Gender Roles In Bullying

Bullying is a social process which involves a person’s intent to harm another. The behaviour is repetitive, and there is an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim. There is both direct (verbal and physical) and indirect (cyber and relational) forms of bullying. It has been argued by literature that bullying involves a power struggle between the bully and the victim. Bullies engage in behaviours such as building alliances, recruiting loyal followers and engage in interpersonal manipulation. This suggests an acute awareness of the people around them. Gender roles challenges the traditional roles of male and female bullies. Contestable positions of hegemonic masculinity and femininity further challenges the norms around the stereotypical
The emergence of the physically aggressive female bully challenges the ideals around gender roles in bullying. This essay will critical evaluate the literature of Chesney-Lind and Katherine’s (2007) Beyond Bad Girls: Gender, Violence and Hype, Kimmel’s (2008) Guyland: the perilous world where boys become men and Mah's (2007) Difficult behavior in early childhood: positive discipline for PreK-3 classrooms and beyond through challenging ideas around gender, power and the nature of childhood.
During the childhood years of schooling, bullying represents a large problem. When an individual is exposed repeatedly to negative actions and words, he or she becomes a victim of bullying (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). Existing literature suggests that males rather than females are involved in bullying, however both are victims of bullying or are bullies (Fitzpatrick, & Bussey, 2014). Bullying has become a norm in the playground and school environment as children display dictatorial behaviour
Bullies engage in behaviours intent to harm another individual through building strong alliances, recruiting loyal followers through peers and engaging in interpersonal manipulation with their followers (Mah, 2007). Representation of power is exercised through a bully’s high levels of peer perceived popularity and through appropriate social cognitive skills (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999). This suggests that bullies have an acute awareness of peoples perceptions around them, particularly through the internal working model of the victim and the bully’s followers (Sutton et al., 1999). This occurs within the interpersonal context where bullies can exercise power (Mah, 2007). Dominance and a sense of superiority is thus involved in peer generated harm (Mah, 2007). Ultimately, the abuse of power between the victim and bully and the power of social relationships in inherent social groups suggests that an imbalance of power between the victim and the bully in the childhood context. (Sutton et al.,