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.

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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

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

Arggh! Well, I don't read his garbage and I can tell you that the right response isn't what the school counselors told my parents either: "Talk up sports at the dinner table." was apparently their answer to our bullying problems. (My brother and I were both bullied in school for being different and/or smart.) My mother was very upset at this response and it was clear that the school wasn't going to do anything about it. So, I was enrolled in karate classes. However, the best thing that happened was that we moved and I changed schools.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

However, the best thing that happened was that we moved and I changed schools.

Oh, yup. That's when all my bullying problems vanished, too. Though they intensified exponentially for a couple months before I moved, because the reason I was moving was to accept a political scholarship and live in Germany for a year and a half.

The bullies were horrified that I was excited about missing the ever so important Senior Year. Skipping that mess and living abroad was the best present I ever gave myself.

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

My theory is that the bullies were probably very jealous and the fact that you were awarded the scholarship only intensified the insecurities that they had about themselves and were projecting onto you. Anyway, I'm sorry you had to go through that but what a way to end it!

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

Opa always told me that the best revenge on those little fuckers would be to go have the time of my life. He wasn't wrong!