by Eric Goudie

Created on: November 11, 2009

A few years ago it was hard to believe that girls were capable of bullying. While the processes of male-to-male bullying has become increasingly researched in the years after Columbine there's still some confusion about the much more complex dynamics of female bullying. Here are some of the key components of this phenomenon:

Emotional over physical

While videos from a few girl-on-girl schoolyard brawls have become internet sensations the bulk of female bullying is not physical but emotional, though it can have a physical component. Girls will bully by teasing, name-calling and hurtling insults, often of a derogatory nature or simply an unfair critique of another girl's appearance.

Group control

One of a girl bully's most potent weapons is the ability to control the members of her peer group. She can use her power (often in the form of outright threats) to get the entire group to ostracise her victim, knowingly exclude her from their activities and treat her in the same manner that the bully does. In addition to the promise of similar treatment if any of the other girls shows the victim some compassion a bully can also manipulate her peers to collectively gang-up on her victim.

Humiliation

While public humiliation plays a role in male-on-male violence it becomes far more elaborate when conducted by girls. Since girls bully more with their brains than with their fists they're capable of more complex forms of humiliation - they don't flush other girls down the toilet. Girl bullies are more likely to spread embarrassing secrets (or simply tell outright lies). They will create fake online profiles of their victims that show them in an unflattering manner. They will exchange a girl's shampoo for hair removal cream, "accidentally" spill hot sauce on their victim's brand-new blouse and start to cough in class whenever their victim raises their hand.

Sexual bullying

The majority of female-to-female bullying never goes past name calling, and only a few of the most determined girls reach the stage where they will go to the trouble necessary to humiliate their victims. Only the meanest girls will take their bullying to the extreme and use sexuality as a weapon. This can be as simple as starting a rumour that their victim is a homosexual, or telling a certain boy or boys that their victim is "easy," or that she is a "slut" and wants to have sex with as many boys as possible. Or it can be as devastating as secretly taking pictures or video of their victim wholly or partially

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>