Haley Dallas
Features Editor
The modern day bully doesn’t push you into your locker and steal your lunch money; she spreads rumors and talks down to you. She doesn’t give you a swirley; she makes a Facebook status or “tweets” a vague insult about you. Bullying happens every day and they come in many shapes and sizes, but the biggest culprits today are females. We are absolutely vicious. Not only can we spread a vicious rumor through the school or the workplace to absolutely ruin someone’s life, but we can put it on just about any social networking site for the whole world to see at any time, forever. Talk about long lasting pain.
The problem isn’t just that the bullying occurs for the moment, but it’s the long-term effects that bullying has on the victims. Dropping out of school, going into a depression, shootings in schools, and less drastic but equally troublesome repercussions all result from the bullying that goes on in kids’ lives. Who can forget the infamous Columbine High School Shooting that claimed the lives of twenty one students, two teachers, and the two shooters? The reason Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris set out to kill all these kids? They were bullied and teased to the point of cracking.
Why haven’t girls become school shooters? It took me an hour to find one instance where a girl brought a gun to a school. On March 7th of 2001 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, an eighth-grade girl was arrested after a shooting at a Bishop Neumann Junior-Senior High School. She says that the shooting was due to repeated teasing. So why do more girls not resort to violence in response to the vicious teasing and bullying that can go on in a high school setting? It may have some correlation to teen suicide statistics. In the U.S., males have a five times greater suicide rate than females, but suicide attempts are three times greater in females than in males. This means females try it more but males succeed more. Maybe the same thing happens with school shootings. Males must succeed with the shooting more than the females. Although an attempt is telling, it probably isn’t newsworthy given the violence that is actually perpetrated by high school shooters.
Another perspective on school shootings: the same statistic suggests that the difference between male and female school shooters is a reflection of the way those genders deal with stressors. Perhaps boys tend to be more outwardly aggressive and willing to “punish” those who bully them while girls tend to internalize their emotions and “punish” themselves.
While the general public is aware of just how serious bullying can be, unfortunately the majority of high school students seem to think “It’s not that bad” or “I’m not that much of a bully.” I’m here to ask you all to stop the bullying whether you are the one bullying or just the witness to it. You can be the one that saves the lives of your classmates from the actions of someone that may be on the verge of cracking or even the life of that someone. If you would like to report bullying, harassment, or violence call (215) 400-SAFE or speak directly to a teacher, counselor, or administrator in the building.
