Understanding Bullying
What is bullying and what can we do about it?
Definition
Healsters defines bullying as the intentional abuse, belittling, ridicule, mockery, taunt, insult, and/or harassment of someone of a perceived weakness or vulnerability. While colleagues may often engage in friendly banter, what differentiates bullying is the insidious and malicious nature with one or more of these three factors usually present:
antagonistic posturing
repeated targeting
intentional infliction of pain and suffering
Forms
Bullying can take many forms including physical harassment, verbal abuse, or even non-physical and non-verbal taunts (e.g. gesticulation, miming, mimicking, laughing and snickering, facial or hand gestures, eye contact, etc). All three modicums of bullying involve mental and emotional repercussions, which is the aspect that causes victims the most hurt often leaving a negative lasting effect in their lives.
Targets
Targets may be bullied on the basis of:
race
nationality
accent
faith
sexual orientation
gender
disability.
Targets may also be bullied however on the basis of perceived:
physical appearance (e.g. weight, height, skin complexion, features, genetic deformities, sexual appearance, cultural dress, hygiene, etc.)
personal mannerisms (e.g. stuttering, shyness, awkwardness, etc.)
social standing (e.g. poverty, foreignness, lack of friends, lack of dating, etc.)
personal shortcomings (e.g. inadequate sporting abilities, academic aptitude, language or personal skills, etc.)
relationships (closeness to parents, or teachers, etc)
Bullying can be same gender or cross gender. And still these lists are not exhaustive.
Being subjected to bullying may create feelings of inferiority and inadequacy in targets and can trigger isolation and/or self-hate. If left unaddressed, targets can develop anxiety, depression or other emotional responses that can leave deep and long lasting scars.
The victim dilemma
Victims of bullying often face a conundrum: do I report it to someone and risk being seen as weak or cowardly, and thus incur further and more widespread taunting and bullying? Or do I hide it from parents, teachers and others who can help, and possibly convince myself it isn’t a big deal or that it’s not even happening, as a coping mechanism to avoid further feelings of embarrassment and shame.
Several factors further drives the immense underreporting of bullying:
Dreading awkwardness and embarrassment
Not knowing who to talk to
Not knowing how to start the conversation (“how do I cold call, how do I break it, without feeling weird”)
Lack of serious single incidents (bullying can range from a single clear cut egregious act all the way to an accumulation of seemingly petty interactions. It is the latter that is harder to verbalize and report, often leading the victim to avoid that conversation. It is not unlike that line from Netflix’s Maid when the female protagonist was asked why she did not report being subjected to domestic violence to the police: “And tell them what? That he didn’t hit me?”
Inexperienced parents and educators often fail to appreciate the victim dilemma and may simply ask a potential target if they’re bullied and walk away thinking all is fine if the answer is “no,” while failing to pick up on signs of bullying that are evident, and/or the reticence of victims to admit being targeted.
What Can We Do?
Revolutionize the status symbols
Many young adolescents may mistake bullying for strength, and complaining about it or reporting it for weakness, It is crucial that we help young people not only correct but completely flip this perception and to properly perceive bullying as cowardice not strength, and speaking out as strength not cowardice.
Breed a culture of kindness
Bullying Awareness Teach-ins
Befriend your children/students
Learn to read signs
Empower bystander Intervention
Learn more concrete ways about what you can do to nix bullying in your educational, athletic, or social environment
Bullying: exploiting perceived weakness or vulnerability in others, in order to feel strength in oneself.