they are targeted for their differences, for imagined slights or for other, specific reasons.  Harassers get more out of harassing their victims than bullies get out from their victims.  When behavior like this starts—targeted, on-going harassment—it’s escalated beyond bullying and we need to acknowledge that in our language and in our remedies.

I’ve been lucky.  I’ve never been beaten up.  Personally, I attribute this “luck” to my brother and his superior social skills.  Twice I’ve been threatened:  once by a guy and once by a girl.  The guy stopped chasing me when he learned who my brother was.  The girl targeted me because she had reason to dislike my brother (a woman scorned and all of that), and she wanted to show it by beating me up.  Fortunately for me, one of my brother’s female friends interfered.

I can’t share a personal story of physical abuse—at least not of a nature that could be described as bullying.  But many stories I’ve read lately have involved children beating up other children on a repeated basis.  This isn’t new.  I know that.  But it’s not bullying; and it bothers me that the stories in the news are reporting it as bullying.  Beating someone up is not bullying; it’s abuse; it’s assault, perhaps assault and battery.  I’ve heard stories where assertiveness has made a difference.  My husband has told me such a story.  But, whether or not assertiveness is an issue, we’re talking about abuse and assault—where talking about crimes.

Boys will be boys.  Some boys are bullies.  I think bullying is morally wrong.  I think bullying should be addressed and that both bullies and victims deserve our attention.  We need to find effective ways to prevent bullying and teach solutions to both bullies and their victims to prevent bullying behavior.  But I don’t think bullying should be a crime.  I really don’t think bullying is our problem, except in the sense that bullying is like the “gateway drug” to more serious problems.  The solution is not to create anti-bullying legislation. 

The solution is to call all this so-called bullying that’s been in the news what it is: harassment and abuse/assault.  If harassment and abuse aren’t already crimes, then they should be crimes.  But I believe they are already crimes.  And we should treat them as such instead of dismissing it as “boys being boys.”

[Next, I will write about “girls being girls.”  After all, boys aren’t the only bullies and bullying behavior from girls is often different from bullying behavior from boys.]

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