Tag Archive for "bullying"

Posts Tagged bullying

Stand with Jada

*Trigger warning*

There’s no good reason we should know the name of 16-year-old Jada.

The only reason we do is that after she was drugged and raped at a party of a fellow high school student in Houston, her assault went viral–a phrase I hope to never have occasion to write ever again. Jada had no idea what happened to her that night until she started seeing images and videos being passed around on social media and got texts from friends asking if she was ok. Then–with almost unimaginable callousness–her peers started mocking her assault by posting images of themselves lying on the floor in the same pose as Jada’s unconscious body under the hashtag #jadapose. (I will not be linking to ...

*Trigger warning*

There’s no good reason we should know the name of 16-year-old Jada.

The only reason we do is that after she was drugged and raped at a party of a fellow high school student in Houston, ...

By Katie Halper • 10 years ago

School bans boy from using My Little Pony bag because it’s a “trigger for bullying”

This story is totally enraging. It’s almost funny but it’s heart-breaking. It’s the story about a school which overtly sanctions bullying and punishes the student who gets bullied; a school which condones violence but prohibits the use of a My Little Pony bag. It’s a story of official and institutionalized victim-blaming, gender-policing, cowardice and cruelty.

By Courtney Baxter • 10 years ago

Weekly Feminist Reader

Jared Leto’s problematic Oscar nomination.

Tressie McMillan Cottom on breaking silence around black colleges.

Solomon Northup’s descendants, a photo project.

On bullying, LGBT youth, and the exacerbation of the school-to-prison pipeline.

Talib Kweli at Melissa Harris-Perry, unpacking cultural appropriation in music.

Jared Leto’s problematic Oscar nomination.

Tressie McMillan Cottom on breaking silence around black colleges.

Solomon Northup’s descendants, a photo project.

On bullying, LGBT youth, and the exacerbation of the school-to-prison pipeline.

Talib Kweli at Melissa ...

By Vanessa • 12 years ago

Quick Hit: The Upside of Ugly

We’re a few days late highlighting this, but it’s just too good not to share. Jessica at The Nation responds to the 14-year-old girl was recently given $40,000 in free cosmetic surgery because she was being bullied for having ears that stuck out:

As my friend writer Jaclyn Friedman once said to me, the problem isn’t that girls don’t know their worth—it’s that they absolutely do know their value in society. Young women know exactly how ugly the culture believes them to be. So when we teach girls to simply “love themselves”, we’re implicitly telling them to accept the world as it is. We’re saying that being beautiful is something worth having when we should be telling them a culture that demands ...

By Vanessa • 12 years ago

Proposed bill in Tennessee would essentially legalize anti-LGBTQ bullying

No joke. Former Republican Senator David Fowler is pushing the Tennessee legislature to take up a new bill he’s proposed that would create a loophole in the current anti-bullying policies in the state that would — rather than protect students from being bullied — protect students’ right to bully. TPM reports:

The proposed bill would amend the state’s current anti-bullying laws to specify that the anti-bully policy should “not be construed or interpreted to infringe upon the First Amendment rights of students and shall not prohibit their expression of religious, philosophical, or political views” as long as there’s no physical threat or threat to another student’s property.

And specifically, as stated in a newsletter ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

New Study: Sexual harassment prevalent in grades 7 to 12

The New York Times reports:

Nearly half of 7th to 12th graders experienced sexual harassment in the last school year, according to a study scheduled for release on Monday, with 87 percent of those who have been harassed reporting negative effects such as absenteeism, poor sleep and stomachaches.

On its survey of a nationally representative group of 1,965 students, the American Association of University Women, a nonprofit research organization, defined harassment as “unwelcome sexual behavior that takes place in person or electronically.” Over all, girls reported being harassed more than boys — 56 percent compared with 40 percent — though it was evenly divided during middle school. Boys were more likely to be the harassers, according to the study, and ...

The New York Times reports:

Nearly half of 7th to 12th graders experienced sexual harassment in the last school year, according to a study scheduled for release on Monday, with 87 percent of those who have ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

On Spirit Day, push for enumerated anti-bullying policies

Today is the nation’s annual Spirit Day. Today, I think of 18-year old Tyler Clementi, 11-year old Carl Walker-Hoover, 13-year old Asher Brown — or 15-year old Jamie Hubley, who ended his life just this past weekend because of anti-LGBT bullying.

While the major “ask” on Spirit Day is for folks to wear purple in order to raise awareness around the issue of anti-LGBT bullying, I’d also like to talk problem-solving. We need to use today not just for awareness-raising, but to make specific calls for action, like pushing for enumerated anti-bullying policies in school districts (which means the listing of protected categories, such as race, religion, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation) — and calling ...

Today is the nation’s annual Spirit Day. Today, I think of 18-year old Tyler Clementi, 11-year old Carl Walker-Hoover, 13-year old Asher Brown — or 15-year old Jamie Hubley, who ended his ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

MN school district investigated for anti-LGBT anti-bullying policy

Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota is one of many districts in the country that has what they call a “neutrality policy” in their anti-bullying rules when it comes to LGBT students — in other words, they ignore them. But considering the district has also experienced seven student suicides in less than two years, this policy may be much more problematic than that.

This is why the U. S. Justice Department and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is in the process of an investigation into the district to further research what they report as “allegations of harassment and discrimination […] based on sex, including peer-on-peer harassment based on not conforming to gender stereotypes,” reports ...