In light of a recent situation I’ve experienced, I chose to write my very first blog indirectly related to my own life. I’ve found this article online, and, after reading it, found that the person who targeted me (whom I’ll hereafter refer to as “Irene”) fell under each and every category listed. And then some. I’m not 100% sure why girls find it necessary to bully. Didn’t their mothers teach them when they were little that “If you don’t have anything nice to say, better to say nothing at all.”?
The part that caught my eye most was the paragraph about the social networking sites. I’m guilty too, as I have profiles on several of them. But I use them for keeping in touch, not for posting notes or sending malicious emails about anybody. Whatever happened to fighting things out if you’ve got a problem? Social networking tools make it so easy for people, and more in particular women, to say nasty things about others without the confrontation part of things.
Remember when you were young, and there were no computers, or cell phones? Then you’d have to be outside in the sun all summer long, playing with your friends. In that case, if a conflict arose, you would hash it out and more than likely become best friends again the next day. Seems silly that things have gone the way they have because of advancement in technology.
I want to go back to those days. I like to call it “caveman days”, which isn’t far from the truth compared to now. I want to have to call someone on the phone, or meet them in person if there is a conflict. Now, it’s become so easy to avoid those situations. To hide behind a keyboard, and say things you wouldn’t ever dare say to someone if you were in front of them.
All of these kids, committing suicide, or attempting it… Why have we let this become the norm? This is not ok! The following link is to a youtube video I found when searching for “bullying”. It breaks my heart to see this happening, and the kids who are experiencing this are getting younger and younger all the time. Take a look at it, and hopefully you feel a little compassion for this beautiful, smart young woman who obviously felt like there was no other choice.
In conclusion to my part of the blog, before you read this article… if you are a woman, I hope you will stop and think before you click “send” on a nasty email or instant message. I hope you will realize that it doesn’t have to come to that. How would you feel if you woke up the next morning and saw that girls face on the news saying she had killed herself? I know that I don’t ever want to feel that sort of responsibility for someone’s life being taken.
And as for Irene, well I guess she’s just lucky that I am a strong willed person. That I can look at the things she said, and laugh, and just know that it is her own insecurities that have forced her to do and say these things to me, and about me. Half of them might be true, half of them might not. Who is anyone else to judge? Don’t give your two cents about something someone chooses, or chooses not to do, unless you are asked for it.
Enjoy this article, and hopefully you can take something good from it to implement in your own life. Maybe you have a daughter, or neice, or sister who this could help as well. Take a stand, and don’t let someone make you think that you don’t have a right to live! Because you wouldn’t have been born if that were the case.
Lisa.
ARTICLE FROM http://lifestyle.ca.msn.com/real-life/friends/rogers-article.aspx?cp-documentid=25370995
The scene was like something from The Hills . Dana Lacey, a 26-year-old writer, was at a Toronto bar with a group of friends, including her roommate—who happens to be a guy—and his new girlfriend. At one point, Lacey noticed the girlfriend and her friend were staring at her, giggling and playing with their phones. Later, Lacey found out the two women had been texting each other and making fun of how she was dressed. This wasn’t the first time the girlfriend had been snarky with Lacey. “When they first started going out, I had invited her to dinner to make her feel welcome,” Lacey says. “But my best attempts couldn’t charm her. She’d be really sweet when my roommate was around, but when he left the room, she’d say things like, ‘Why are you even here?’ It was like an extension of the way girls acted in grade school.”
Eventually, the girlfriend’s behaviour—which was triggered, Lacey thinks, by jealousy—got so bad that it ruined Lacey’s friendship with her roommate. He chose the girlfriend over her and Lacey decided she was too old to deal with that kind of toxic environment.
Unfortunately, while most women believe they would never be the cause of loading such emotional stress on a friend or acquaintance, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, many of us never really outgrow being a bully, says Cheryl Dellasega, a women’s studies professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of the book Mean Girls Grown Up . “The [aggressive] behaviour just gets a little more polished and subtle [as we get older].” You know the transformation: The cool girl in chemistry class who didn’t invite you to her post-graduation party becomes the office diva who “forgets” to forward you an important email at work. The fair-weather friend who flirted with your first crush turns into the frenemy who won’t keep her manicured mitts off your fiancé. The popular clique who snickered while you walked past them in the cafeteria morphs into the tight-knit gang at the gym who never ask you to join them for a post-pilates latte.
“Bullying isn’t uniquely female,” says Irene Levine, author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving A Breakup With Your Best Friend and professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine. “But there are always women who need to build themselves up by knocking others down. They may exclude, gossip, or do other things to demean one individual—particularly someone who seems vulnerable. Making someone feel alone, rejected and treating her as an outcast can be as vicious as a physical assault.”
What makes these encounters with a female bully so confusing and wounding is the very nature of women’s relationships. While men tend to bond by activities— grabbing a beer after a game of hockey, for example— women look for emotional intimacy from their female friends. We talk, we share, we open our hearts. And so the quickest way to hurt each other is by what experts call “relational aggression.” The female bully doesn’t use her fists; instead, she denies other women a social connection by mocking or shunning them. “For women and girls, relationships are a source of solace and power,” says Rachel Simmons, an expert on female aggression and the author of The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence. “Female friendships are one of the greatest comforts and the greatest weapons. The heart of female psychological violence is to destroy other people’s relationships.” Credit this to both genetics and socialization. Aggression, competition, jealousy and anger are all part of the normal range of human experience. But often, these “negative” emotions are considered unladylike. So instead of learning to be direct about these feelings, women resort to tactics like gossip, eye-rolling or the silent treatment. For women in their 20s, a time when careers and serious romantic relationships are getting established, female aggression is particularly intense. “This is a period of transition,” says Dellasega. “Women are applying for jobs and internships, and they’re dating and thinking about the future. They can feel very threatened if they think another woman is standing in their way.”
Meanwhile, technology such as smartphones, Twitter and Facebook has added a whole new supply of smart bombs to the female bully’s arsenal. Social media plugs right into women’s anxiety about direct conflict, says Simmons. “A tweet or a text allows us to communicate without having to look each other in the eyes. And with so much emotion bottled up, you can let it rip and say things you wouldn’t dare if you were dealing with a person face-to-face.”
No wonder women are such social media fans, outtweeting and out-friending men by 10 percent, shows a recent online study. According to Katie*, the moderator of a popular online forum for Canadian women, the discussions on her site are just as often fuelled by bitchy putdowns as they are by sisterly sharing. “Women come to the site for advice and support,” Katie says, “but cliques develop really quickly. Online, people don’t think they have anything to lose. They can hide behind their avatars.”
One ringleader stands out because “she posts the most and she’s always the first to get nasty and take the conversation in the direction it shouldn’t go. People kiss up to her because they’re scared of being a target.” Katie has had to remove posts that accused a woman of being “jealous and having a personality disorder.” Another perpetual victim is mocked mercilessly when she asks questions of the forum community—the clique sends her intentionally bad advice, calls her names or ignores her posts altogether. Katie heard from one regular poster that the clique established a by-invitation-only shadow site where they brag about how they’ve trashed people.
“People are searching for empathy or solutions,” Katie says about the forum. “For instance, someone will ask what to do about her cheating boyfriend. And what’s interesting is that the knee-jerk reaction is to put her down, saying it’s her fault. It’s really cruel.”
Dellasega says that there is a thrill in this kind of social meanness. In its twisted way, gossip can make women feel connected to each other. “If I meet you at a party and say ‘Our mutual friend Ann is such a nice person,’ you’ll drift away. If I say ‘Ann has an eating disorder and she’s a liar,’ you’ll be riveted. People are drawn to knowing something negative about someone else. And if I share something negative about someone else with you, it means I trust you. It bonds us.”
Consider, too, the sharkfest that is celebrity gossip culture, from tabloid magazines to TV shows and harsh blogs. The target audience for this—and the targets of its mean-spiritedness— is predominantly women. Sure, male stars get their share of ridicule, but mainly it’s the Kardashians and their love lives, Heidi Montag and her plastic surgeries, or the ongoing Chernobyl-like meltdown of Lindsay Lohan. That this is happening at precisely the same time that women have more opportunities, power and freedom than ever before is no coincidence, says Simmons. “Young women are a lot more open now about expressing their appetites for sex, food and fun,” Simmons says. “The reason there is so much anxiety and ambivalence toward them is because they violate conventional rules of feminity.” There’s not that much difference between trashing Miley Cyrus for a risqué stage performance, she says, and shaming a girl in your dorm, office or circle of friends for being promiscuous.
That same cycle of titilation and shame happens on reality TV—female bullying’s ultimate fighting match. On shows such as America’s Next Top Model and The Bachelor, women compete for retrograde rewards like an engagement ring, or being considered the prettiest. Along the way they sabotage, spread rumours and belittle each other. Worse, their bitchiness is usually presented as a kind of female empowerment. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Outside of the biosphere of her show, Simmons says, the reality TV bitch likely wouldn’t survive. “Her behaviour is so outrageous, we’re more likely to mock her than take her seriously.”
So, after all these years of feminist triumphs, is sisterhood dead? Have we achieved success at school, at work, in academics, politics and sports, only to become our own worst enemies? Not so, says Dellasega. Women have had to be tough to get ahead, she says, and in some cases, particularly in the traditional male workplace, they’ve mistaken aggressiveness for assertiveness. “And I think among women there is some residual anger for what we haven’t had, the choices and opportunities that were denied to us because of sexism.” Still, there are plenty models of successful women who help other women—Dellasega points to Oprah as a prime example.
And Levine says that forming positive relationships with other women is necessary for our well-being and success. “Friends help shape our values, interests and personalities—and help us make choices and find direction in our lives. Girlfriends provide mirrors that help us understand ourselves because they allow us to compare ourselves to others at the same stage in life. As a result, they make us better students, wives, mothers and workers by providing us with mentors who help us work out the various problems we face over our life span.”
Are you a bully?
No one likes to think of herself as the mean girl, but if you’ve exhibited any of these behaviours it could be time for an attitude adjustment.
At social events: •You’re meeting your friend’s crush for the first time and put her down in front of him by saying, “Oh isn’t it cute how she snorts when she laughs!”
•You see a woman at a party with a skirt you used to have and say, “I had the same skirt but gave it to Goodwill—I couldn’t stand the colour.”
•Whatever the get-together—baby shower, girls’ night out or birthday—you tend to dominate the conversation.
At work: •You invite colleagues out for coffee to gossip about other coworkers behind their back.
•You don’t tell the smart girl in the next cubicle about a hot position that’s opened up because you don’t want the competition—and you don’t want her to succeed.
•You let an intern take the blame from someone else for a deadline that you missed.
Information provided by: http://lifestyle.ca.msn.com/real-life/friends/rogers-article.aspx?cp-documentid=25370995
Among friends: •You take photos of your friend tossing her cookies after an epic pub crawl and post them on Facebook, where everyone can see them.
•You forward an email from a pal complaining about a mutual friend to your entire social circle because you’re jealous of their relationship.
•You purposely “forget” to invite one of the key friends in your circle when you make plans to hang out
Nice job Lisa!