This post was originally written as a comment for Brenna Yovanoff’s post entitled “The One About How Girls Treat Each Other (Sort Of).” If you want to better understand the story I reference in the 18th paragraph, read Brenna’s post first.
Paragraphs in italics are the questions asked by Brenna at the end of her post.
Have you or your friends ever run up against bullying or harassment? Did you feel like you didn’t know what to do? Or did you just do the first thing that came to mind? Did you do nothing? Something calculating? Mean? Something you wish you had done differently?
There was a near-fight in my
Homeroom on Wednesday morning. This white kid – he’s probably a druggie, but in
the very least, he’s meaner than a snake – came into homeroom this morning
almost raging. He was terrifying. He’s a scary kid anyway, but this was truly
frightening. (We’ll call him A.) Then a slacker-jock-disrespectful black boy
came in the room (we’ll call him J) and A went BALLISTIC. He started bitching
at J that the administration was being racist because while he, A, got
detention for calling J a swearword, J, who did the same, got off scot-free
because he’s black.
J started yelling (he has no volume
other than yelling) at A across the room that he, J, didn’t get in trouble
because he just called A a “bitch” after A called him a [insert the n-word
here. Yes, he actually said it].
Our usually rowdy homeroom got
really really scarily quiet. Our homeroom teacher, a really sweet, energetic,
close-to-retirement-but-not-uncaring English teacher, who was on the phone,
quickly hung up and tried to reason with the boys as they stalked towards each
other. She’s had problems controlling both of them before, and she tried to
talk to them for maybe ten seconds before she ran next door to get the coach
who teaches History.
Thank God he came in when he did,
because J and A were almost nose to nose, and I think they were about to slug
it out. Coach came in and pulled the two out into the hall to hear their
stories, and all of us in the room still breathed a collective sigh of relief.
It was very very scary.
~
I have run into bullying many times,
but only realized it in retrospect. I have the wonderful combination of poor
hearing, lack of understanding of sarcasm, and a thick thick skin, so if I’m
bullied, I rarely notice. I notice when people are needlessly picking on
others, and I try to stop them, but sometimes, I’m just stuck.
Like in my Economics class, there’s
a boy, D, who I have known through Sunday School since kindergarten. I have
never liked him because he’s cocky and annoying. However, a group of boys tease
him mercilessly in this class. (About stupid things, but mostly about the fact
that D’s family has lots of money, and D went to a private school before coming
to our public HS. (These kids teasing him aren’t poor, for the most part. We
live in a ridiculously, annoyingly affluent area.))
They also take his backpack, and
either hide it or turtle it. (Do you know what turtling is? It’s where they
flip your whole backpack inside out and then zip it back up with your stuff
inside.) I don’t like D, but he just wants to belong, and the others torture
him for it. Sometimes my sense of justice wins out and I tell them to stop, but
I’m “just a girl” – and their leader’s enemy since fourth grade, to boot. Then their
teasing focuses on me until I stare their a**hole leader dead in the eyes until
he’s so uncomfortable that he walks away. But I can’t always come to D’s
rescue. He’s eighteen freaking years old; he should know how to defend himself.
And always being the rescuer – of everyone – is KILLING me. I can’t handle the
stress here.
Also, anyone who has any thoughts about the unsettling tendency for girls to attack each other in ways that revolve around the having or not-having of sex, please feel free to share in the comments, because these thoughts—I want to hear them.
Obviously you’re aware of this, but
it bears repeating: Teen girls are mean.
I try not to judge people (and I definitely don’t torture them) about whether
or not they’ve done stuff, just because *I* don’t want to be
judged for that either. And most of the time, out loud, I succeed. But in my
head, oh God in my head I’m so mean about this. Probably this is due to the
fact that my friend group is comprised mostly of brilliant, slightly (read:
really) off-the-wall girls who aren’t exactly what most boys want in high
school. So we don’t generally get dates, let alone have sex.
But I know girls who have, and I
don’t really treat them differently. I just think of them differently. I
wonder, were they prepared for it? Do they think it was worth it? And, the
question I never ask, because it’s shameful: Was it fun? (Also, I’m such a
nosy-butt pragmatist that I want to ask technical questions, like, who bought
the condoms, how did you hide that from your parents, where did you do it, WHEN
did you do it, etc. etc.)(I also do this to people when I find out they’ve been
kissed for the first time by their Significant Other. “I’m CURIOUS,” I tell
them. “Is that really such a crime?” I want to know as many different takes on
the same thing as possible. If I’m going to write, I need to know what it’s
like to date in high school, because it’s looking like that will never happen
for me.)(Also, I just want to know EVERYTHING, just to know it.)
Girls attack each other out of
jealousy and out of fear. People won’t attack you if you can redirect them to a
new target. Also, there’s this worrying trend of addressing people by slurs and
renaming it as a term of endearment. I got called a slut and a whore in art
today, not in malice. It’s just how one of my classmates (female) talks. We, as
girls, are told by our parents to be responsible about having sex. We are told
by our school that having sex in high school and before marriage is immoral (I
live in Alabama). My Health class didn’t even COVER sex or STDs. All we talked
about was stalking and schizophrenia. And we are told by the characters on TV
that having sex at our age is normal. If you aren’t having sex, well then,
you’re behind.
But in the halls… oh, in the halls,
if you’re a girl and you’ve had sex without being in a super-long relationship
– and sometimes even then! – you are dirty. You are worthless. You are Going to
Hell. If you’re a boy and you’ve done the same, you’re awesome, you’re cool,
you’re expected to move on. The double standard is ridiculous, and sad. Sex is
normal and natural, and who the hell cares as long as you and your partner are
responsible about it and prepared for it?
Also,
this pervasive idea that the boy should (will?) save the girl—what is that?
Because believe me, Delilah needed very little saving, but it still took Eerie
wandering over to defuse the situation, which even now gives me this very
frustrated feeling about who is allowed to be In Charge of Things.
Evolutionarily, males are wired to
protect their harem. And if it’s a rogue female stirring up trouble, it’s her
male’s job to get her under control. If she doesn’t have a male, she needs one
as protection from being absorbed into a harem controlled by a male who wants
to punish her for her transgressions.
Ugh, just TYPING that makes me sick.
Both genders, all people, want to be
in control of their lives. It’s a struggle all people must go through. And part
of that is control (of some sort) over your partner. Whether that manifests
itself as a protective instinct, possessiveness, trust, or whatever depends on
the people involved. If your partner is attacked, that is, by an extension, an
attack on you, and you want to make sure that you and your partner are not
attacked again. A singleton attack is far more dangerous than a partnered
attack, because then the two will want to protect each other. The appearance of
Eerie in Brenna’s story showed Jackal and Twitch that SOMEONE valued Delilah,
and if they hurt her, they would have to deal with Eerie and his cohort as
well, which presumably was a more threatening gang than Brenna, Little Sister Yovanoff,
Delilah, and Gypsy were.
And also, I want to believe that none of what I just described in this post ever even happens anymore, but I don’t really think that’s true. So, I want to hear from you guys. About all of it.
When it’s you, you don’t want to say
anything for fear of being labeled a bitch. But if you say nothing, you’re a
wimp (or worse words). There is truly no way to win. People will judge you
whatever you say or do, and you just have to go on your way.
(Many thanks to Emily for proofing this post for me.)
