2nd-September-2008
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Bully-boy focus overlooks vicious acts by girls | |
Quote: Bully-boy focus overlooks vicious acts by girls
By Patrick Welsh
Whenever there is talk of school violence, our thoughts naturally turn to boys. After all, boys have been responsible for all of the fatal shootings in high schools in the past five years.
But infinitely more pervasive is the kind of psychological violence perpetrated by girls on each other. Its manifestations at times appear comic, but can make high school miserable for many young women and often inflict lasting pain. Sadly, the nastiness of high school girls is often accepted as "girls will be girls" behavior.
I've always been amused to hear middle-class parents who send their daughters to large, diverse schools such as mine — T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. — express concern that they could be victimized by boys. The fact is that the girls don't fear the boys; they fear other girls.
"It's not a fear of something physical. It's the looks, the bad vibes," says senior Rebecca Berlin.
A large study of U.S. students in grades six through 10 that was published April 25 in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that boys were more likely than girls to bully and be bullied. But girls don't get off easy: 13.7% of them said they were bullied at least "sometimes," if not weekly or even more regularly, and an equal percentage said they had bullied someone that often. Another 22.5% of girls reported being bullied "once or twice" during their current term.
As anyone who has been a bully's victim can tell you, even one incidence can be devastating. And girls seem particularly adept at life-altering zingers: While both sexes in the study commonly bullied with belittling looks or speech, it was the girls who were more apt to use rumors or sexual comments.
"I'd rather be bullied by a guy any day than by a girl. ... Compared to guys, girls are vicious," says 17-year-old Valerie Tarr. "They try to find your weaknesses. ... They won't hesitate to openly mock your physical flaws. ... If that doesn't work, they'll try to destroy your reputation."
In some ways, having your name destroyed can be a badge of honor. When a girl transfers into T.C. from another school, she "is usually ignored by the girls. But as soon as she becomes a threat, especially if guys like her, she'll get ripped apart," says senior Liz Jennings.
Last year, one of my male students took a very attractive blonde whom no one knew to the senior prom. The local girls gave the mystery date the kind of looks that the hit men on The Sopranos give their victims.
The nastiness of adolescent girls to each other is not limited to my school. Jim de Camp, who has taught for 30 years in the suburbs of Rochester, N.Y., has witnessed, "an exquisite meanness to many high school girls. The rumors, innuendo and character assassination are often coordinated by groups. It has relentlessness that is so painful to the victims."
So many schools are creating programs that focus on interracial harmony that harmony among kids of the same race is taken for granted. But the nastiness at my school seldom crosses racial lines.
"If I am going to be hurt and made to feel horrible, it's a white girl who is going to do it," says Lindsay Dow, a white senior. Her classmate Sheree Monroe says black girls are just as mean to each other. "But we tend to be a little more confrontational about it."
It's a joke in many schools that for all of the concern about boys fighting, the most vicious fights are between girls. Two months ago, when a colleague took a group of students to the U.S. Capitol, two charming-looking girls got into a brawl that ended with one pulling the other down the Capitol's marble steps by her pony tail. Several Capitol police officers had to tear them off each other.
All of the senior girls I talked to said that one of the main things they are looking forward to when they go off to college in September is being able to start anew and shed all of the labels they acquired from other girls.
Forming groups that denigrate and ostracize others may be a part of adolescence, but I have seen too many cases that prove it doesn't have to be as bad as it has become. I've seen girls who had labeled each other as dorks, nerds, sluts or potheads come to be best friends by participating in sports, band or clubs together. I've seen girls in my classes find out that the labels they had tagged each other with were totally wrong.
Programs such as "Challenge Day" that bring members of various groups — jocks, nerds, freaks and so on — together to openly discuss their perceptions of each other are working in California public schools.
High school doesn't have to be as painful as it is for so many girls. But the situation isn't likely to change unless educators and parents realize that there is a problem and begin attacking it.
Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors. | USATODAY.com - Bully-boy focus overlooks vicious acts by girls
Last edited by Marx; 6th-September-2008 at 10:21 PM..
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