CyberBully

[DanaC]

*chuckles* Shawnee, I know that.

This isn't really about me. What I am, though, is a person you know, and as such I hope that some of the assumptions that get made when it's a stranger (like in that article) are avoided. The only thing that's annoyed me in this thread was the speed with which that girl and her family were labelled complicit in her victimisation. There is a culture (in my country and in yours I believe) of machismo when it comes to bullying. One is not supposed to 'lie down and take it', one is supposed to 'fight back. Those who become victims of bullying are perceived as weak. They must be weak, because they were the ones who got bullied.

It's pervasive. It feeds into every field in life. Whatever is overtly put into the culture in terms of telling someone if you're being bullied, and it's not your fault if you are being bullied; none of that outweighs the deep cultural identification of the bullied as weak and unworthy. Darwinism in action. This is how many people see it. That macho culture makes it very difficult for people to speak out.

Me? Oh I'll speak out. I am unbullyable. But only because I got innoculated young :P