MetaFilter posts tagged with bullying

Sexting or slut-shaming?

Ouisch — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:12:51 -0800

A teenage girl named Hope Witsell died after being tormented for sending a nude photo of herself to a boy. The mainstream media focuses on the sexting aspect of the case, just as they did in the case of Jesse Logan earlier this year. But perhaps the common thread between the two girls' deaths has less to do with the trendy moral panic of sexting (Previously: 1, 2), and more to do with the type of victim-blaming known as slut-shaming:

The fact is that [the school] punished her — they told her over and over again that she was being called a slut and a whore because of her own actions, that being a “slut” or “whore” are very, very bad things that deserve punishment and bring reason for shame, that sluts and whores deserve to be taken out of school and to be used as an example of what happens when girls display any form of sexuality (with their consent or not), and that sluts and whores cannot be trusted to advise other students, because apparently they have no moral compasses. And the fact is that they apparently failed to punish the other slut-shamers, sexual harassers, bullies, and sexual perpetrators for whom they were responsible. -From the first link above.

Slate takes on the bullies. It also takes on the trolls.

Cool Papa Bell — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:39:21 -0800

Slate gives you effective strategies for taking on bullies. It's a good article. More interesting, though, is the sidebar, aimed at an altogether different kind of bully. The article links to a sidebar piece where the author anticipates what a forum troll might say, and offers a handy, sarcastic template for doing so. Comedy gold! 'Now, go for the big finish that pulls together all the threads: "That's the obvious and perfect method for dealing with the problem that every single person in the universe employed with complete satisfaction until people like you came along and ruined everything."'

"Let people live in your heart"

madamjujujive — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:21:59 -0800

Children Full of Life - grade 4 students in Kanazawa, Japan learn deep life lessons from their incredible teacher and from each other. I strongly recommend this as awesome, but one caveat: keep tissues handy. (5 parts, 40 minutes total, English)

"Is it hard for the reader to believe that suicides are sometimes committed to forestall the committing of murder? There is no doubt of it." -- Karl Menninger

orthogonality — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:44:08 -0800

Four Dead in High School Massacre "Mentor high school officials confirmed that a girl and two other boys" in addition to Eric Mohat, died. "'We don't believe it's a problem,'" Justin Maynor, communications director for the Mentor Public School District, told ABCNews.com.

According to Janet Klee, a counselor at Chrysalis, a suicide survivors support group, who counseled two of the surviving families, the suicides were connected to bullying. "These kids," said Klee, "were extremely bright, and [the bullies] thought they were nerds. I say that not in a derogative but in a good sense. These were good kids who were easy targets for bullying." . . . . But school officials said that was an isolated incident. "Generally, there is a very low incidence of violence at the school," said Maynor. "Considering its population, it's a relatively serene place." Maynor confirmed that there had been "several" student suicides in the "last couple of years," but he said that they had no connection to bullying. He said the school had "come a long way" in combating bullying and addressing "social sensitivities."

Workplace Mobbing

parudox — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:03:22 -0800

Sometimes, especially in winter, Kenneth Westhues can hear a flock of crows tormenting a great horned owl outside his study in Waterloo, Ontario. It is a fitting soundtrack for his work. Mr. Westhues has made a career out of the study of mobbing. Since the late 1990s, he has written or edited five volumes on the topic. However, the mobbers that most captivate him are not sparrows, fieldfares, or jackdaws. They are modern-day college professors. Mobbing can be understood as the stressor to beat all stressors. It is an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker. Initiated most often by a person in a position of power or influence, mobbing is a desperate urge to crush and eliminate the target. The urge travels through the workplace like a virus, infecting one person after another. The target comes to be viewed as absolutely abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities, outside the circle of acceptance and respectability, deserving only of contempt. As the campaign proceeds, a steadily larger range of hostile ploys and communications comes to be seen as legitimate. Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace Mobbing and the Virginia Tech Massacre Thirty-two academic mobbing cases since 2005. See also the transcript of the chat that went along with that Chronicle article. "Third and probably most important, stand with mobbing targets. In most healthy, productive, well-functioning departments and faculties, one can identify individuals who do not let colleagues get mobbed. Such individuals have the guts to say at crucial moments, 'Cut it out.' They are what researchers call 'guardians' of prospective targets. They are willing to be seen with a mobbing target and to speak up for him or her when that is a risky, unpopular thing to do." And, in case you were wondering: Westhues has indeed been mobbed himself.

Charged

NotMyselfRightNow — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:42:50 -0800

Lori Drew was charged today for her involvement in the MySpace-related suicide of Megan Meier last fall.

It's all Jimmy Carter's fault

ericbop — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:13:02 -0800

School bully arrested for spiking allergic classmate's lunchbox with peanut butter cookie crumbs

"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"

orthogonality — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:05:29 -0800

Every One That Hates Billy....” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”

Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness. [His mother] remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy.... While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead. The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold. The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning. .... Judging by school records, at least one official seems to think Billy contributes to the trouble that swirls around him.

Defense of Bill Cosby

Postroad — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 12:20:40 -0800

Defense of Bill Cosby [...]My crimes that afternoon were two. I committed the transgression of wearing a tweed jacket, black sweater, black slacks and glasses, a no-no for the “ thug barbers" there because to be an appropriate African American by their standards was to wear saggy pants, sport jerseys and doo-rag caps. My second transgression was to bring a book, James Baldwin’s Notes of A Native Son.

Don't Laugh at the D.O.E.

spock — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 10:42:05 -0800

The Department of Education is introducing into all of its elementary and middle schools “Operation Respect: Don’t Laugh at Me,” an intensive curriculum in character development . Operation Respect home page and the "centerpiece" song page (Autoplay Music Warning!) Related dontlaugh.org.

Bullying

nickyskye — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 05:20:58 -0800

Who Pagan Bullies Are and What Makes Them Tick "Bullying is a compulsive need to displace aggression and is achieved by the expression of inadequacy (social, personal, interpersonal, behavioural, professional) by projection of that inadequacy onto others through control and subjugation (criticism, exclusion, isolation etc)."

Only Wayne

plep — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 03:52:55 -0800

Only Wayne. A racist bullying case study in wiki format.

Christian Charity?

jack_mo — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 04:00:12 -0800

Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres provide beautiful surroundings in which cancer patients and their families can learn to adjust to living with the disease. You'd think an organisation called Christian Voice would support them, but the group instead chose to bully the charity into turning down the proceeds from a gala performance of Jerry Springer, The Opera (which they believe to be a deeply offensive work), pretending to be helping them avoid a scandal, while threatening them with protests outside their centres around the UK.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another

iffley — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 18:00:00 -0800

Bully OnLine: 'the world's largest resource on workplace bullying and related issues'.

Includes profiles ("Look, dad, it's a sociopath"). Describes why it's hard to stand up to bullying behaviour, how to do it, and why others won't help you.

There's also kickbully.com [previously discussed here], which offers basic ground-rules for dealing with bullies, and suggestions for dealing with specific situations (including one-liners you might want to try). But watch out, because the bastards are vengeful.

kids these days

donkeyschlong — Sun, 09 Feb 2003 19:38:46 -0800

On top of being a teenager, on top of surviving cancer, on top of losing a leg to that cancer, 13-year-old Lacey Henderson, formerly of East Denver's Hill Middle School, had to suffer death threats and epithets because of her condition. This is just sick.

adamgreenfield — Sun, 20 Oct 2002 02:35:06 -0800

A million Japanese boys, hiding in their rooms. I didn't know about this - but then again, by definition, maybe I wouldn't. Domestic hermits aside, I frequently see behavior I'd identify as "borderline mentally ill" slide right under people's radar here in Tokyo, and I'm certain a nihonjin might think the same thing after a year in my hometowns, New York and San Francisco. What culturally-specific form does neurosis take in your neck of the woods?

quietfish — Wed, 04 Sep 2002 12:09:11 -0800

As if verbal and physical threats in the schoolyard aren't enough. Give a bully a mobile phone and voila, another way of torturing another kid. But which is worse? Being picked on to your face or being bombarded with nasty text messages? It seems that kids have a pretty rough go of it nowadays. It makes me glad I'm almost a grown up.

Kino — Mon, 09 Jul 2001 23:28:04 -0800

Jumping on the infamous Interschool Ho voting booth story Salon is currently running a 4 page article charting/attacking the rise of 'cyber-bullying', a phenomena defined by students (mostly?) slandered their peers online. In the opening page of the piece the author, all orifices throthing, offers several graphic examples of the trend and gives not only details of the full name and school of a female sophomore victim, an extensive barrage of quotes of what ugly, retarded, hurtful stuff was written about her by some severely mentally unstable individual, but also a relatively prominent, in-your-face link to the smalltime message board in question causing them to replace it with the whimpering redirect message 'Unfortunately, due to an article posted on salon.com, the LHStudents.com website traffic has exceeded maximum capacity and we have no other option but to create a new LHBoard on a different server'..

kokogiak — Tue, 01 May 2001 09:58:34 -0800

Anti-bullying vote blocked by Christian Conservatives The Washington State bill would have required school districts to set up policies against harassment, bullying and intimidation. Christian conservatives that blocked the vote claim "it amounted to censorship of their right to condemn homosexuality." There is no mention of homosexuality in the bill at all. So this leads me to the conclusion that these Christians condone "harassment, bullying and intimidation." How far from the Golden Rule can you stray and keep a straight face?

Brilliantcrank — Thu, 15 Mar 2001 20:44:16 -0800

Boy, 13, sues teacher after receiving "Fag" candy heart The lawsuit says the teacher rubbed an inoffensive valentine message off the candy heart and wrote "Fag" on it before giving it to the boy in front of his fellow students. Donald E. Miller, a veteran teacher, also had a habit of pretending that a television remote control was a "fagometer" that he pointed at students. He's being probed by the school.

aaron — Tue, 13 Mar 2001 03:30:42 -0800

I want to bring up a concept for debate here that's been gnawing at me for a while, one that most people probably haven't ever thought much about (though I'd be delighted to discover I am wrong about that). It's taken me a few paragraphs to explain, so I don't think I should just publish the whole thing to the front page. Thus, I ask if you all wouldn't mind please jumping inside this thread for a second and checking it out. If you really hate it, you can back out and move on to something else.

The question I wish to ask, boiled down to one sentence, is this: Should we, as members of a caring, progressive society, have an obligation to be an inclusive society? To see to it that all people are made to feel to be a part of things? A detailed explanation of what I'm getting at is inside. (Yes, yes, I know I've said that I hate the word "progressive" used in any political/sociological sense, but in this case it seems the most appropriate term.)

aflakete — Sat, 03 Feb 2001 04:06:40 -0800

Good breakdown of complex free speech case in Canada involving student's threat speech, famous writers (e.g. King, Atwood). (from wood s lot)

netbros — Mon, 02 Oct 2000 20:49:01 -0800

Divas Defeat Goliath! The Digital Divas have been successful in their effort to get Microsoft to cease and desist use of the Digital Diva name.