By Mike Hardcastle
Teen Advice Expert. about.com
Most studies about bullying focus on boys as aggressors but girls can
be bullies too and when girls bully it can be an entirely different
beast. When we think of bullying we tend to think of physical violence and outward taunting but when girls bully their tactics are often quiet and covert.
Girls Who Bully Can Be Hard to Recognize
From
the outside looking in it can be hard to tell a group of girls who are
bullying apart from a group of girls who are innocently standing around.
Girls socialize differently than boys. As girls get older their peer
interactions become less physical and more cerebral. Girls engage in
verbal bonding by sharing stories, hopes, and dreams. Since girls bond
differently than boys it makes sense that when they bully it would be
different too.
Teachers and parents tend to talk about the obvious
when they talk about bullying. Playground scuffles, name calling,
stealing personal items and damaging property are commonly cited
examples of bullying behavior.
But when girls bully they aren’t so obvious. Girls
can be quietly vicious with their victims and adults often fail to treat
their behavior as bullying.
Girls and Boys Do Not Bully the Same Ways
The
tactics used by girls who bully are distorted versions of some normal
mechanisms of social development. According to research done by
Lagerspetz, Bjorqvist and Peltonen at the University of Miami, when
girls bully they use things like alienation, ostracism, deliberate and
calculated random exclusions, and spreading of rumors to harass their
peers.
Girls get other kids to gang up on one or more peers as a
way of exerting control. Sometimes they entice other children to act out
aggressively and sit back to watch the show. They form groups that pick
and choose members at random and exclude others without real reason.
They form alliances with other social groups in an effort to jockey for
popularity and positions of power among peers. All too often the
bullying tactics used by girls are brushed off as cruel but normal
social interactions.
In Girls, Bullying Behaviors and Peer Relationships: The Double Edged Sword of Exclusion and Rejection,
Barbara Leckie explains how bullying by girls manifests itself and how
it is handled by adults. Leckie went over numerous studies dating back
as far as 1980 and identified the many different ways that girls bully. She also found that adults were slower to react to the bullying tactics used by girls.
Adults Can Be Slow to React to Girls Who Bully
If
there is violence or physical acting out of any sort adults are quick
to intervene and when necessary will punish offenders, but when the
bullying takes on a less obvious form even adults don’t seem to know
what to do. When girls bully it often goes unaddressed. Since adults
don't always label the tactics used by girls as bullying kids who fall
victim don’t know where to turn for help.
The mindset still exists
that not all kids can be friends and the social structure of the school
system encourages the formation of groups and reinforces the idea of
social hierarchies. This makes many adults slow to recognize things like
exclusion and alienation as something sinister. These behaviors are
often dismissed as an unfortunate part of the normal formation of peer groups.
While it is normal for girls and boys to form social groups and close bonds with certain people at the exclusion
of others it becomes bullying when those groups make power plays over
other groups or individuals. Having friends is one thing; having friends
who work to make others feel that they are not good enough to be
included is another. Playing the popularity game in a way that causes
fear or inadequacy in others is a form of bullying and it is a common
tactic used by girls.
Girls Bully in Packs
Sadly, good kids
who know better go along with these types of popularity power games for
fear of being singled out and cast out of the group. Since adults often
treat this exclusionary behavior as mere social clashing kids who are
caught in the middle are afraid to stand up to the bully. It seems
easier to do nothing than it does to do the right thing.
Kids who quietly go along with a bully add to the bully's power
by giving victims the illusion that the bully has peer support. The
victim feels like everybody is against them, not just the bully. When
adults do not address exclusionary behavior the same way they would
address more traditionally forms of bullying it worsens the problem.
Kids who know better feel powerless to do the right thing when adults
don’t react.
Girls who bully will pick on boys as well as other
girls. They act out as consistently as boys who bully and pick their
targets in much the same way. While girls have been known to get violent
when they bully it is much more common for them to use emotional
tactics.
How Girls Bully
Girls bully by using emotional
violence. They do things that make others feel alienated and alone. Some
of the tactics used by girls who bully include:
- anonymous prank phone calls or harassing emails from dummy accounts
- playing jokes or tricks designed to embarrass and humiliate
- deliberate exclusion of other kids for no real reason
- whispering in front of other kids with the intent to make them feel left out
- name calling, rumor spreading and other malicious verbal interactions
- being friends one week and then turning against a peer the next week with no incident or reason for the alienation
- encouraging other kids to ignore or pick on a specific child
- inciting others to act out violently or aggressively
Boys
are not the only bullies, girls bully too. Being singled out,
ridiculed, excluded, or alienated is a form of bullying. Being beaten up
emotionally on a daily basis does damage to the victims. It is time
that the problem was addressed for what it is, a gender difference in
bullying but bullying none-the-less.
