Gender Differences in Bullying Behavior Girls Bullying

Girls’ bullying has traditionally been mineralized because of the subtlety of the strategies of aggression girl’s use, and the tendency for staff to dismiss their aggression as “just girls being bitchy”. Because girls are under pressure to always be nice, they have to disguise their aggression, making it relatively invisible and making the perpetrator harder to detect. Nevertheless, its invisibility does not mean it is any less damaging.

This is the world I want the reader to enter. It is where, beneath a chorus of voices, one girl glares at another, then smiles silently at her friend. The next day a ringleader passes around a secret petition asking girls to outline the reasons they hate the targeted girl. The day after that, the outcast sits silently next to the boys in class, head lowered, and shoulders slumped forward. The damage is neat and quiet, the bully and victim not to be seen.

Girls engage in indirect forms of bullying behavior to destroy reputations, or harm the self-esteem of victims. Girls manipulate relationships within the group to gain power, setting up situations to foster lack of trust, fear and insecurity. Female interviewees reported that girls bullied by creating insecurity among the group of friends. They said it was often unclear who was in the group and who could be trusted. The heightened tension seemed to provide a challenge and was magnetic, attracting girls to the group. Girls reported struggles for power through rumors being spread to damage rivals’ reputations, entrapment, secrets being told and promises broken. These invisible forms of bullying are extremely hard to detect. Additionally, when they are detected, the receivers of this emotional aggression often do not want any action taken because that would threaten their tenuous position within the group.

Because girls are under pressure to always be nice, they have to disguise their aggression, making it relatively invisible and making the perpetrator harder to detect. Nevertheless, its invisibility does not mean it is any less damaging.

Girls have better social skills than boys at school, so these subtle strategies of aggression are usually the repertoire of girls in schools. However, when boys enter adulthood, they, too are expected to be nice, so their aggression also needs to be disguised. As they acquire better social skills they also employ subtle, aggressive techniques.
By: Francis David