Books, Girls and Bullying.

[gehayi]

I just finished reading a YA book called Freak by Marcella Pixley. (I got a number of YA books out of the library today, because the teen room, unlike every other area containing fiction in the library, is on the first floor and therefore does not require an eternally broken elevator for access.) The book was very good and very painful for three-

Comments

[lareinenoire]

UGH. I hate it when otherwise good books just go completely off the rails in the last quarter, and it sounds like this one did just that and not for any particularly good reason -- maybe to try to manufacture some kind of happy ending? It could well have been a publishing ploy as well, but, as you said, it's disingenuous and downright dangerous.

There is nothing romantic about being bullied, as you have made abundantly clear. I was bullied in middle school but to nowhere near the extent that you were -- things never reached the point of physical violence in my case.

But the message that keeps getting relayed to young girls is that if they're meek and quiet and just accept everything that happens to them, somehow it will all turn out right. Which is patently untrue! Once bullies know they can control you, they'll damn well keep doing it.

[gehayi]

I really think that the author--who's a teacher, by the way--was trying to manufacture a happy ending. She really seems to believe that if all kids just accepted one another for who they are, things would be fine and there would not be any bullying.

That's like saying that Antarctica would be beautifully green if not for the snow. Bullies, by definition, do not accept others. They do not wish to.

the message that keeps getting relayed to young girls is that if they're meek and quiet and just accept everything that happens to them, somehow it will all turn out right. Which is patently untrue! Once bullies know they can control you, they'll damn well keep doing it.Of course they do. Like anyone else who finds something they like and that works, of course they would keep doing it

[smurasaki]

I had a friend who was bullied so much in her senior year English class that her teacher just gave her a library pass for the rest of the year so she didn't have to be in class with her tormentors.

In my jr. high and high school years - what there were of them - I was fairly convinced that the entire female half of the species, excepting myself and my mom, was evil. I still think the only thing that kept them from ever uping the bullying to anything physical was that one day my difficult combination lock on my locker proved to be the last straw for my temper and I kicked in the bottom of my locker. In full view of a number of my classmates, who were also changing class at the time. I then opened the locker, straightened out the bent in bottom... and was left alone for some time thereafter.

I think the only two ways to stop bullies are if schools don't tolerate them, or they're afraid they might kick them in. Being nice to them is not ever going to work.

[smurasaki]

Er, that should be "if they're afraid _someone_ might kick them in."

[gehayi]

I agree with you completely

[sparkfrost]

Wow. What utter bullshit. I was bullied through elementary school, middle school and part of high school, and it didn't stop until I fought back physically. Slapped a couple of guys across the face, kneed one in the balls, and knocked another one down in front of his friends. Was it *nice* of me? Hell no! But it got them to back the fuck off and leave me alone. I hate the rhetoric of "ignore them, they'll go away" because no, they damn well won't unless they're shown that there are consequences. And if those consequences include a fourteen year old girl beating you up in front of your jock buddies, then maybe the bully will think twice.

Fuck, man. Kids blow. I don't think I could ever be a teacher because I would constantly want to yell and smack them.

[gehayi]

I hate the rhetoric of "ignore them, they'll go away" because no, they damn well won't unless they're shown that there are consequences.And most of the time, bullies know that there AREN'T consequences. Other kids tend to obey the herd instinct and let the kid who's being bullied go hang, because speaking up will attract the bullies' attention, and not in a good way. And teachers have a distinct tendency to side with the bullies against the bullies' victims, either mocking the kids who are being bullied, telling them not to fight back, berating the kids for not admitting what they're doing to inspire such anger ("They're not picking on you--you're picking on THEM!"), or just turning and looking in the opposite direction when they see bullying occurring. One thing that I learned quite early--say, around the age of eight--was that teachers and administrators could not be counted on to support a victim of bullying. Individuals might help, but as groups...never

[gehayi]

dults are required to *do* something,a nd the kids are not supposed to just sit there and put up with it, either, because a good chunk of the time it just escalates.

I agree. Which makes perfect sense. If you do something and get away with it, you'll keep on doing it. Why would you stop, if there are no consequences.

The sort of book where they quote academci studies on the structure of girs' social groups, and how the leader of such a group is always in such fear of losing their position that they demand constant loyalty tests.I've read such claims. I've seen them in movies like "Mean Girls," too. I don't believe it; saying that the leaders of bullying groups live in insecurity and fear seems like one of the reassuring lies that academics tell themselves about bullies. I've never known a bully who struck me as anything but brash, overconfident, obnoxious and in control. My feeling has always been that bullies bully because they get drunk on the power it gives them, and that they will kill before giving up their daily dose of

[leaper182]

I wonder if the author would respond to a letter written to her saying, "Hi, read the book, and it's obvious *you've* never been bullied because the real world doesn't work that way."

[gehayi]

The thing is, the rest of the book is so spot-on, that I have to think that she has been bullied. But then she veers from the horrifically painful memories and shoehorns the remainder of the story into a mold that it simply does not fit.

I read an article about her (by accident--I was looking for a webpage, as I would LOVE to contact her) and this is what she said:

"I want every kid who has ever come into my classroom in tears because they've been teased or had problems with friends to read this book and realize they're not the only one this has happened to. It happens to my character, and it happened to me. And just like my character, I found the strength to overcome it."

There's just a few problems with this.

A) I don't know of a single kid who's been bullied who thinks that he or she is the only person that has ever been bullied. How many people have been bullied is not the issue. When you're the victim of bullies, knowing that the bullies are also picking on a lot of other people DOESN'T MAKE IT BETTER.

B) Miriam doesn't

Re: I was lurking on James Nicoll's f-list

[gehayi]

I have to agree with you. And I hadn't heard about the Alex Barton incident. Dear Lord, that "teacher"--and I put the word in quotations for a reason--is contemptible. (I see that the "teacher" got reassigned, but I don't know that that actually helped matters.)

What's the power issue that has been missing from recent attention over bullying?