bullying and the 105%

[rm]

Bullying happens for lots of reasons.

These include:
- bullies choosing to bully.
- cycles of abuse.
- biological impulses towards hierarchy.
- cultural glorification of violence.
- cultural shaming of various traits and interests.
- adults who look the other way.
- childhood and adult fears about identity and fitting in.
- features that people who are bullied can't change.
- features that people who are bullied shouldn't be asked to change.
- features that it may be reasonable to suggest people who are bullied address.

But when I was bullied as a kid, and prank calls came to my house calling a "cock-sucking whore," let me tell you the right response, when I was TWELVE and at an all-girls school, was not for my father to ask me what I had done to deserve this.

*

I'm one of those people who tries hard to live life at 105%. I realize that's a privilege to a given degree, but I do also think -- perhaps wrongly and ruthlessly -- that everyone's always got another tiny, extra sliver of fucking effort to give.

But it's not a damn obligation.

And while I am also always about strategy and pragmatism and survival, because those are my choices and my nature, victim-blaming is always wrong.

Which is why I find this post from theferrett upsetting. And his response to my (very possibly distressing for many) comment even more so.

*

I have made the choice, more literally than most people, over and over again, not to change my name, not to change my face, and not to run away from home.

Would you like me better if I was named Heather? How about Aleksandra? Andrea? Jenny? When I joined SAG, I thought long and hard about these things, and it was a terrible moment. Look, it's my actual job to make people like me.

You know who doesn't have that job? Some random eight-year-old who isn't beautiful, who has "weird" interests, who's a different race than her classmates, who has non-gender confirming hobbies, who's too smart, who has a difficult home life, who lives with a disability, etc., etc., etc.

So don't fucking tell me I didn't work hard enough not to be bullied. Or that I should have just worn a pretty dress. Or not been sick. Or tried not to learn things. Or made my parents name me something else.

I lived. That was, in this regard, all the work I was ever supposed to have to do.

Comments

[yarram.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the comments, because, just... No.

But he is making the extremely serious error of conflating "teaching someone coping skills to surive abuse" with "telling the survivor that if zie just did X, all would be well".

Because I was told the latter for years, and it does not work. Not for bullying survivors, not for survivors of sexual assault, not for survivors of war. It is blaming the victim, full stop, end of discussion.

[rm.livejournal.com]

And you can do all the "right" things and still be a target. Bad things can happen to good people.

[yarram.livejournal.com]

More to the point, the assailants will simply find another weapon. You change X, and they will find Y. You change Y, they will find Z. You fix Z, and then they discover that Amharic as a 360+ letter alphabet and start working their way through that instead.

You stop assault by restraining the assailant.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Or they'll find another target, which still doesn't solve the systemic problem.

[yarram.livejournal.com]

In my mind, that's part of "restraining". You not only stop the current abuse, you take steps to try to prevent a recurrence with another person.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Right, sorry, I was replying to the first half of your comment, not the second. I agree.

[natf.livejournal.com]

OT: Icon love! Methinks I need to pose something like that with one of my kitties. *ponders and plots*

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

Or the change is reason for more bullying because now you are trying to step outside the role they have placed you in.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

Yes! If you conform, they call you a poser. If you don't, they pick on you for what's different.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this. I often say that I did some things "right" and some things "wrong", and I survived being stabbed and raped. Lots and lots and lots of people who do everything "right" do not survive.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

And you can do all the "right" things and still be a target. Bad things can happen to good people.

So much this. Then there is the whole Catch-22 thing of asking for help from folks who can't grasp the fact that bad things happen to good people. I went out of my way to look unattractive in my teens so the creeps would leave me alone, only to have adults blink at me stupidly when creeps kept at it.

And you aren't the only one with a Clueless Dad, either...

[moizissimo.livejournal.com]

I went out of my way to look unattractive in my teens so the creeps would leave me alone...

OMG, this. I suffered so many creepy and negative comments about my sexuality because of my super curvy body (starting when I was 11!). I ended up deciding to gain weight to hide the curves. 20 years later, I'm still struggling with this.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

I genuinely didn't realize until I was assaulted that I had assumed I would never be raped because I was fat. Gah.

[moizissimo.livejournal.com]

Oh geez. :/

This is something I should ponder.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the comments, because, just... No.

Some of the commenters are actually calling him on his privileged bullshit, and he's backpedaling just as fast as he can.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

Second verse, same as the Open Source Boob Fail first.