Bullying and friends

[andrewducker]

This post rang a lot of bells with me. I was bullied a lot by boys (at an all boys school) - and nowadays a large chunk of my friends are female. I don't think it's nearly as simple as that, but I'm intrigued.

[Poll #1329681]

Comments

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

That post seems to me to boil things down to the argument "boys are mean, girls are not" and therefore I don't really agree with it. It is true that the majority of my bullies were male, but my perception of gender in regards to cruelty isn't based on that alone. Maybe I wasn't scarred deeply enough, but I believe I know that what evil lurks in the hearts of men also lurks in the hearts of women.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

I struggle to see how anything in the post suggests that whatsoever.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I've quoted and highlighted some of the passages that stood out to me, hopefully that will make what I was getting at clearer.

"The girls were nicer; they yelled less, they didn’t expect me to know stupid things like sports, and when they smiled it wasn’t like monkeys baring their teeth at me."

"I knew the guys might beat me up if they found out, but dammit, they didn’t deserve to win. Girls read more. They knew more.

Why shouldn’t they triumph? "

"Men were the people who waged psychological warfare upon me, threw stink bombs at me, twisted thick metal bands of pinching scorpion-clips into the skin of my arm, humiliated me in the shower so badly I started changing in the bathroom stalls."

"Girls aren’t perfect, but I don’t have to guard myself around them in the same way; they can break my heart, but they’re not going to humiliate me in that way that only men can. And if they do humiliate me, at least I don’t have the extra helping of see, that’s what guys do, you fell for it again."

His problem, that he has more female friends because he's leery of men, is perfectly valid. After all, it's an observation of his own nature. It's the analysis of said problem that I find flawed. He's essentially disguised an argument (men are worse than women in situation X because of reason Y) as a story about his own experiences, and that's something both common and distasteful (to me) about the personal anecdote.

In fact, I want to thank you for commenting, because it wasn't until I wrote this reply to you that I realized that what bugged me wasn't his statement, but that it was an argument in disguise.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

Ah ok, I never even noticed the "this post" bit. That explains a lot.

Sorry 'bout that.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

No, no, my apologies. I should've been clearer at the start.

[andrewducker]

He's essentially disguised an argument (men are worse than women in situation X because of reason Y) as a story about his own experiences

I disagree. I think he's just relating his own experiences. I don't think he's trying to say that all men are like this - just that his formative experiences were of this type.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

This.

I've a tendency towards androphobia myself. It's something you have to work against. Yup, women can be just as heartevil as men can.

After the last bruhaha with ferret, I'm really not surprised that he'd post about his own sexism. But it's interesting that he'd admit to being treacherous at heart.

I wish he hadn't, though: it just reinforces my own androphobia towards him. I'm sure he's got some likeable qualities. Even if his unlikeable ones are pretty nasty.

[andrewducker]

So, he realises that his choice in friends is based on having been bullied by a particular kind of person when young, and treated better by a different kind, and posts trying to explain his realisation - and that's _nasty_?

He doesn't say women can't be evil - he says that they weren't, while the boys he knew were. It's understandable that he'd be put off by that. Hell, I was.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Good to see you'll stand in his defence ;}P>

Sadly, you're misreading me. I said his unlikeable qualities were nasty. You've turned my words around somewhat.

You should get that looked at. It might turn malignant ;}P>