{"id":143,"date":"2013-06-28T18:43:26","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T22:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/?p=143"},"modified":"2013-06-28T18:49:22","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T22:49:22","slug":"geeks-and-bullies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/?p=143","title":{"rendered":"Geeks and Bullies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"From<\/a>

From the cover of Wonder Woman vol 3 #25<\/a> by Aaron Lopresti<\/p><\/div>\n

I was bullied as a kid. Relentlessly and aimlessly bullied. I was a special needs kid who had some neurological quirks and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the social niceties or group awareness enough to hide them. On top of that, I also had two (very) lazy eyes, a giant birthmark on my face, I walked on my toes and I was useless at sports. Pick on the weird kid is a game that never loses its entertainment value for kids.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar? Yes? Good. We have a common ground to start from.<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start with 5th grade. Gym class.<\/p>\n

Your class is running laps. There are two kids in your class who hate you. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re really not sure why, but they really, really hate you. You were trying to stay on the opposite side of the gym from the boys who hate you. But here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the thing: You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re slower than them, and running hurts. So, no matter what you do, you fall further and further behind. As you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re falling behind, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re staying at the same pace, so no matter what you do, eventually they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be next to you. And then they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll subtly push you hard enough that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll fall. Or maybe this time around, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say something horrible to you. Or maybe they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll steal your glasses. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always a favorite.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just two kids. You could tolerate it. They can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be everywhere. But here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the thing: Of the 24 kids in your class, ten of them will egg on those two kids. Ten of them will pretend they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see it, or maybe laugh uncomfortably. So now, instead of facing two, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re facing twelve people outwardly against you, and ten more who might not agree, but who are perfectly willing to go along with it as long as it means that they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the next target. And those two kids are *always* around. If they aren’t, then there are two more like them from another class, and two more to take their places, if they move.<\/p>\n

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re lucky, like I was, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have one amazing classmate who isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t willing to take crap from those kids, and who will run next to you and even shout them down at times. So then there are two of you as the focus of the tormenting, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the best you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever hope for. The gym teacher doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care. Your academics teacher will actively side with the bullies. The only respite you have is when you can hide away, in a book, or in the nurse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office, or in art class. But eventually you know you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to go back out and face them. And everyone else will stay as silent as they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always been.<\/p>\n

Is this ringing any bells?<\/p>\n

Now fast forward 10 or 20 years. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re an adult now. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still a geek, but the power dynamic has changed. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re as big as the rest of the kids. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve amassed a group of other geeks large enough that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re insulated from the bullying that you experienced as a kid. Additionally, you know that there are people who you can call on if you have trouble, who will immediately trust you and believe your side of the story.<\/p>\n

But what if that weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t true? What if you had to go through the rest of your life fearing those two kids who actively hated you? And wondering if the other ten who made excuses for them or joined them occasionally were going to cross the line into actively hurting you. What if you had to spend the rest of your life wondering why those ten kids who pretended not to see were *still* pretending not to see.<\/p>\n

Welcome to being a woman in the geek world. Only now, the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bullying\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is replaced with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153harassment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. The pushing down (in most, but not all situations) has been replaced by groping. The insults about your appearance have now been replaced with cat calls, inappropriate sexual advances and unasked for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153compliments\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. The stealing of the glasses… Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been replaced by people who fetishize girls in glasses. And no matter how long you hide in your room, you know that as soon as you come out, they’ll be there, wherever you go.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a very small percentage of people who are actually the problem. To extend the classroom analogy, two out of 24. And there is still the occasional kickass person who stands next to you and tells people to stop it. One person out of 24. But that still leaves 20 people (you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the 24th, for those pedants who were going to call me on my math skills). 20 people who can see the bullying, oh, I mean harassment, happening. Ten of them probably don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong, or don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care. Ten of them do care, but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what to do.<\/p>\n

Geeks have a tendency to wear their past bullying as a badge of honor. They think it makes them better than the bullies, and better than the kids who stood by and did nothing. They also tend to wear their hatred of their bullies and those like them as a badge of honor. But they refuse to see the bullies in their own ranks. And by refusing to see, they turn themselves into those kids who refused to step in and help them, those kids who stood by, averting their eyes, chuckling nervously and smiling at the bullies in hopes that they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be next.<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be those kids that stand by silently. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re geeks. We are used to being the underdogs. But here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the thing. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re adults now. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to worry about kowtowing to the popular kids anymore. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to worry about being stuffed into lockers. And best of all, if all of us take a stand and say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No. The bullying must stop\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, then the bullies lose their power. If, for every person who is egging on the bully, another one steps up and says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cut that out\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, then they lose their power. They lose the power of silence that the schoolyard bullies so completely rely on. The bullies knew then that their power rested on the silent compliance of the rest of the students. If other kids had constantly pointed out when they did something wrong, they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the power to still do it. Bullies aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stronger or faster than other kids. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just better than the others at intimidation. At manipulating the social order. And the social order that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re manipulating people into is one of silence. One of thinking that they have to comply or they will be the next target.<\/p>\n

But here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the thing: If no one is standing silently by, then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no one next target. Remember, there are two of them and 22 of us. If the bystanders are all actively standing up against the bully, the bully has no power. They can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hurt us. Or if they do, they will be quickly and effectively stopped. When it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s two bullies against one target and one kid who stands between them, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good chance both of the two bullied kids will get hurt. If there are two bullies and 22 allies, then guess who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to get stuffed into a locker? It won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was bullied as a kid. Relentlessly and aimlessly bullied. I was a special needs kid who had some neurological quirks and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the social niceties or group awareness enough to hide them. On top of that, I also had two (very) lazy eyes, a giant birthmark on my face, I walked on my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-geek-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/wonderwoman.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisview.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}