You know what I forgot to include here but totally should have been included?
Funny how when I was being bullied as a kid, I did fight back and I did do everything I could to stand up to my bullies. But that didn't make it stop. All the adults at school just told me that the bullying was my fault because I was "giving the bullies the reaction they wanted, if I would just be quiet and ignore them the bullying would stop."
But now that I'm an adult, I hear other adults saying all the time that kids who get bullied are only bullied because they're too weak and insecure to stand up for themselves.
Isn't that funny? How I spent years fighting back and trying to stand up for myself, and this got me told that it was my fault for not just ignoring them? But now I hear other adults, most of whom are parents, saying if a kid is bullied it's their fault for not standing up for themselves or fighting back?
It's a lose/lose situation, either way if the kid fights back, or doesn't fight back, they're told its their fault for how they respond. It's almost as if, the bullying isn't the victim's fault or smthing 🤔
And this type of victim blaming rhetoric ignores that there's in the majority of cases a power imbalance between the bullies and victims.
Common dynamics we see are: white kids bullying children of color, neurotypical kids bullying neurodivergent kids, gender conforming cishet kids bullying GNC and/or LGBTQIA+ kids, abled kids bullying disabled kids, boys bullying girls (he's only teasing you because he likes you!), rich or middle class children bullying poor children, ect. ect.
And this is exactly WHY adults often victim blame bullied children instead of holding bullies accountable, and these adults blaming the children are often privileged themselves. White adult school staff blaming children of color who are getting bullied instead of holding the white children doing the bullying accountable, neurotypical adult school staff blaming neurodivergent children who are being bullied instead of holding the neurotypical children doing the bullying accountable, ect. ect.
This is actually one of the ways power dynamics get passed along in society. Children with a privileged background learn very early what behavior they can get away with and how protected their behavior will always be, while children with a disenfranchised background are expected to "learn their place" from a young age.
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