bullying and the 105%
Oct. 21st, 2010 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmBullying 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 01:26 am (UTC)I hear you on this. For me it was more a case of not wanting to be left alone on a room with an enraged Sister Barbara.
Did you also have the problem of your parents telling you to be more assertive, and three sentences later, tell you to stop talking back/trying to get the last word?
Now that I am older, I realize that it is human nature to contradict oneself, but at the time it just contributed to my feeling that the rules were always getting switched on me to make me look foolish, and everyone was trying to gaslight me.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 03:18 am (UTC)My parents have been less offensive about this part in the last few years, but... for the longest while, I tried to tell them that the sitter they left me with was negligent and as much of a bully as her kids. "Tell us when you're being hurt", my ass -- they got angry with me because they messed up and I pointed that part out. Worst part? Lady made enough money off my cash-strapped family for a whole new swimming pool.