Why is bullying such a difficult subject to tackle? Why is bullying of women by women, especially, so trivialised, and under-recognized? Why are gender-stereotypes attributed to bullies, suggesting that men, not women, bully, suggesting that bullying has something to do with "masculinity" and not "femininity"? What is it about our society that a) permits bullying to persist, and b) seems to want to minimize the lasting damage done by bullies, pretending that bullying is not nearly so hurtful and distressing as it actually is?
Anybody can become a bully, although there is a strong likelihood that individuals with specific personality traits, and/or backgrounds, are more prone to becoming bullies. Bullying is about an imbalance of power. It is about an individual (or group) who enjoys the sensation of making somebody else feel helpless and vulnerable. Bullying is done by people who lack empathy, understanding and tolerance. Bullies like to feel they can exploit another person's weakness, to their own advantage. They wish to feel superior. They may be controlling, aggressive, manipulative, deceitful, or all of those qualities. Bullies may have been bullied themselves, and become bullies in order to "regain control" and to "feel better". They may operate alone, or with accomplices to "egg them on". They may bully openly, or they may hide behind a fake "front", pretending to be pleasant, when really they are not. Sometimes, they may even hide their connections with bullying, by distancing themselves from the victim, and manipulating other people into doing the open bullying for them. Bullies can, as it is clear, present a wide range of behaviors.
Still, the one real thing that all bullies have in common is their effect on the victim. They seek to hurt somebody, leaving the victim embarrassed, ashamed, frightened, upset, shocked, confused, traumatised. Whatever the victim feels as a result of being bullied, it will not be pleasant. That is the legacy of bullying.
I have grown up with bullying as a part of my whole life. I know, too, that females can be just as bullying as males.
My bullying experiences started as early as primary school. I had to start school a year early (aged 3), because my mother has mental health problems, and could not cope. So, the Local Education Authority (Council) agreed for me to start school early. However, because the law states that a child must stay in school until age 16, I was forced to repeat the year I started early, to wait for my own age group to join the class. So, I did my first year at school twice! This left me bored and frustrated, as I was not being educated properly for a whole year, and was academically far ahead of the children who joined my class. I think that was the source of all the bullying.
Other children notice when you are "different". So, other children in my class noticed that I had a) started school before them, and b) had a mother who was mentally unwell. Most of the bullying was related to this. They also noticed that I was academically advanced for my age.
The bullying took several forms, and was initially from both boys and girls. It included calling me names, such as "Gippo" because of the way I looked, or "swot" and "Teacher's pet" because I got good grades. It also included criticizing my family, and calling my mother names. My mother was labeled a "nutter", and somebody called my family "corny". I also remember a different form of bullying, which was where there were children who would be my friends in school, but not even acknowledge me outside school. They never wanted to play with me, invite me to their houses, or come to my house. It was as though they were ashamed to know me.
This continued all through primary school, and was never tackled by the teaching staff. At the time, I tended just to brush it off, as I still had a lot of friends, and I filled my spare time with hobbies. Also, my grades did not feel like such a big deal because even though being academic singled me out, I was still in the same big class as every other child, of differing ability levels.
Things really changed the year before I went to secondary (high) school at age 11. High schools do not have mixed ability classes; they grade children according to academic ability. In the U.K., we take an exam called the "Eleven Plus". This decides what academic group we will be placed in at high school.
I remember missing nearly two full years of primary school due to having surgery. One was when I was aged about 8, and the other was the year before high school. So, I returned to sit my Eleven Plus exam, after missing a lot of time at primary school. This was hard, as many of my old friends had formed new friendships when I came back. However, I still had a small group of about three or four really close girl friends who I stayed in touch with. These girls were to turn out to be my worst bullies for the next five years of my life in high school.
I sat the Eleven Plus and did really well, despite the time I had missed from school. This meant I was placed in the top academic group. My "friends" were furious about this, as they were not placed in the same group. They were placed between one and three academic levels below. Instantly, allegations were made that I "cheated". This was not just from my "friends" but from their parents, and parents of other children in my class.
I had to face a year of allegations that I had unfairly used a "home tutor" (I had not); That I "could not really be that clever, as my mum was a spacker" (not true, but very hurtful). That I had been "swotting up while in hospital" (did people really believe this was what a sick girl would be doing?).
The nastiness never really died down after that. All the way through high school these girls who had been my friends seemed intent on making my life a misery. One of them openly told me, during the last week at primary school, that she did not want to be my friend any more. I asked her why, and she refused to tell me. I remember her making me cry.
All of these girls attended the same high school as me, so they were well placed to continue the bullying. At least two continued to pretend to be my friends. However, they became horribly jealous and possessive every time I made a new friend. They also refused to associate with any new friends I made who were in the same academic group as me. They openly labeled us as "swotty", "nerdy" and called us other names. They also accused me of being "snobby" and "spoiled", trying to suggest that by making friends with girls in the same group as me, I was "showing off that I was cleverer than them".
During this time, I had eggs and flour thrown on me. I had my hair, which I wore in a long plait, tied to the back of the school bus seat, so that when I stood up, it pulled my hair and I was trapped. I was "sent to coventry" selectively by my old friends, who would sometimes exclude me from activities, telling me that I had new friends and that they "didn't see why I wanted to spend time with them".
The girl who had "called off" her friendship with me attempted to get back into the circle of friends I had, but then became aggressive towards me. She was always trying to cause fights between me and my new friends. My old friends refused to acknowledge my new friends. Unpleasant gossip was spread behind my back, mostly to the effect that I was a "geek" or a "swot" and that my mother was crazy. I often got to hear these whispers; it was almost as if the girls deliberately raised their voices slightly if they saw me coming. I had never imagined girls could be so cliquey!
The bullying did begin to affect me. I became quiet and withdrawn, and very sullen. I remember losing interest in my appearance, and swinging between undereating and overeating. I really believed that other girls at school hated me, and thought I was ugly and stupid. I started dressing Gothic, smoking and listening to aggressive music. I think it made me feel rebellious, and was a way of fighting back against the bullies, many of whom seemed genuinely shocked by my change. I started dating older lads, many of them goths or punks, and totally withdrew from most of my school friends, associating with much older friends outside school instead.
I also deliberately started to drop my grades. Not really bad, but just enough for some of the girls to stop calling me a "swot". I think this was a big mistake, because then my teachers started accusing me of laziness! That really hurt, as I'd hoped my teachers might notice how much I was struggling, might notice the bullying, and help me. They did not!
By Sixth Form, I was still getting high grades (high enough to continue to annoy my main bullies) but I now hated school and hated being around the bullies. I had a massive row with my parents about continuing my education. I was prepared to drop out, if it meant being free of the bullies. My parents insisted I continue higher education. I felt sick every day before school, hated being in school, and just wanted to shut myself in my bedroom as soon as I got home. I was sick of being called a "swot", sick of being singled out for my grades, for my appearance, for my family problems, for my mother's illness. All of these things followed me around from school to school, and the bullies kept using them as ammunition! I did not wish to continue at Sixth Form, as I was terrified that the bullying would go on.
To make it worse, none of my teachers had ever intervened to stop the bullying. My parents literally forced me to go to Sixth Form. This was the worst thing ever, as it created a new problem. Two of my old bullies did not get the grades to go to Sixth Form, so it seemed their bullying might stop. However, one of them (who had been my closest friend up to this point, as well as a bully behind my back) was now so furious and upset that I might be leaving her to go on to a different education or career, that she just seemed to freak out.
I remember she told my parents all sorts of lies about my new friends, and about a boy I was dating at the time (the son of my old school Geography teacher). She claimed that I spent more time with these people than with her, and that I was deliberately excluding her. She also told her parents the same things, and seemed to get her parents to believe that I was actually bullying her. She kept whining about how upset she was that I had "dropped her", that I never "saw her", that she was a "gooseberry" when she met up with me, that she "never got any girl time with me.” She also seemed really angry that I would be going to a Sixth Form that she could not attend.
She told all these things and more to her friends behind my back. She obviously spread this information to my old bullies, and now the bullying started outside school. This was actually worse, as it was completely hidden from teachers, and I never knew when or where it might occur. I found myself eventually cut off from all my old friends, who sided with her. My new friends suddenly became the targets of bullying, too. Some of them even appeared scared to continue to associate with me.
This reached a climax when this girl's mother bumped into me on the street outside the corner shop one day and, totally out of the blue, started screaming at the top of her voice at me. She was screaming at me, blaming me for all the things I was supposed to have done to hurt her daughter. I could not even get a word in edgeways, and I had no idea where any of this had come from. I just wanted to run away and cry. The bullying only stopped finally when I moved from the area to go to university.
By then, I was painfully shy, painfully thin, had no self-confidence and ashamed of getting good grades. I did not try hard in class any more. I wore loads of black, smoked, and partied heavily! I had a terrible relationship with my parents. I was utterly terrified of authority figures and did not trust them because teachers had proven unhelpful in the past. I was scared of making new friends, and dreaded what other people, especially girls, might think of me.
Since graduating from university, life has been mixed experiences. My mother remains unwell, and her mental health problems are still a source of concern. She is my mother; I will always feel concern about her illness. Surely that is only natural.
I have had some very positive times, undertaking postgraduate study being one. Mum and dad have become much more open about mum's illness and its effects, and how to manage it better, so that's another positive. I've worked in a fantastic job as a social worker in Medium Secure Services, and being there to help other people is one of the best feelings in the world. My manager and team were so supportive, so intelligent and encouraging, that I truly think they helped me to better myself. In hindsight, I wish I'd never moved on from that job!
I have a truly wonderful husband, who stuck with me through all life's highs and lows. We've stuck together, helping my husband through the loss of his father, coping with several house moves, and all the other things that come with being a married couple. We've coped together, too, with the knowledge that I have a condition that affects my ability to have children naturally.
I have the love of my husband, I have unconditional affection from our adored pets (all rescued from re-homing centres), I am happy with my house, my garden, my qualifications – not so much with my looks – but I'm getting there!
There have been lows, too! Not once, but twice again I have experienced bullying. Both were incidents at work, and both involving the same narrow-minded and prejudiced judgments about my family and me. Both involved malicious gossip, hostility, undermining, criticism, setting me up to fail. Both involved personal comments about my appearance and lifestyle. Both involved false allegations (one of which was, quite categorically, made by a female colleague). It is sad to think that women have again been the source of my bullying at work. It is sad to think that women can be bullies, but they can!
Women can be just as prejudiced, vicious, cruel, vindictive, manipulative, aggressive and offensive as anyone else. Besides, female bullies actually seem to excel at certain types of hurtful behavior. Many female bullies seem to actively enjoy spreading malicious gossip, telling tales and making things up about their victims. They seem to operate a sort of "smear campaign"! They also seem to enjoy far more subtle, and therefore more easily hidden, forms of bullying than men. Female bullies seem much more apt to use ostracism ("sending to coventry"), criticism of a person's appearance, and criticism of a person's choice of friends than do males. They also seem more inclined to base their bullying on things that are, in reality, utterly frivolous, such as jealousy over who is prettiest, and jealousy over clothes or boyfriends.
From what I have seen through personal experience, bullying by males seems to be mainly in the form of open and aggressive competition (threats and hints at fights). It seems linked to male bravado. It also seems to be quite short lived.
Female bullying appears to be far more subtle, but also far more precise and concentrated, almost as though the female bully is much more adept at actually finding out just what it is that will really hurt and upset her victim. Female bullying often includes verbal assaults and emotional torment, and this can go on for years. Female bullying seems to be something that can be dragged out, and ends up being long term. Perhaps this is because very few female bullies actually use physical tactics. They may threaten them, but seem to avoid using them, unless as a "last resort". If they do use physical violence, it never seems to be at such a level as to be actually recognized as violent by observers.
Males may punch and kick, often leading to the bullying being stopped much sooner. Females may verbally abuse, spread gossip, slap, pull hair, nip, shove, which are all things that seem less violent than male behavior. But when they go on for a long time, they are devastating. The damage done by a malicious rumour can, in the long term, be far worse than a punch. Rumours breed more lies, and these can affect every aspect of a victim's life.
I cannot emphasize how important it is that female bullying is recognized, and treated just as severely as male. In its own way, it is just as evil, vicious and devastating. Nobody should have to put up with being bullied, and bullies should not be allowed to get away with it.
I truly hope that everyone who has written in here with their own bad experiences have been able to find some sort of help and support. Bullies are dangerous; they ruin lives. Their actions should be stopped. (Sorry this is so long!)
