Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

I witnessed this first hand. My daughter is in this age bracket and our school was 100% remote up until the spring of 2021. The return to school was hybrid, two days a week, and divided 50/50 by alphabet.

Her anxiety levels went through the roof. Thankfully we didn't get to an extreme case of suicidal ideation but things were pretty bad for a while. Medication has helped, but getting a therapist appointment is nearly impossible. They're 110% booked.

What we understand is that during the shutdown the 'alpha' girls all coalesced on social media and shut everyone else out. They also took vacations, had slumber parties, and did a ton of things that everyone else was avoiding because those families tried to listen to the current advice.

When the return to school happened these cliques instantly had fresh prey: the unconnected, the minorities, the non-english speakers, the ones that didn't purchase new clothing over the lockdown, the ones that didn't go to the slumber parties and vacations. And half of your friends/allies were in the other side of the alphabet and working from home.

This is all stuff that boys of this age don't care about. But the girls are vicious. Two of our friends have physically relocated out of the district, two others are going to change schools.

TLDR: Preteen girls are awful, and always have been, but the lockdown concentrated and amplified it to horrific proportions.

> This is all stuff that boys of this age don't care about. But the girls are vicious.

That's not totally true. Sure the buys may not care about new clothes or slumber parties (though I doubt it), but they will care for other reasons. Bullying doesn't have a gender.

Bullying may not have a gender but in the aggregate it's different between boys and girls. Note the word "aggregate". There are invariably anecdotes the contradict the aggregate view but the point is that it's not an absolute, just an aggregate.

There's lots of research on this topic.

You see the ripples of this well into adulthood. You see it as the expectations placed on girls and women where they're held to a higher standard than boys and men are. And who are the agents of that? Other girls and women.

I'm not female but all of my experience has been that no one tears women down more than other women and that female bullying is generally much, much worse than male bullying (at least until male bullying graduates into violence including sexual violence).

Why? Because it seems to be much more multi-faceted. Instead of being primarily physical dominance and signaling, it encompasses social alienation and psychological torment.

> at least until male bullying graduates into violence

My experience is that it mostly starts there. Most of male "bullying" is establishing physical dominance. It's almost all intimidation, physical threats, pushing/shoving, fighting. The psychological, gossipy, demeaning sort of bullying is more from the females.

That doesn't sound true at all. Male bullies don't just prey on the weak, they also prey on the out groups. An example of this would be bullies who picked on brown people after 9/11, who would call these people horrible names to make them feel unwelcome.

If someone calls you a racial slur to your face, what they're saying is that they (or the people they are surrounded by) can beat you up. It's a dare.

Not true at all. It could also be they want you to be humiliated. It's not always about the threat of a physical altercation. Much like the cases of girls bullying brown girls after 9/11, boys bullied brown boys after 9/11 in identical ways.

> Most of male "bullying" is establishing physical dominance. It's almost all intimidation, physical threats, pushing/shoving, fighting. The psychological, gossipy, demeaning sort of bullying is more from the females.

Not true. Guys are very effective at spreading lies about people and in using condescension and insults. Men and boys are very effective in demeaning other people.

They absolutely not limit to physical violence - especially at teenage age. In fact, their most common way to get at others are words. The physical violence happens on top of it.

Maybe 5-10 years ago, but from my experience you rarely see physical bullying anymore. Its has been cracked upon way to harshly for it to really be the huge issue it once was. I have personally seen a physical form of bullying maybe a few times in my whole entire high school and middle school experience. And I went to 3 different high schools with each one being made up of students from completely different backgrounds, ethnicities, and socioeconomic levels.

I've noticed this too personally in my social circle since childhood - my female friends in the circle are often more direct and personal (and thus seem more vicious when they are discussing something unpleasantly personal about you or others), where as the guys are often more diplomatic and / or laid-back. And some of the ladies do get pissed at you if you don't support them in avoiding or alienating someone they have tiff with.

My point was more about the victims but I guess I wasn't clear enough about that. The thing is, boys and girls bully in different ways. Most people go to mixed schools, so there's not a clear separation between boys and girls.

> You see the ripples of this well into adulthood. You see it as the expectations placed on girls and women where they're held to a higher standard than boys and men are. And who are the agents of that? Other girls and women.

The part about girls and women being held to higher standards than boys and men is news to me. Is this your impression, or is this backed up by data/studies/something?

Yeah this person I don't think understands what school is like at all. Boys were getting bullied for the exact same stuff that girls were getting bullied for, sometimes even by girls themselves. I can't stand when adults who haven't been to highschool in 20 years try to make vast generalizations about something they have absolutely no clue about.

> Two of our friends have physically relocated out of the district, two others are going to change schools.

how would that even help though? was what you are describing specific to this school then? would moving to another, unfamiliar group of preteen girls just add to anxiety?

(in my case, relatively sheltered boys so i don't see much of this... for now, anyway)

As someone who relocated to many different schools, I can tell you that a different school can work wonders. It's a fresh start, in a new environment, without the local prejudices and grudges.

The goal is just for time to pass in the least unpleasant way possible, so moving to a fresh group would buy some time before the same problems become unbearable again.

Pretty much the same reason we change jobs.

It works, because it is not true that all girls are evil bitches.

But, if parent thinks that, the parent won't teach girls how to find better friends, how to deal with issues nor curb asshole behavior in his daughters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com