Gender Roles In Bullying

Bullying is a social process which involves a person’s intent to harm another. The behaviour is repetitive, and there is an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim. There is both direct (verbal and physical) and indirect (cyber and relational) forms of bullying. It has been argued by literature that bullying involves a power struggle between the bully and the victim. Bullies engage in behaviours such as building alliances, recruiting loyal followers and engage in interpersonal manipulation. This suggests an acute awareness of the people around them. Gender roles challenges the traditional roles of male and female bullies. Contestable positions of hegemonic masculinity and femininity further challenges the norms around the stereotypical
nature of male and female bullies. Bully victim discourse occurs in non conforming children who challenge the ideas of gender roles between males and females.
The emergence of the physically aggressive female bully challenges the ideals around gender roles in bullying. This essay will critical evaluate the literature of Chesney-Lind and Katherine’s (2007) Beyond Bad Girls: Gender, Violence and Hype, Kimmel’s (2008) Guyland: the perilous world where boys become men and Mah's (2007) Difficult behavior in early childhood: positive discipline for PreK-3 classrooms and beyond through challenging ideas around gender, power and the nature of childhood.
During the childhood years of schooling, bullying represents a large problem. When an individual is exposed repeatedly to negative actions and words, he or she becomes a victim of bullying (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). Existing literature suggests that males rather than females are involved in bullying, however both are victims of bullying or are bullies (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). Bullying has become a norm in the playground and school environment as children display dictatorial behaviour
at a young age and throughout childhood. Children are programmed from a young age to adapt to specific social norms and are encouraged to behave and act in a specific manner. Students are beginning to display hostility towards teachers and aggression towards peers, in some extreme cases killing other students (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). According to Fitzpatrick and Bussey (2014), children already value aggression as a means of obtaining a goal and rely on this tactic in the context of bullying. Thus, aggression is a common tool in achieving social power among cliques and represents the dictatorial nature of exisiting childhood. In contrast to aggression, popularity and social domination in early childhood is a common theme in bullying and victimisation. Victims usually display lower levels of self esteem whereas bullies display acceptance among their peers (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). Being popular means that friends and peers will back you up, thus bullying is reinforced and repeated (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). High status students are backed up and supported by peers more often then those students who are less popular. Ultimately, having a large group of friends is associated with positive social adjustment and thus these children are considered more popular and likely to bully (Mah, 2007). Thus, achieving social power represents the dictatorial and aggressive nature of childhood.
Bullying in childhood challenges ideas in relation to power.
Bullies engage in behaviours intent to harm another individual through building strong alliances, recruiting loyal followers through peers and engaging in interpersonal manipulation with their followers (Mah, 2007). Representation of power is exercised through a bully’s high levels of peer perceived popularity and through appropriate social cognitive skills (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999). This suggests that bullies have an acute awareness of peoples perceptions around them, particularly through the internal working model of the victim and the bully’s followers (Sutton et al., 1999). This occurs within the interpersonal context where bullies can exercise power (Mah, 2007). Dominance and a sense of superiority is thus involved in peer generated harm (Mah, 2007). Ultimately, the abuse of power between the victim and bully and the power of social relationships in inherent social groups suggests that an imbalance of power between the victim and the bully in the childhood context. (Sutton et al.,
1999).
Bullying is an aberrant and unacceptable form of behaviour which co-occurs in both boys and girls. Contestable positions of hegemonic masculinity plays a role in performing normative gender positions in the context of bullying (Kimmel, 2008). In accordance to the concept of hegemonic masculinity, males have dominate social positions whereas females have subordinate positions (Kimmel, 2008). Ultimately, boys who bully are more physically tough, violent and aggressive than females who are verbally mean. Bully victim discourse occurs in non conforming children who challenges the ideas of gender roles between males and females (Sutton et al., 1999). More specifically, males who fail to develop the physical qualities of guy code, form normalised traits of violence and heteronormativity and develop honourable qualities associated with masculinity (Kimmel, 2008). These natural propensities associated with male discourse is rough and tumble play, aggression, violence and competitiveness (Sutton et al., 1999). Male bullies are expected to roam the halls, targeting innocent and vulnerable victims who challenge the norms of masculinity, often involves physical abuse and destroying their property (Kimmel, 2008). Males are ultimately expected to display challenging behaviour that is exemplified in males, otherwise their masculinity is questioned and jeopardised. Studies across gender development and bullying have challenged that boys are characterised as physically mean whereas girls bully socially and verbally (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). Boys spread rumours only marginally less than girls and girls were negligibly less physically violent than boys were. Gender on anger bullying occurred more often with girls than boys, however boys were more hostile towards girls (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). Thus, gender performance in the context of bullying is questioned.
The emergence of the physically aggressive female bully challenges the ideals around gender roles in bullying. Chesney-Lind and Katherine’s (2007) explanation on female bullies suggests that females display manipulative and damaging characteristics which are rigidly enforced by the group of the so called ‘mean girls’. Female bullies practice ostracism between each other by spreading rumours and hurling insults at their victims (Chesney-Lind, & Katherine, 2007). This confirms the ideals around gender roles between the male and female bully as boys physically victimise other boys and girls practice verbal aggression and body language. Girls have also been associated with the term ‘relational aggression’ suggesting that girls prominently bully physiologically and emotionally (Chesney-Lind, & Katherine, 2007). Literature of girls suggests a strong association between popularity, social power and bullying behaviours. Girls were more involved in cliques, social hierarchies and competitiveness which was accompanied by relational aggression and termed with the concept of ‘meanness’ (Chesney-Lind, & Katherine, 2007).
In contrary, the ‘bad girl’ construction does not reflect the complexity of the behaviours displayed in female bullies. Traditional representations of women implies that females are viewed as nice on the outside and venomous and distractible on the inside. Girls destroy their victims self esteem through old and damaging constructions of femininity according to (Chesney-Lind, & Katherine, 2007). However, stories showcase numerous bad girl epidemics, reflect an increase in violence among girls (Chesney-Lind, & Katherine, 2007). For example, gang girl members are viewed as more masculinised, physically dangerous and demonised than the typical mean girl. It is thus implied that girls who use physical violence towards their victims are a byproduct of girls sharing similar qualities to boys through seeking equality with masculinisation (Chesney-Lind, & Katherine, 2007). The discovery of girls meanness is directly related to the old patterns of womens duplicitous nature. Chesney-Lind and Katherine (2007) introduces the term ‘girls gone bad’, suggesting that girls use violence against their vulnerable victims rather than verbal aggression, rumours, ostracism or manipulation. This demonstrates and challenges the construction of girls and their traditional roles in the context of bullying.
Literature has thus suggested that gender, power and the nature of childhood challenges ideas around childhood bullying. Contestable positions of hegemonic masculinity and femininity challenge the norms around stereotypical nature of male and female bullies. The emergence of the physically aggressive female bully challenges the ideals around gender roles in bullying. Bullying challenges the imbalance of power between vidicim and bully. The abuse of power between the victim and bully and the power of social relationships in inherent social groups suggests that an imbalance of power between the victim and the bully in the childhood context. Ultimately, the facet nature of bullying is a complex social process.