Nursing Scholar Sheds Light on Bullying in Academia
camden.rutgers.edu
camden.rutgers.edu
At some point, you need to say "no, I will not stand for this" and face your antagonist. In my experience once you do that, they either shrink away and cower forever or become a great ally.
I advocate learning how to use the tools in your toolbox. If you have tried and failed to deal with something yourself, then you escalate. Same thing with everything. If you try and can't complete a math problem, you ask a peer for advice, then ask a teacher, etc.
If he'd gone to the police then that boy would still be alive, and he'd be a free man.
Framed in the context of run/fight it sounds like he did the courageous thing, but he also clearly did the wrong thing.
Bullying victims tend to be victims because they're unable to fight back. Bullies have power, whether it's physical, political, social, or otherwise, and they know it and hide behind it.
Awareness campaigns seek to remove their power, and they are generally very effective. Bullies operate on the basis of isolating their victims, and bystanders that refuse to stand aside (physically, or by calling out the bully for what he or she is) prevent that isolation, giving the victim power of their own.
I'm not arguing because I'm pretty sure we'll never agree on this, but some people go through life without this problem and all I'll say is that it's often good to have a take no shit attitude about things.
Awareness — which is essentially getting people to admit bullying is possible in their environment — makes it easier for victims to come forward and leverage what structures are in place to end (not "fight") bullying. It makes it possible for victims to (1) be believed instead of dismissed, (2) not be treated as responsible for the bullying themselves, and (3) taken seriously as to the extent and damage of the bullying they experience.
Even in the schoolyard situations you allude to, bullying isn't a matter of either "ignore them and they'll leave you alone" or "even if you don't win, once you fight they'll leave you alone for a softer target." Whether a bully gives up on a victim is entirely up to the bully and the power structure in the environment, not the victim. The philosophy you describe actually makes the power structure unavailable to the victim — which all but guarantees bullying continues.
Everyone is "aware" of school yard bullies. No one doubts it is going on. All your peers as a kid are very well aware of the basic animal behaviours going on even if they don't yet think of them as such.
The stigma is just sitting around taking it or waiting for someone to do something about it. You have a responsibility to yourself to address it and that is what needs to be taught.
"Whether a bully gives up on a victim is entirely up to the bully and the power structure in the environment, not the victim"
The power structure is what is inhibiting the individual from acting! Zero tolerance policies neuter human behaviour which needs to be expressed especially when people are young. If you don't fight physically or not, make up and move on as a kid, and learn the consequences of each route and how to navigate them you will become a frustrated passive aggressive adult or worse, go postal and let it all out in a terrible tsunami of pent up rage.
All animals fight and play fight and then move on. I really hope we can stop trying to deny our base instincts and instead learn how to control them _within_ ourselves.
It is the responsibility of the power structure to prevent bullying as much as it can, and take seriously and address bullying when it happens; avoiding this responsibility doesn't help anyone but bullies. It is actually this abdication of responsibility that causes a power structure to enable rather than prevent bullying, because it results in few or no consequences for the bully and no improvement in environment for the victim.
So the alternatives from a system wide level are don't address it all or be very strict. We went to latter extreme with "zero tolerance" policies, which have failed.
Not addressing it all is also bad, because as others have pointed out, we don't live in a fairy tale land where turning around and hitting the bully always works.
So then what's the choice? Don't structure it. Give the power to the adult in the room, the teacher, to mediate. They are the people with the best information and closest to the situation. They know their kids.
Great teachers, great camp counselors, all do the same thing - 'are you guys okay, or am I going to have to tell the principal about this?'. They play that incredibly delicate role of, do you want to deal with each other and me, or the big bad unknown of the administrator down the hall? Having that level in between means they maintain the confidence of their charges and the power to elevate as well. Unfortunately, teachers today, have been stripped of their ability to act in this capacity.
Now, we could very well be talking about the same thing, since the teacher in this example could be said to be part of the power structure. My point of course is, we can't have a rule book when dealing with these matters, only a guidebook. Fair?
Are you for real? Did you just blame every victim of bullying for failing to "believe in mutual respect among human beings"?
When we are talking about the work place, losing such a fight can end in unemployment. Its not as easy for non-developers to find new jobs.
Personally, I evaluate the chances of winning in the event that I choose to fight against the consequences of losing. When I was in the military, my entire section had the privilege of having a steroid-laden megalomaniac as a first-line supervisor for close to three years. He was a couple of ranks higher than us, which as far as the military is concerned pretty much makes him God. He would show up to work every day at our remote site (away from anyone that outranked him) and immediately start screaming and throwing things.
The worst part is that he was careful to never act inappropriately when we were around anyone who could have actually done anything about it. On paper, he was an excellent Soldier, and so no one ever believed anyone that complained about him. As stupid the phenomenon known as bullying seems, bullies can be clever in their own way.
A few of us tried to stand up to him, but when you join the military, your right to freedom of speech is waived. No matter how politely anyone would try to address the issue, he would immediately threaten them with non-judicial punishment (They can take salary and rank from you simply because your supervisor claims that you did something he didn't like. You can ask for a trial instead, but then you could end up in prison.) if they didn't go away.
So, in our situation, we just put up with him as best we could. Innocence in the military means fuck-all when your opponent is higher ranking, so we didn't have much recourse. As shift-leaders, we fought to protect the younger Soldiers from this guy as much as we could, which of course meant that we had to put up with more of his shit than anyone.
If I had been a civilian, I would have had a better chance of doing something about his misconduct, but even still, there would have been a risk of termination should those efforts fail.
Ideologically, taking action against a bully is always the right thing to do, but for those of us who live in the real world, failure brings consequences.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/22/public-awareness-campai...
Even the 8 year old in the playground is at a disadvantage. The mentality of the bully is to quietly dominate the weaker out of authority and regulatory sight. They want the victim to blow your top publicly, because all the trouble falls upon said victim.
The alternative is reporting behavior problems to the proper authorities, which depends greatly on how serious they treat the problem. If they are lax or ineffective, then there isn't any recourse for the victim except to remove themselves from the entire organization or field.
This becomes greatly compounded when the bully is in a position of power over the victim. Reporting the behavior might put the victim's job in jeopardy.
Raising awareness of the problem allows other victims, and their allies, to realize they aren't alone in their struggle. It also allows organizations to evaluate their reporting mechanisms to see if they are effective in responding to intimidating behavior. Is awareness effective? Unfortunately not always. However we should encourage strong reporting mechanisms in our institutions to allow the victims some recourse.
Bullying, by definition, arises from a powerful position onto a weaker victim. However, reversed situations exist as well. Power in this case doesn't have to be social power, like a higher job position or higher popularity. It can also be a more powerful personality e.g., due to better eloquence or more aggressive attitude. That is why in so many if not most case gaining your own allies who are aware of the issue is the only solution beside ignoring or fleeing.
Many times bullies are well protected and are practically untouchable. For example they could be from minority, and any sort of complain makes anyone automatically racist.
To win over administration one has to become victim himself. For example it is generally acceptable to bully nerds. So one has to be diagnosed with mild autism or social anxiety, before he can even hope for any sympathy. So now the bullies are consuming even free time outside work/school and destroy remaining self a steam.
And winning price is usually low, and does not even cover expenses and lost time. Bully may get short holiday, but usually returns to same position.
Academia is probably the perfect environment for this sort of thing to take place because you have people so entrenched they literally can't be fired for much short of gross incompetence or going to prison.
Since the tenure process takes 6 years, waiting it out isn't exactly a solution. What tends to happen is that the bullied party moves on, and a lot of times, the next person to come in is bullied as well.
It is everywhere - it has altered peoples lives and careers. As an adult we are quietly doing these "microagressions" to each other constantly.