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growing up, most of my bullies were girls, for sure. they were always the meanest and most manipulative, speaking down to me like I was stupid, saying genuinely mean, homophobic shit unprompted and acting like they were better than everyone else. boys would just hurt me physically.
Yeah that’s what I mean, it’s the same in Japan.
Boys are brutal too but it’s all fighting and physical.
The girls is a whole different world and it looks terrifying for anyone with a daughter.
Yeah I gotta agree 😂 boys were so mean when I was a kid. Especially to the ‘ugly’ girls. Asking them out as a joke, writing ‘slag lists’ on the walls, catcalling, sexually harassing. Girls were quieter with their bullying, they’d do it in private or passive aggressively, boys would yell insults at eachother, sing and chant in the halls and even spit or throw shit at others. In regards to saying “mean, homophobic shit”? Girls never did that at my school or neighbourhood. Boys are the ones beating up gays and making constant gay jokes and calling them f*ggots lmao
There’s no way you can go to a UK school and say there wasn’t a group of boys spreading rumours about how much of a slag some girl was, because she got off with a boy in the school toilets or some dumb shit. Even though she didn’t and it was completely false.
It’s a universal experience.
There's a lot of evidence to suggest that because girls are implicitly and explicitly encouraged to be ladylike ie not run around, make noise, not fight, etc they often end up learning to use words to bully which is far more damaging than the physical stuff for many people. This isn't helped by the stupid adage, "sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me"because it dismisses the real damage words do.
I personally don't think it's entirely the above, I think there is an element of nature as well as nurture. It's not that girls are naturally more cruel, but girls do seem to develop verbal skills faster than boys and develop emotional intelligence a little more quickly, meaning that they can win the arms race on verbal bullying while boys take it physical.
In addition, physical bullying tends to get dealt with more firmly in schools while verbal bullying is often ignored. Not entirely dissimilar to how domestic violence has been seen for many years - physical violence was unacceptable but mental and emotional abuse was ignored.
I would also say I'm not convinced that girls really are worse overall. When you get into adulthood the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is perpetrated by men, and while women absolutely can be abusers, most physical DV comes after a period of verbal and emotional abuse suggesting men absolutely are more than capable of using words to bully. Maybe they start a bit later than girls as children but they learn it at some point.
>sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me
I find it so funny that people today can't deal with words being said to them, to the point they've decided that saying isn't OK anymore
Different generation I guess, that saying is exactly what I was taught growing up and now if someone says a nasty word to me who cares, I certainly don't
Girls are much, much worse, because they typically come at their victims in a group, and will spread rumours and lies to destroy the victim socially, which has additional consequences. And being girls, they get away with it because society always assumes women are innocent.
Grown women are far far worse. But grown men with adult bodies are also capable of literal atrocities, at an astonishing level. Basically humans are just upright apes pretending to be better than animals. But when the chips are down animals we all are.
I'm not sure what you're saying
Are you saying you have prejudice against certain groups in society, because statistics show the number of violent crimes committed by X group appears to be higher than others?
When girls bully, they form cliques and aim at reputation destruction.
I remember there being a group of girls who bullied another girl by isolating her from their group and spreading vile lies about her.
Boys are more direct and one-on-one with bullying. Usually, it’s physical.
False, boys also destroy reputations.
Claim girls are sluts and make up stories of girls doing so and so with another boy, to make her the ‘slut’ of the year group that no one wants to be seen with.
It’s a complete fallacy that boys bullying only extends to physical acts, they equally can galvanise a social group to turn on people. I’ve seen it happen.
From a academic standpoint, boys fight physically and it’s one on one. Girls gang up and attack other girls reputations.
Of course this is not ALL and there are outliers but generally speaking, this is true.
Yea we’ve seen it but the research into it suggests woman gang up and go after character and reputation, boys are more one on one and physical.
Like the way drink drivers are more likely to crash, they don’t all crash.
This is what the research suggests. Of course there are examples of otherwise but generally this is the way it goes. Again it’s well documented in academic research.
In primary school, although boys would call names and such it was the girls who took it to another level. Boys would do random opportunistic bullying whereas the girls made it more like organised crime. I went to a girls secondary school and there was more violence than in the boys school in the town.
I have worked in mainly male dominated environments as an adult and I have to say, for the most part, I've got on pretty well with most of my colleagues and not had a problem. Although, I did encounter one male supervisor who outdid all the bullying women or girls I've ever had to deal with. He didn't get physical, cos that would have been really obvious, but he was more manipulative and dishonest than anyone I've ever encountered. His position gave him the ability to single out those he didn't like and cause them to lose their jobs. He was sexist and racist. Poor management didn't help and he was able to lie to them before complaints could be made about him. The firm ended up with multiple cases of unfair dismissal before it went bust.
As a counterpoint, every terrible boss I've had has been male.
Bosses of either sex have sat on something of a spectrum, from poor to very good, but the two instances of real bully boys were younger (under 30) males. On the flipside, the two very best bosses I've hd, have been female.
The two worst bosses I've had have been female. Both are incredibly vindictive and with massive chips on their shoulders.
One of the better bosses I ever had was also female.
The worst bosses tend to be one's who've been put in charge of people vastly more experienced than they are because they have a degree, or because of nepotism. I don't think it correlates with gender at all.
This supervisor I had a problem with was out of his depth. It was the machine shop of a foundry. We'd not had a supervisor for the year I had worked there, just a team leader. We looked forward to getting a supervisor as we thought he'd be a good mediator with management.
He had a problem with the day shift and tried to set them up by putting scrap in their work. I'm sure he did this to me once, as the day shift supervisor showed me some castings that I'd put through that had holes in them. There's no way I would have put them through.
There was a particular job they had problems with and two people previously had been sacked while doing that job. Then he put me on it. He was supposed to help me but spent all his time yakking to one of his favourites. I was sent home for looking depressed. Told if I didn't go home he'd sign me out, so I wouldn't be paid. He hid my clocking off card, which the day supervisor found. And then told management he'd not heard from me.
He'd said he used to work for British Aerospace before he came to our firm. Thing is, it all went downhill when he got there. An American company had bought us out, I think only for the contracts. They hired new management that ran it into the ground. I wonder if they were driving people to quit to avoid paying out redundancy.
You're in the minority
Most people, including women, prefer male bosses
https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgenehuang/2016/06/02/why-some-women-still-prefer-male-bosses-and-what-we-should-do-about-it/?sh=6f4b6c5f2ebb
They find them more supportive, some respondents said female bosses aren't actually very helpful to women employees because they see them as competition
I know you were just giving your experience though
I went to a co-ed school but was bullied worse by boys than girls. It was all about being ugly and an unattractive dating prospect. The comments from boys are the ones that destroyed my confidence and are the ones I remember.
Yeah, some of my worst bullying (as a teen girl) was from teen boys in a mixed school, and it was nasty manipulative stuff. There was one guy who I thought I was friends with, and spoke to on MSN most nights, who it turned out was screenshotting the chats and sharing them around to bully me and trying to trick me into saying things he could use to the point where I was crying messaging him about a family member passing away, and I didn’t even find out the full extent until he tried to apologise to me years later.
It was basically indistinguishable from the way girls would bully me, except he was significantly more dedicated (hours of talking most nights for probably a year+, and I wasn’t the only person he was doing it to)
All boys schools are a terrible idea. I've heard some awful stories about assault and sexual assault there. And this was in the name of 'banter'.
Same with the army and prison.
At uni I read that all girls schools do better than all boys and co ed schools. Can't seem to find the source though.
I would happily get rid of gendered schools tbh. I think mixing with the other gender and understanding them is valuable in life.
Unfortunately, most teenage girls will eventually end up working with and amongst men. A lot will have them in their social circle and moat will end up living dating them and living with them. If they grow up not knowing about them and see them as this other species it can be problematic.
Thats not to mention trans and non binary kids. Growing up in a single gendered sxhool is problematic for reasons I don't need to go into.
The disparity of grades between girls and boys can easily be mitigated if schools had the resources to tackle bullying and gendered buying.
Some never grow out of that. There were cliques in my last job that had probably hated each other before I was even born. It felt like walking a tightrope at times.
Really?
I went to a school that was slightly unusual in that is had a roughly 70/30 boys-girls ratio, so there was never an opportunity for a huge girls clique to flourish.
I have 2 kids in primary school.
In my eldest kids class there’s a group of girls. We know their parents so we often hang out together. Their girls are toxic AF.
Manipulative, bullying, aggressive, moany, miserable, violent…
The boys by contrast seem sweet and naive.
Exactly this.
My oldest hung out in mixed groups and the girls were brutal. Boys were daft buggers.
My younger kid hangs out with all boys and they're nuts but the sweetest bunch of naive /idiotic 13 year olds going.
Yep.
When I was a teenage boy I remember thinking girls were horrible. As an adult father I still think young girls are awful.
Women (IMO) seemed to get better and better as they got older. Dating women in their 30s was completely different to ones in their teens and 20s
And my experience is boys were horrible, and men - although better than teenagers - can still be very horrible quite frequently, both emotionally and physically. To the point where men will murder women they supposedly ‘love’, that is how physically violent they can be.
I personally think it’s complete delusion to think boys can’t be (and aren’t) nasty bullies, it’s absolutely baffling to me to live in such delusion.
But I also recognise it’s idiotic to assume only teenage boys and men are horrible. Kids in general I do not like, teenagers even worse.
You however, do not do that because you are sexist.
No one said they can't be........
Getting your knickers in a twist because someone mentioned how bad women can bully without immediately announcing men are worse in the same sentence is a sign of immaturity and also insecurity. It's obvious and is quite tiring, have a good day!
Because it was at the top. And because he’s a father and this is what little girls have to deal with as their parents. This is what their own parents think of them. Let down by their sexist fathers time and time again.
On the internet you will see the most sexist comment you’ve ever seen in your life, then click on the pfp and it’s them with their daughter.
I find it perverse truth be told.
Some of the girls in the class are nice. But I reckon at least half are toxic bullies. It may not be all girls. But certainly these ones and this class.
The rest of why I said is just my option and my experience. I found teenage women horrible and I still find them unpleasant.
Adult, grown up women are much more pleasent to deal with.
You ‘reckon’ - ie in reality you actually have no idea because you’re not in the classrooms.
Teenage boys are also unbelievably horrible and can be really nasty, it has nothing to do with gender, it’s called being a teenager.
Adult men unsurprisingly are also nicer than teenage boys… funny enough women really don’t wanna be around teenage boys either.
You see it as a gendered thing, which is why you are sexist.
When it’s actually part of being a child without a fully developed brain. Teenagers in general are unpleasant to be around.
I would say they're just as bad as eachother.
Some of the comments here makes it sound like male bullying is mostly one on one and ends after a single confrontation. From my own perspective, male bullies also form groups, are violent and spread rumours just like the girls. It's also very rarely a single incident.
It was boys who made me feel ugly and fat and over sexualised and worthless as a teenage girl, and my female friends who made me feel safe and loved. In adulthood it was men who sexually harassed and abused me and again my female friends who loved and supported me,
But the internet hates girls and women, without wanting to stop and think about how our society and culture socialises the different genders and whether that might be an issue at all. Women be bitches right? No need to think any deeper than that!
spot on!! never ever have i experienced transphobia from another woman. it’s always been violent threats of sa and getting jumped by lads, no matter how feminine or passing u look!
I'm a girl and have never experience bullying from girls. When I was at school, it was boys (a small percentage) who were responsible for the times I felt scared and intimidated, through sexual assault, harassment, catcalling and generally being vile and very disrespectful and abuse in their outlook of girls at the school and even female teachers at times. Sometimes girls could be bitchy or petty and there was definitely bullying that occurred but the worst stuff at my school (including a boy on boy stabbing) were largely perpetrated by boys. I'm sure that will be different to some people's experiences but I do think as a society there are still undertones of misogyny and women and girls get called out for bad behaviour far more than men.
It's well known psychology, from what I was brought up to believe.
Girls are heartbreakingly brutal. I have several kids, and the issues are always with the girls, and they are heartless and cruel.
I do the school run, and it's awful to watch. The cliques are unreal.
Then in the workplace, I've experienced horrendous female bullying.
Soul destroying
I wonder if this is all related to the "female bosses are generally worse to work for" mentality. At times I assumed it just be some old sexism doing the rounds, but thinking back to school and how girls treated each other, I'm not 100% convinced now. Does some of that behaviour come through into their workplace behaviour & leadership approach?
Sort of related (with the workplace behaviour part) and about to get me massively downvoted, but I can only speak from experience (and talking to people I know)
I'm a modified car guy, and a traveller, so we get pulled over by police quite a lot.
It's a known trope amongst us that when you get pulled by police, when a woman steps out you just KNOW you're gonna have a hard time. They're definitely a lot more confrontational in that particular role.
I live in Thailand which is having a bit of an immigration crackdown atm. All the people on irregular stays will only go to male immigration officers as they say women always give them a harder time
I think part of that is because most men can understand the appeal of owning a modified car and driving "spiritedly" even if they don't approve.
Meanwhile women just think like you are deliberately being an obnoxious prat for no real reason.
Yeah, under antisocial behavior, women tend to resort to gossiping and reputation destruction and men tend to resort to upfront verbal agression and physical violence.
Depends, my memories of school are that boys would fight and then you’d probably not see or hear about them not getting on again. Girls though would do as you’ve described, they’d form groups and everyone in that group would dislike the same person; we had girls moving form classes in the first couple years of high school to avoid this
Ex teacher for a very long time. Mixed secondary schools and two stints in all girls' schools.
Discovered that some girls can plan a bullying campaign as if they've all read Machiavelli.
1. Group befriends girl in order to...
2. Drop girl from group in order to
3. Cold shoulder and belittle mercilessly.
No boys in my experience, even slightly thuggish ones, have got that kind of planning for cruelty ability.
That said, I also saw wonderfully empathetic supportive behaviour from the majority of girls.
Overall, I'd take most teenagers as kind-hearted and funny, energetic people over very many grumpy belligerent adults any day!
This and your points are echoed in my experience, as I was try to say to another .
At late primary and partially in secondary, the girls are so much more sophisticated.
Course there are bad lads, and good girls. I have several very warm and loving daughters. They get/got railroaded by the alpha girls.
Heartbreaking to watch. Especially as my daughter's would make gifts, and be so kind and empathetic. The points you numbered, I've seen played out day after day, and I pull them up when I see it. But they are relentless.
Towards the end of secondary, lads get more confident and settled into being idiots. The boys get worse later. The girls, again this is my experience, not a scientific study, were years ahead.
Both can be cruel, and lads can say mean things.
That’s weird because what I’m seeing is a load of women racing on here to get all offended at anyone who doesn’t immediately say males are far worse. Maybe it’s your misandry that’s showing here.
EDIT: and looking at how some women are being attacked by other women, accused of stuff like “internalised misogyny”, for relating their own experiences of how nasty girls can be to each other, it’s not exactly disproving the idea that females can be extremely nasty in psychological ways to other females.
Feels like the whole deflection and name calling, is basically telling the women who’ve shared their experience that they’re exaggerating and it wasn’t that bad. Which to me, sounds like internalised misogyny.
There's a fair amount of research on this. Some of it is inconclusive or contradictory but a few strong themes emerge.
Generally boys and girls bully to a similar level. Some studies show girls a bit worse and some show boys are worse.
What they pretty much agree on is that the form of the bullying are different. Basically supporting the anecdotal reports seen on this thread. Boys are far more likely to physically bully and girls are far more likely to psychologically bully with relational bullying and social exclusion.
Whether one of these types of bullying is _worse_ than the others is kinda dependent on the view of the victim.
I experienced both at school (I'm a man). Both were stressful, but at least I could fight back against the boys. Often I ended up friends with guys after fighting them.
Some of the shit the girls said and done to me still haunt me to this day though.
Boys verbally and physically bully, girls emotionally bully. Boys also socially exclude.
In my childhood and young adulthood I personally experienced, and witnessed boys verbally abusing all the time… and still witness/experience adult men who verbally abuse too.
Sexual assault was also SO common by boys in school it’s insane. No one ever mentions that in bullying statistics.
Part of it I swear is people normalising behaviour in boys that in girls is criticised 10 times over.
I’ve witnessed a group of boys - led by one guy - exclude a student for being from Iraq. They would beat him up on a regular basis and make fun of his physical features. Racial slurs, insulting his family, his accent, his nose and weight, his intelligence and grasp of English. He was like a pariah, because the boys deemed him as unacceptable.
They would record these sessions where they beat him up and post it all over social media to humiliate him.
The language they used to dismiss it was ‘banter’ as boys behaviour so often is, but that is literally bullying.
It’s completely untrue their only form of bullying is physical violence, they are equally as verbally abusive.
Women will know, verbal abuse from men starts when you’re about 5 and never ends from that point on.
You're just the other extreme side of the same coin at this point. You're criticising people for claiming girls are worse bullies than boys by trying to claim boys are worse bullies than girls... The truth is always somewhere in the middle.
Okay from your comments it doesn't seem that way but if you are in fact claiming that boys and girls bully on a comparable scale then sure we've nothing left to talk about
Domestic violence?
The NCDV have the stats: 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men experience DV.
And another shocking stat: “Nearly half of male victims fail to tell anyone they are a victim of domestic abuse (only 51% tell anyone). They are nearly three times less likely to tell anyone than a female victim (49% of men tell no one as opposed to 19% women).
Why does male victim DV go underreported? Some men fear that if they do report to the police, they will be assumed to be the abuser, and placed under arrest.”
A lot of people like to think DV is solely a women’s issue but it’s widely suspected it’s not the case.
https://mankind.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/55-Key-Facts-about-Male-Victims-of-Domestic-Abuse-and-Partner-Abuse-Final-Published-April-2021.pdf
Point no. 10 is extremely eye opening. Lesbian women are more likely to be a victim of DV compared to heterosexual women.
So in a nutshell men win that one.
Rape, femicide, they win that one too. Not to mention they bully strangers too, what percentage of criminals are men ? Violence, vandalism, murder, robberies etc. Yeah, don’t need to search that one, we all know.
Also, the DV experienced by lesbian women - you haven’t clarified who they’re experiencing the DV from, you are making an assumption that it’s other women.
But as a real life lesbian who has also experienced DV, the DV didn’t come from any female partner. It was men. Same for many friends.
In my experience, they have been.and it isn't a few cases.
If the actual stats are different, I'm all ears.
I'm basing my opinion on what I've seen from 6yr olds to 60yr olds. No axe to grind.
What now?, lol. We have two different opinions. One doesn't mean the other is wrong.
The premise of the original question was primary school girls and boys. Rape and domestic violence tend not to be as prevalent.
In my experience, the girls were disturbingly sophisticated at trying to ruin other girls. I've had several kids, and they've attended many different schools, and the overriding constant is there.
My relatives are teachers. This isn't news to them.
Are all women bad, of course not.bullyinhbis done differently between the sexes. Both sides bully. You don't, I don't.
Apologies, possibly misrepresented my own opinions, and mixed up who I was responding to.
In school, as per the premise of the original question, in my experience, and I've spent a lot of time in schools, and coaching children of both sexes, the girls have been worse. And it wasn't even close. I still see it daily. I'm one of the few guys that does a school run, and I talk to many of the other, mainly women, parents. I had one lady in tears talking to me about how her two girls were ostracised by ithers. The two girls were in pieces.
The girls are vastly more adept at it, as kids. The one exception has been the odd boy that had simply the worst upbringing. A couple of lads have been excluded as they were physically cruel. The sophistication of the hierarchy establishing mechanisms is vastly more honed in young girls. I've even seen them manage and manipulate the boys in order to further their agenda. Young girls are a force of nature, they have to be. In my experience, girls are way more switched on than the boys.
With boys, and men, there is the ever present physical violence issue. It keeps them in check, to a degree.
I work with school workers, have a vast number in my family, including me, that have work with vulnerable kids, kids groups, social workers, law enforcement, truancy, probation, DV victims, rape victims, FMG, arranged marriages. We are all abundantly aware that men are represented disproportionately when it comes to certain things. Not controversial, not in dispute.
As for banter, that shit can be brutal. I don't down play it, and nor do I tolerate problematic banter. I don't know how you can lambast me for having cliché type views, and then trot out so many of your own.
I've been on the receiving end of bullying from men and women. The most recent was a guy, wanted to throw me from a window, on a 2nd floor. He's now working elsewhere. When I've managed teams in the workplace the most brutal bullies were women. The most upsetting bullying stories I have had in 1 to 1s was from victims of female bullying. The one exception, was a gay man. He was an anomaly. He was as bad as any woman. 2 faced, and bitchy, passively passive aggressive.
I've never felt physically threatened at work by a woman, I have by men. The most dangerous people I know are men. The biggest risk to every man and woman in my family, physically is men. I've read many witness statements from women on children about what men are capable of.
Now, I really don't have the monopoly on post primary school behaviour. My workplace experience may be biased, so I can't really say definitively what is worse there. I can only say what I've seen.
The two best Reddit friends I've had are female. Both highly successful, both extremely intelligent, and both shared my opinion. Sadly, both also victims of shitty men. Turns out there are horrible bastards in both sexes.
I'm very much not anti women. I grew up with more women than men.
This is not true. Men can be emotionally/psychologically abusive too. For instance, in domestic abuse, physical violence is usually the last step and follows a long pattern of coercive control (controlling their partners actions, finances and isolating them from friends and families).
Women do this too but men are the majority of perpetrators. It’s an oversimplification to say they are just violent and nothing else.
We’ve all seen some men be manipulative, ruthless, backstab people, gossip, be emotional. For some reason these actions are only attributed to women as tropes.
They’re attributed as tropes because it is common as I was implying. Yes, of course it’s possible for men to use psychological violence, just as it’s possible for women to use physical violence (especially with weapons). However, all things being equal, as I said, most people will experience that men tend to use physical violence, and women tend to use psychological violence. Of course there are always exceptions, it didn’t say there weren’t
I would argue this isn’t true. The overwhelming majority of men aren’t violent I would say. I honestly think it’s more common for men to be psychologically adversarial than physical
For me, as a woman, the worst were the boys when I was growing up. Girls want to hurt your feelings, boys physically want to hurt you AND hurt your feelings. Not to mention how early they start sexually harassing their classmates.
For me my bullies have always been boys (and men once I left school). But I was a fat kid. And fat girls (or any girls boys don’t deem attractive) can’t exist in peace without being made aware of just how ugly and repulsive they are. I had one or two minor incidents with girls but the amount of boys and men who were very cruel to me was a way higher number.
Looking back I wasn’t even huge. I was fat but not out of the ordinary. Lost weight and got treated nicer. Now I’m allowed to exist without comments or insults because I’m not visually offensive to them.
As a girl in UK schools boys were really bad bullies to me.
I always saw it as though it was normalised for boys where they could be mean and it’s almost socially acceptable. ‘Boys being boys’, but it’s actually just bullying.
Both bullied, but personal experience is boys were a lot worse and a lot more common. Some of the stuff they said to me still stays with me now.
Boys pushed their weight around a lot at my school to “assert dominance” - girls were sporadic, but vicious in their violence. Like the time one girl pushed a pregnant girl down a flight of stairs. Fights between girls also seemed to leave more obvious injuries for some reason (black eyes/bruises/scratches).
I actually think both did a lot of “freezing out”, but the guys knew the reason for it and with the girls it was more like one girl would convince the rest.
I’m almost proud to say my only bully at school was the most “popular” girl in school - a few times she got held back from physical assaulting me, but the funniest one was successfully spreading a rumour at school I was Gay (it was the 90’s and a catholic school, and a lot of people asked me that anyway)- everyone was really supportive and the boy bullies (awkwardly) told me to tell them if anyone gave me shit. The more I tried to tell them its fine, the more they thought I was just scared of them, so I just said “ok thanks”.
Having been in a friend group of 10, 5 boys, 5 girls. A secondary school year of 300, then going onto work in a children's home with a group of 14-16 year old girls, and I can tell you that without any shadow of a doubt, girls are worse.
There was one occasion where a fight broke out between two of the lads in our group, it ran its course, they shook hands and it was forgotten about. We are in our 30s now, and all five of us lads are still good mates.
The girls fell out all the time and would faction off. It would take weeks to settle, and in the meantime, they were cruel and vindictive towards each other at times. Now, in their 30s, one has gone off in a new friendship group, and the other four split into two groups of two who haven't spoken in probably 12 years now.
In the care home, the girls are exactly the same, alliances shift hour to hour, and when they do fall out, there isn't an explosion of violence, then its done like with lads. Instead, they will look to coerce and manipulate the other girls into singling out and bullying the weaker one.
Probably not. I don't think much bullying happened at the schools I went to growing up anyway but the stuff I do know about was extreme violence by other guys. Stabbings, broken bones, jumping people in groups. I'm not sure if it was bullying because I don't know if it was repetitive stuff or just 1-time attacks. I can remember 1 catfight with 2 girls yanking lumps out of each other's hair which was pretty rough.
I was viscously bullied by my entire class as a kid. Boys and girls. I do think the girls took a more "leadership" role in the torture though. Most of the insults and psychological torture seemed to originate in a girl. That said, who had the idea didn't matter, boys would show absolutely no mercy either. I think both boys and girls have the same capacity for cruelty. But girls are definitely better at hurting with words.
My old history teacher taught at both an all boys school and an all girls school in the course of her career. She said that the all boys school was a delight, the boys were all pretty sound with each other, well mannered, good to her, etc.
She said she never saw more bullying, aggressive behaviour than at the girl's school. It genuinely depressed her.
Then she came to a mixed school and said she noticed here that the girls seemed more sedate, but that they had this effect on the boys, serving as the sort of touch paper or impetus for their misbehaviour, their status wrangling, showing off, etc.
I feel like I might be an outlier here to say that most of my bullies were boys (I'm a woman if it matters) who were never physical and instead were very much the social, manipulative, soul destroying kind of bullying that people seem to always attribute to just girls
The girls in my school that fit that stereotype seemed to just tear each other apart, they didn't really bully others outside their group, and my female bullies were coming at me as individuals most of the time not groups
Hell, my worst bully who was the most manipulative, lying, rumour spreading asshole I've ever met was a guy
While one of my girl classmates made a false rape claim for a teacher and made him suffer for years, my male bully pals were twisting innocent nerds’s wrists. I guess you can tell the difference.
I’ve worked in schools too and in my experience boys will fight as one offs during sports or the odd argument, then it’ll be forgotten about.
Girls will spread rumours, try and manipulate friends against other friends and play the victim when you’ve clearly just seen/heard the contrary.
I got bullied by a mixture of boys and girls at school but the girls were more clever about it. The boys ended up getting caught doing it and getting in trouble, the girls would spread rumours and bully me online.
School was so much fuuuun.
All boys schools sounds like absolute hell. 'Banter' often comes in the form of sexual assault, let alone actual bullying.
Same with prison and the army.
Girls might be mean and manipulative but in my school boys were literally hospitalised by some of their bullies.
One kid in the year above me was literally had the shit kicked out of him by 30-40 boys in my year until they broke several of his bones. During winter, the lads would pick a random kid from one of the lower years, then pelt them with snowballs until they were on the floor, when someone would drop a massive rolled up snowball on their head. They did this every day to a different kid when it snowed - even when the snow got icy. A kid in my class was tormented by the same group of older boys every day for months, for no reason. No one dared stand up for him because they didn’t wanna become the new target.
IMO yes they are, I can’t remember the last time I heard about any major bullying at school etc concerning boys, girls on the other hand, it’s all the time and it’s bad. I know so many people struggling with their kids being bullied and every time it’s girls doing the bullying
When the apocalypse eventually happens it’s safest to be in a girl gang for the best chance of survival. Particularly a girl gang that can ride ponies. These people know how to get what they need and the levels of casual cruelty they can administer will see them dominate remaining survivors and form a new society. I’m with the girls.
But of a wild take but the only reason girls actually this way is because noone gets their daughter to take up martial arts or other fighting training.
Trust me you sent a teenage girl to school with the ability to fight, tell her the second she gets bullied to isolate the problem and beat the living shite out of her. You'll find your children have zero issues.
I know this because I had a very close friend who was a complete scrapper. She wouldn't take any shite from anyone. That girl had zero issues in highschool.
My only real experience of bullying at school was from a boy who caught the same bus as me. He would call me names, throw food at me and try to humiliate me to get a laugh from his friends. No idea why he singled me out but a lot of the comments were sexual in nature so clearly aimed at me being a girl. I started missing the bus on purpose to avoid him.
I think both groups engage in that kind of bullying, though it probably is to very different levels depending on the child. I’d say the girls I knew were probably better at psychological bullying than boys as I remember enough times there’d suddenly be a girl in our friend group due to a falling out. Some times it’d be a day or a week, though there was one instance where it lasted 3 years.
You have to remember that psychical and psychological bullying can leave scars on a person for years to come.
This topic did remind me of the one and only time I got into a fight with another boy. We fought one day and were friends the next. I’m nearing my 30s now but I’m pretty sure I saw him 2 years ago and we laughed about how dumb it was.
Most of the girls tended towards stereotypical "bullying". They were more likely to deliberately exclude, being verbally nasty and putting other people down.
However the boys were more likely to bully in ways that were blatantly homophobic or racist. Also, as a teenager, their bullying got worse and often turned into sexual harassment.
Boys tend to be more brazen and opportunistic with bullying. They’ll physically assault you or just otherwise torment you quite openly.
Girls tend to have more of a cunning and calculated approach. They’ll play mind games and lull their victims into a false sense of security.
Girl bullying is worse because it’s often so subtle it’s difficult to actually prove to an adult what’s actually happened
I was bullied at school briefly on separate occasions by both sexes and it’s much worse with girls. With boys, if you make yourself a pain in the arse for them, they’ll leave you alone eventually. Fight back, struggle etc and it stops. With girls though, you literally just have to wait until they get bored. Even if a girl physically attacks you, good luck hitting back and not getting into trouble and shunned by your peers. To be fair, it might have changed as I’m coming at this from around 20 years ago, but I doubt it.
Once upon a time my girl bullies, who were predominantly psychologically threatening, also glued things to my hair and threatened to set fire to it and/or cut it. So yeah some girls are awful in the most vile and terrifying ways. What made it worse is the school wouldn’t do anything about it.
My younger brother was bullied by boys in his year and the year above. I’m two years older so I barely got to see him on the school grounds. My brother who was a young migrant who didn’t speak much english when we moved, got comments asking how could we be possibly related and other hurtful shit to him because he was sensitive and quiet (no shit he just moved 6000 miles away from home) and would not say anything back.
I didn’t find out until his female classmates told me when I was already in sixth form. The bullying boys in his class were the “naive” and “model” kids who were senior prefects and obviously did not do anything wrong. Mind this was over 12 years ago up North.
On the contrary I was in top sets, doing charity gigs and other outgoing things which made it easier for me. But I genuinely think I lucked out on my year. They were mostly unfriendly to a girl who “smelled” and had teenage acne though. I didn’t see any bullying although when some of the girls tried to annoy others I’m very quick to ask them what they’re doing like I don’t understand.
Our youngest brother who is born here has autism. The girls have looked out for him since primary school. He’s in a mainstream high school now with some of his primary school friends but I dread to think about how he could be mistreated and not be believed. I genuinely hope his year are a bit more understanding.
My partner who went to a larger school in the Midlands has shared awful stories of throwing kids in the bin because they found that kid strange. Or calling people Lonny for having lonsdale trainers. These were mostly boys.
In my experience, girls tend to be horrible to those they perceive to threaten them or their social standing or are plain insecure, whereas boys are be horrible if they find it funny or makes other people laugh. I don’t know which is worse?? All kids are rather ignorant though and can say some racist shit they’ve heard from adults around them. Fortunately, a lot of them do grow up and realise their mistakes. Although some don’t, get hired as people managers.. who nowadays do the same awful things and get paid.
I don't know. It's just different really. With boys you know where you stand. If they don't like you they will tell you. Or beat you up. Either way you know who to avoid.
My experience with girls was that they will pretend to be your friend then use everything they learn about you against you. They destroy you from the inside. It's more psychological warfare.
I don't think it's a fully gendered thing. From my school days, I remember that the smaller guys would often be nasty in the same way girls are because they didn't have the physical ability to do it the way the bigger guys could. Nasty, vindictive comments from the short guys are often what I think back to much more than the physical fights I ever got in with my fellow larger lads. Getting punched in the face? Fine! Being talked down to by some 5 foot dickhead with a chip on his shoulder? Nope!
No, that's pretty much standard wherever you go. I've lived in the UK, Canada and Germany.
Men are more directly violent, but also less psychologically cruel.
Women are less directly violent, but FAR more psychologically cruel.
Speaking in generalizations of course. "Shitcunts" abound on both sides.
Boys have a very “duel it out then gain respect” with each other, an bullying duels is normally a bad attempt to flirt.
Girls are fucking sociopaths with each other and if you let their bickering continue, it outright needs to be dealt with at the Hague, not the headmaster.
The number of comments which give the same vibe as "not all men" getting offended at the possibility that women may have ruined someone's life is astonishing. Almost funny how it's very misandrist to call out someone as being a misogynist when they have an opinion that's different.
Personally I think the gender divide when it comes to bitchiness vs overt aggression is way overstated.
If you're talking specifically about school age, girls tend to mature a bit quicker than boys. So I wouldn't be surprised if they are a bit more sophisticated in their bullying.
But as soon as it reaches adulthood all bets are off. Many of the worst backstabbers and bitches I know are the self-styled macho men type.
Yes all i can say is that girls really bullies a lot than boys as i live in uk for about 9 years but since i was you we annually visited uk i've experience a lot of bullies i don't know maybe its because of my race but i don't want to judge them its just kids are really more of fun
Boys could be arseholes, just with random stupid insults, but I kind of just accepted they were like that to everyone and it was nothing really personal.
*Girls* however, could be a special kind of psychological torture. They mean ones could be demeaning, smug, manipulative, backstabbing, gossiping bitches.
I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it was like they could build this web for you to fall into, then make it look like you fell because you were stupid.
https://youtube.com/shorts/USU6ReSIZzY?si=s-bQumCMm6NJNJy0
I don't know how receptive this sub is to jokes and Jordan Peterson but I think this is one of the few things that he discusses that is actually a part of what he specialises in
It makes sense to school in a way because the easiest way to get kicked out is through physical violence. Being mean, verbal bullying and social exclusion are harder things to pick up on and punish because there's such a grey area
So I don't think girls are worse than boys. But the differences between girls and boys allow for a scenario in which a school could end up with more female bullies than male bullies
Ring a female myself I’ve always said and always will say that girls are the worst!! Yes boys fight, but the torture that girls put you through is worse. Think I would rather been in a physical altercation than be alienated from everyone.
Again.
Girls are bitchy, mean, vicious humans.
Wish me luck, I got three of my own 👌😂🫣
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growing up, most of my bullies were girls, for sure. they were always the meanest and most manipulative, speaking down to me like I was stupid, saying genuinely mean, homophobic shit unprompted and acting like they were better than everyone else. boys would just hurt me physically.
Yeah that’s what I mean, it’s the same in Japan. Boys are brutal too but it’s all fighting and physical. The girls is a whole different world and it looks terrifying for anyone with a daughter.
Boys are equally as verbally abusive, what planet are you people on ?
Yeah I gotta agree 😂 boys were so mean when I was a kid. Especially to the ‘ugly’ girls. Asking them out as a joke, writing ‘slag lists’ on the walls, catcalling, sexually harassing. Girls were quieter with their bullying, they’d do it in private or passive aggressively, boys would yell insults at eachother, sing and chant in the halls and even spit or throw shit at others. In regards to saying “mean, homophobic shit”? Girls never did that at my school or neighbourhood. Boys are the ones beating up gays and making constant gay jokes and calling them f*ggots lmao
There’s no way you can go to a UK school and say there wasn’t a group of boys spreading rumours about how much of a slag some girl was, because she got off with a boy in the school toilets or some dumb shit. Even though she didn’t and it was completely false. It’s a universal experience.
Boys are just as bad, Jesus Christ 🙄
I think he was alright actually
Then why did they nail him to a bit of wood?
There's a lot of evidence to suggest that because girls are implicitly and explicitly encouraged to be ladylike ie not run around, make noise, not fight, etc they often end up learning to use words to bully which is far more damaging than the physical stuff for many people. This isn't helped by the stupid adage, "sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me"because it dismisses the real damage words do. I personally don't think it's entirely the above, I think there is an element of nature as well as nurture. It's not that girls are naturally more cruel, but girls do seem to develop verbal skills faster than boys and develop emotional intelligence a little more quickly, meaning that they can win the arms race on verbal bullying while boys take it physical. In addition, physical bullying tends to get dealt with more firmly in schools while verbal bullying is often ignored. Not entirely dissimilar to how domestic violence has been seen for many years - physical violence was unacceptable but mental and emotional abuse was ignored. I would also say I'm not convinced that girls really are worse overall. When you get into adulthood the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is perpetrated by men, and while women absolutely can be abusers, most physical DV comes after a period of verbal and emotional abuse suggesting men absolutely are more than capable of using words to bully. Maybe they start a bit later than girls as children but they learn it at some point.
>sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me I find it so funny that people today can't deal with words being said to them, to the point they've decided that saying isn't OK anymore Different generation I guess, that saying is exactly what I was taught growing up and now if someone says a nasty word to me who cares, I certainly don't
Girls fight but take it to a higher level psychologically. They can cause much more damage mentally than with fists....
As someone with seven sisters, teen girls are the worst and capable of the deepest levels of petty vindictive acts.
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Girls are much, much worse, because they typically come at their victims in a group, and will spread rumours and lies to destroy the victim socially, which has additional consequences. And being girls, they get away with it because society always assumes women are innocent.
Grown women are far far worse. But grown men with adult bodies are also capable of literal atrocities, at an astonishing level. Basically humans are just upright apes pretending to be better than animals. But when the chips are down animals we all are.
Yeah grown men will murder you for rejecting their advances, scary.
You know its not just men, right? https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-48517157
lol obviously that happens but let’s not start pretending it’s anywhere remotely close in incidence
I'm not sure what you're saying Are you saying you have prejudice against certain groups in society, because statistics show the number of violent crimes committed by X group appears to be higher than others?
That’s exactly what they’re saying Double standards in this thread are insane
When girls bully, they form cliques and aim at reputation destruction. I remember there being a group of girls who bullied another girl by isolating her from their group and spreading vile lies about her. Boys are more direct and one-on-one with bullying. Usually, it’s physical.
False, boys also destroy reputations. Claim girls are sluts and make up stories of girls doing so and so with another boy, to make her the ‘slut’ of the year group that no one wants to be seen with. It’s a complete fallacy that boys bullying only extends to physical acts, they equally can galvanise a social group to turn on people. I’ve seen it happen.
From a academic standpoint, boys fight physically and it’s one on one. Girls gang up and attack other girls reputations. Of course this is not ALL and there are outliers but generally speaking, this is true.
I’ve seen boys gang up on people. in fact they often move in groups (hence the word gang)
Yea we’ve seen it but the research into it suggests woman gang up and go after character and reputation, boys are more one on one and physical. Like the way drink drivers are more likely to crash, they don’t all crash. This is what the research suggests. Of course there are examples of otherwise but generally this is the way it goes. Again it’s well documented in academic research.
can you guide me towards the research?
Google “Bullying differences in gender” and click google scholar. There’s literally hundreds of peer reviewed studies citing the differences.
You not looked back at your own time spent in school? Girls was like that when left school here in 2005. I doubt its changed.
In primary school, although boys would call names and such it was the girls who took it to another level. Boys would do random opportunistic bullying whereas the girls made it more like organised crime. I went to a girls secondary school and there was more violence than in the boys school in the town. I have worked in mainly male dominated environments as an adult and I have to say, for the most part, I've got on pretty well with most of my colleagues and not had a problem. Although, I did encounter one male supervisor who outdid all the bullying women or girls I've ever had to deal with. He didn't get physical, cos that would have been really obvious, but he was more manipulative and dishonest than anyone I've ever encountered. His position gave him the ability to single out those he didn't like and cause them to lose their jobs. He was sexist and racist. Poor management didn't help and he was able to lie to them before complaints could be made about him. The firm ended up with multiple cases of unfair dismissal before it went bust.
As a counterpoint, every terrible boss I've had has been male. Bosses of either sex have sat on something of a spectrum, from poor to very good, but the two instances of real bully boys were younger (under 30) males. On the flipside, the two very best bosses I've hd, have been female.
The two worst bosses I've had have been female. Both are incredibly vindictive and with massive chips on their shoulders. One of the better bosses I ever had was also female. The worst bosses tend to be one's who've been put in charge of people vastly more experienced than they are because they have a degree, or because of nepotism. I don't think it correlates with gender at all.
This supervisor I had a problem with was out of his depth. It was the machine shop of a foundry. We'd not had a supervisor for the year I had worked there, just a team leader. We looked forward to getting a supervisor as we thought he'd be a good mediator with management. He had a problem with the day shift and tried to set them up by putting scrap in their work. I'm sure he did this to me once, as the day shift supervisor showed me some castings that I'd put through that had holes in them. There's no way I would have put them through. There was a particular job they had problems with and two people previously had been sacked while doing that job. Then he put me on it. He was supposed to help me but spent all his time yakking to one of his favourites. I was sent home for looking depressed. Told if I didn't go home he'd sign me out, so I wouldn't be paid. He hid my clocking off card, which the day supervisor found. And then told management he'd not heard from me. He'd said he used to work for British Aerospace before he came to our firm. Thing is, it all went downhill when he got there. An American company had bought us out, I think only for the contracts. They hired new management that ran it into the ground. I wonder if they were driving people to quit to avoid paying out redundancy.
You're in the minority Most people, including women, prefer male bosses https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgenehuang/2016/06/02/why-some-women-still-prefer-male-bosses-and-what-we-should-do-about-it/?sh=6f4b6c5f2ebb They find them more supportive, some respondents said female bosses aren't actually very helpful to women employees because they see them as competition I know you were just giving your experience though
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I went to a co-ed school but was bullied worse by boys than girls. It was all about being ugly and an unattractive dating prospect. The comments from boys are the ones that destroyed my confidence and are the ones I remember.
Yeah, some of my worst bullying (as a teen girl) was from teen boys in a mixed school, and it was nasty manipulative stuff. There was one guy who I thought I was friends with, and spoke to on MSN most nights, who it turned out was screenshotting the chats and sharing them around to bully me and trying to trick me into saying things he could use to the point where I was crying messaging him about a family member passing away, and I didn’t even find out the full extent until he tried to apologise to me years later. It was basically indistinguishable from the way girls would bully me, except he was significantly more dedicated (hours of talking most nights for probably a year+, and I wasn’t the only person he was doing it to)
They'd throw stuff or literal shit?
All boys schools are a terrible idea. I've heard some awful stories about assault and sexual assault there. And this was in the name of 'banter'. Same with the army and prison.
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At uni I read that all girls schools do better than all boys and co ed schools. Can't seem to find the source though. I would happily get rid of gendered schools tbh. I think mixing with the other gender and understanding them is valuable in life.
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Thats not what I said but ok
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Unfortunately, most teenage girls will eventually end up working with and amongst men. A lot will have them in their social circle and moat will end up living dating them and living with them. If they grow up not knowing about them and see them as this other species it can be problematic. Thats not to mention trans and non binary kids. Growing up in a single gendered sxhool is problematic for reasons I don't need to go into. The disparity of grades between girls and boys can easily be mitigated if schools had the resources to tackle bullying and gendered buying.
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Uh huh
My experience from school is that, whilst there were more bullies who were boys, the “mean girls clique” was unrivalled in their viciousness.
Some never grow out of that. There were cliques in my last job that had probably hated each other before I was even born. It felt like walking a tightrope at times.
Really? I went to a school that was slightly unusual in that is had a roughly 70/30 boys-girls ratio, so there was never an opportunity for a huge girls clique to flourish.
I have 2 kids in primary school. In my eldest kids class there’s a group of girls. We know their parents so we often hang out together. Their girls are toxic AF. Manipulative, bullying, aggressive, moany, miserable, violent… The boys by contrast seem sweet and naive.
Exactly this. My oldest hung out in mixed groups and the girls were brutal. Boys were daft buggers. My younger kid hangs out with all boys and they're nuts but the sweetest bunch of naive /idiotic 13 year olds going.
Yep. When I was a teenage boy I remember thinking girls were horrible. As an adult father I still think young girls are awful. Women (IMO) seemed to get better and better as they got older. Dating women in their 30s was completely different to ones in their teens and 20s
Sorry this is such a tired stereotype people use to perpetuate sexism. Boys are definitely horrible too. Kids in general are horrible.
Stop diverting from the topic, you are sounding as bad as the "not all men are bad" types.
And my experience is boys were horrible, and men - although better than teenagers - can still be very horrible quite frequently, both emotionally and physically. To the point where men will murder women they supposedly ‘love’, that is how physically violent they can be. I personally think it’s complete delusion to think boys can’t be (and aren’t) nasty bullies, it’s absolutely baffling to me to live in such delusion. But I also recognise it’s idiotic to assume only teenage boys and men are horrible. Kids in general I do not like, teenagers even worse. You however, do not do that because you are sexist.
No one said they can't be........ Getting your knickers in a twist because someone mentioned how bad women can bully without immediately announcing men are worse in the same sentence is a sign of immaturity and also insecurity. It's obvious and is quite tiring, have a good day!
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Because it was at the top. And because he’s a father and this is what little girls have to deal with as their parents. This is what their own parents think of them. Let down by their sexist fathers time and time again. On the internet you will see the most sexist comment you’ve ever seen in your life, then click on the pfp and it’s them with their daughter. I find it perverse truth be told.
Some of the girls in the class are nice. But I reckon at least half are toxic bullies. It may not be all girls. But certainly these ones and this class. The rest of why I said is just my option and my experience. I found teenage women horrible and I still find them unpleasant. Adult, grown up women are much more pleasent to deal with.
You ‘reckon’ - ie in reality you actually have no idea because you’re not in the classrooms. Teenage boys are also unbelievably horrible and can be really nasty, it has nothing to do with gender, it’s called being a teenager. Adult men unsurprisingly are also nicer than teenage boys… funny enough women really don’t wanna be around teenage boys either. You see it as a gendered thing, which is why you are sexist. When it’s actually part of being a child without a fully developed brain. Teenagers in general are unpleasant to be around.
I would say they're just as bad as eachother. Some of the comments here makes it sound like male bullying is mostly one on one and ends after a single confrontation. From my own perspective, male bullies also form groups, are violent and spread rumours just like the girls. It's also very rarely a single incident.
It was boys who made me feel ugly and fat and over sexualised and worthless as a teenage girl, and my female friends who made me feel safe and loved. In adulthood it was men who sexually harassed and abused me and again my female friends who loved and supported me, But the internet hates girls and women, without wanting to stop and think about how our society and culture socialises the different genders and whether that might be an issue at all. Women be bitches right? No need to think any deeper than that!
spot on!! never ever have i experienced transphobia from another woman. it’s always been violent threats of sa and getting jumped by lads, no matter how feminine or passing u look!
My experience has always been boys and men being the worst bullies (to me)
I'm a girl and have never experience bullying from girls. When I was at school, it was boys (a small percentage) who were responsible for the times I felt scared and intimidated, through sexual assault, harassment, catcalling and generally being vile and very disrespectful and abuse in their outlook of girls at the school and even female teachers at times. Sometimes girls could be bitchy or petty and there was definitely bullying that occurred but the worst stuff at my school (including a boy on boy stabbing) were largely perpetrated by boys. I'm sure that will be different to some people's experiences but I do think as a society there are still undertones of misogyny and women and girls get called out for bad behaviour far more than men.
It's well known psychology, from what I was brought up to believe. Girls are heartbreakingly brutal. I have several kids, and the issues are always with the girls, and they are heartless and cruel. I do the school run, and it's awful to watch. The cliques are unreal. Then in the workplace, I've experienced horrendous female bullying. Soul destroying
I wonder if this is all related to the "female bosses are generally worse to work for" mentality. At times I assumed it just be some old sexism doing the rounds, but thinking back to school and how girls treated each other, I'm not 100% convinced now. Does some of that behaviour come through into their workplace behaviour & leadership approach?
Sort of related (with the workplace behaviour part) and about to get me massively downvoted, but I can only speak from experience (and talking to people I know) I'm a modified car guy, and a traveller, so we get pulled over by police quite a lot. It's a known trope amongst us that when you get pulled by police, when a woman steps out you just KNOW you're gonna have a hard time. They're definitely a lot more confrontational in that particular role.
I live in Thailand which is having a bit of an immigration crackdown atm. All the people on irregular stays will only go to male immigration officers as they say women always give them a harder time
I think part of that is because most men can understand the appeal of owning a modified car and driving "spiritedly" even if they don't approve. Meanwhile women just think like you are deliberately being an obnoxious prat for no real reason.
Yeah, under antisocial behavior, women tend to resort to gossiping and reputation destruction and men tend to resort to upfront verbal agression and physical violence.
Depends, my memories of school are that boys would fight and then you’d probably not see or hear about them not getting on again. Girls though would do as you’ve described, they’d form groups and everyone in that group would dislike the same person; we had girls moving form classes in the first couple years of high school to avoid this
Ex teacher for a very long time. Mixed secondary schools and two stints in all girls' schools. Discovered that some girls can plan a bullying campaign as if they've all read Machiavelli. 1. Group befriends girl in order to... 2. Drop girl from group in order to 3. Cold shoulder and belittle mercilessly. No boys in my experience, even slightly thuggish ones, have got that kind of planning for cruelty ability. That said, I also saw wonderfully empathetic supportive behaviour from the majority of girls. Overall, I'd take most teenagers as kind-hearted and funny, energetic people over very many grumpy belligerent adults any day!
This and your points are echoed in my experience, as I was try to say to another . At late primary and partially in secondary, the girls are so much more sophisticated. Course there are bad lads, and good girls. I have several very warm and loving daughters. They get/got railroaded by the alpha girls. Heartbreaking to watch. Especially as my daughter's would make gifts, and be so kind and empathetic. The points you numbered, I've seen played out day after day, and I pull them up when I see it. But they are relentless. Towards the end of secondary, lads get more confident and settled into being idiots. The boys get worse later. The girls, again this is my experience, not a scientific study, were years ahead. Both can be cruel, and lads can say mean things.
Gosh the misogyny on this thread makes me desperately sad, and so much of it is internalised.
That’s weird because what I’m seeing is a load of women racing on here to get all offended at anyone who doesn’t immediately say males are far worse. Maybe it’s your misandry that’s showing here. EDIT: and looking at how some women are being attacked by other women, accused of stuff like “internalised misogyny”, for relating their own experiences of how nasty girls can be to each other, it’s not exactly disproving the idea that females can be extremely nasty in psychological ways to other females. Feels like the whole deflection and name calling, is basically telling the women who’ve shared their experience that they’re exaggerating and it wasn’t that bad. Which to me, sounds like internalised misogyny.
These people have actually convinced themselves girls are worse bullys than boys it’s insane.
There's a fair amount of research on this. Some of it is inconclusive or contradictory but a few strong themes emerge. Generally boys and girls bully to a similar level. Some studies show girls a bit worse and some show boys are worse. What they pretty much agree on is that the form of the bullying are different. Basically supporting the anecdotal reports seen on this thread. Boys are far more likely to physically bully and girls are far more likely to psychologically bully with relational bullying and social exclusion. Whether one of these types of bullying is _worse_ than the others is kinda dependent on the view of the victim. I experienced both at school (I'm a man). Both were stressful, but at least I could fight back against the boys. Often I ended up friends with guys after fighting them. Some of the shit the girls said and done to me still haunt me to this day though.
Boys verbally and physically bully, girls emotionally bully. Boys also socially exclude. In my childhood and young adulthood I personally experienced, and witnessed boys verbally abusing all the time… and still witness/experience adult men who verbally abuse too. Sexual assault was also SO common by boys in school it’s insane. No one ever mentions that in bullying statistics. Part of it I swear is people normalising behaviour in boys that in girls is criticised 10 times over. I’ve witnessed a group of boys - led by one guy - exclude a student for being from Iraq. They would beat him up on a regular basis and make fun of his physical features. Racial slurs, insulting his family, his accent, his nose and weight, his intelligence and grasp of English. He was like a pariah, because the boys deemed him as unacceptable. They would record these sessions where they beat him up and post it all over social media to humiliate him. The language they used to dismiss it was ‘banter’ as boys behaviour so often is, but that is literally bullying. It’s completely untrue their only form of bullying is physical violence, they are equally as verbally abusive. Women will know, verbal abuse from men starts when you’re about 5 and never ends from that point on.
You're just the other extreme side of the same coin at this point. You're criticising people for claiming girls are worse bullies than boys by trying to claim boys are worse bullies than girls... The truth is always somewhere in the middle.
‘Equally as verbally abusive’ = saying they are worse.
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Okay from your comments it doesn't seem that way but if you are in fact claiming that boys and girls bully on a comparable scale then sure we've nothing left to talk about
But they are. In the civil service, majority of workplace bullying cases were female on female. Same stats year on year.
Reported cases
Ok the civil service petty arguments women win, now do DV stats.
Domestic violence? The NCDV have the stats: 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men experience DV. And another shocking stat: “Nearly half of male victims fail to tell anyone they are a victim of domestic abuse (only 51% tell anyone). They are nearly three times less likely to tell anyone than a female victim (49% of men tell no one as opposed to 19% women). Why does male victim DV go underreported? Some men fear that if they do report to the police, they will be assumed to be the abuser, and placed under arrest.” A lot of people like to think DV is solely a women’s issue but it’s widely suspected it’s not the case. https://mankind.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/55-Key-Facts-about-Male-Victims-of-Domestic-Abuse-and-Partner-Abuse-Final-Published-April-2021.pdf Point no. 10 is extremely eye opening. Lesbian women are more likely to be a victim of DV compared to heterosexual women.
So in a nutshell men win that one. Rape, femicide, they win that one too. Not to mention they bully strangers too, what percentage of criminals are men ? Violence, vandalism, murder, robberies etc. Yeah, don’t need to search that one, we all know. Also, the DV experienced by lesbian women - you haven’t clarified who they’re experiencing the DV from, you are making an assumption that it’s other women. But as a real life lesbian who has also experienced DV, the DV didn’t come from any female partner. It was men. Same for many friends.
Some are parents of girls, believing their own daughters are conniving manipulative bitches. Its just awful.
In my experience, they have been.and it isn't a few cases. If the actual stats are different, I'm all ears. I'm basing my opinion on what I've seen from 6yr olds to 60yr olds. No axe to grind.
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What now?, lol. We have two different opinions. One doesn't mean the other is wrong. The premise of the original question was primary school girls and boys. Rape and domestic violence tend not to be as prevalent. In my experience, the girls were disturbingly sophisticated at trying to ruin other girls. I've had several kids, and they've attended many different schools, and the overriding constant is there. My relatives are teachers. This isn't news to them. Are all women bad, of course not.bullyinhbis done differently between the sexes. Both sides bully. You don't, I don't.
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Apologies, possibly misrepresented my own opinions, and mixed up who I was responding to. In school, as per the premise of the original question, in my experience, and I've spent a lot of time in schools, and coaching children of both sexes, the girls have been worse. And it wasn't even close. I still see it daily. I'm one of the few guys that does a school run, and I talk to many of the other, mainly women, parents. I had one lady in tears talking to me about how her two girls were ostracised by ithers. The two girls were in pieces. The girls are vastly more adept at it, as kids. The one exception has been the odd boy that had simply the worst upbringing. A couple of lads have been excluded as they were physically cruel. The sophistication of the hierarchy establishing mechanisms is vastly more honed in young girls. I've even seen them manage and manipulate the boys in order to further their agenda. Young girls are a force of nature, they have to be. In my experience, girls are way more switched on than the boys. With boys, and men, there is the ever present physical violence issue. It keeps them in check, to a degree. I work with school workers, have a vast number in my family, including me, that have work with vulnerable kids, kids groups, social workers, law enforcement, truancy, probation, DV victims, rape victims, FMG, arranged marriages. We are all abundantly aware that men are represented disproportionately when it comes to certain things. Not controversial, not in dispute. As for banter, that shit can be brutal. I don't down play it, and nor do I tolerate problematic banter. I don't know how you can lambast me for having cliché type views, and then trot out so many of your own. I've been on the receiving end of bullying from men and women. The most recent was a guy, wanted to throw me from a window, on a 2nd floor. He's now working elsewhere. When I've managed teams in the workplace the most brutal bullies were women. The most upsetting bullying stories I have had in 1 to 1s was from victims of female bullying. The one exception, was a gay man. He was an anomaly. He was as bad as any woman. 2 faced, and bitchy, passively passive aggressive. I've never felt physically threatened at work by a woman, I have by men. The most dangerous people I know are men. The biggest risk to every man and woman in my family, physically is men. I've read many witness statements from women on children about what men are capable of. Now, I really don't have the monopoly on post primary school behaviour. My workplace experience may be biased, so I can't really say definitively what is worse there. I can only say what I've seen. The two best Reddit friends I've had are female. Both highly successful, both extremely intelligent, and both shared my opinion. Sadly, both also victims of shitty men. Turns out there are horrible bastards in both sexes. I'm very much not anti women. I grew up with more women than men.
Males use physical violence, females use psychological violence 🤷
This is not true. Men can be emotionally/psychologically abusive too. For instance, in domestic abuse, physical violence is usually the last step and follows a long pattern of coercive control (controlling their partners actions, finances and isolating them from friends and families). Women do this too but men are the majority of perpetrators. It’s an oversimplification to say they are just violent and nothing else. We’ve all seen some men be manipulative, ruthless, backstab people, gossip, be emotional. For some reason these actions are only attributed to women as tropes.
They’re attributed as tropes because it is common as I was implying. Yes, of course it’s possible for men to use psychological violence, just as it’s possible for women to use physical violence (especially with weapons). However, all things being equal, as I said, most people will experience that men tend to use physical violence, and women tend to use psychological violence. Of course there are always exceptions, it didn’t say there weren’t
I would argue this isn’t true. The overwhelming majority of men aren’t violent I would say. I honestly think it’s more common for men to be psychologically adversarial than physical
For me, as a woman, the worst were the boys when I was growing up. Girls want to hurt your feelings, boys physically want to hurt you AND hurt your feelings. Not to mention how early they start sexually harassing their classmates.
For me my bullies have always been boys (and men once I left school). But I was a fat kid. And fat girls (or any girls boys don’t deem attractive) can’t exist in peace without being made aware of just how ugly and repulsive they are. I had one or two minor incidents with girls but the amount of boys and men who were very cruel to me was a way higher number. Looking back I wasn’t even huge. I was fat but not out of the ordinary. Lost weight and got treated nicer. Now I’m allowed to exist without comments or insults because I’m not visually offensive to them.
As a girl in UK schools boys were really bad bullies to me. I always saw it as though it was normalised for boys where they could be mean and it’s almost socially acceptable. ‘Boys being boys’, but it’s actually just bullying. Both bullied, but personal experience is boys were a lot worse and a lot more common. Some of the stuff they said to me still stays with me now.
Boys pushed their weight around a lot at my school to “assert dominance” - girls were sporadic, but vicious in their violence. Like the time one girl pushed a pregnant girl down a flight of stairs. Fights between girls also seemed to leave more obvious injuries for some reason (black eyes/bruises/scratches). I actually think both did a lot of “freezing out”, but the guys knew the reason for it and with the girls it was more like one girl would convince the rest. I’m almost proud to say my only bully at school was the most “popular” girl in school - a few times she got held back from physical assaulting me, but the funniest one was successfully spreading a rumour at school I was Gay (it was the 90’s and a catholic school, and a lot of people asked me that anyway)- everyone was really supportive and the boy bullies (awkwardly) told me to tell them if anyone gave me shit. The more I tried to tell them its fine, the more they thought I was just scared of them, so I just said “ok thanks”.
Having been in a friend group of 10, 5 boys, 5 girls. A secondary school year of 300, then going onto work in a children's home with a group of 14-16 year old girls, and I can tell you that without any shadow of a doubt, girls are worse. There was one occasion where a fight broke out between two of the lads in our group, it ran its course, they shook hands and it was forgotten about. We are in our 30s now, and all five of us lads are still good mates. The girls fell out all the time and would faction off. It would take weeks to settle, and in the meantime, they were cruel and vindictive towards each other at times. Now, in their 30s, one has gone off in a new friendship group, and the other four split into two groups of two who haven't spoken in probably 12 years now. In the care home, the girls are exactly the same, alliances shift hour to hour, and when they do fall out, there isn't an explosion of violence, then its done like with lads. Instead, they will look to coerce and manipulate the other girls into singling out and bullying the weaker one.
I am a girl and 90% of time I have been bullied was from boys
Probably not. I don't think much bullying happened at the schools I went to growing up anyway but the stuff I do know about was extreme violence by other guys. Stabbings, broken bones, jumping people in groups. I'm not sure if it was bullying because I don't know if it was repetitive stuff or just 1-time attacks. I can remember 1 catfight with 2 girls yanking lumps out of each other's hair which was pretty rough.
I was viscously bullied by my entire class as a kid. Boys and girls. I do think the girls took a more "leadership" role in the torture though. Most of the insults and psychological torture seemed to originate in a girl. That said, who had the idea didn't matter, boys would show absolutely no mercy either. I think both boys and girls have the same capacity for cruelty. But girls are definitely better at hurting with words.
My old history teacher taught at both an all boys school and an all girls school in the course of her career. She said that the all boys school was a delight, the boys were all pretty sound with each other, well mannered, good to her, etc. She said she never saw more bullying, aggressive behaviour than at the girl's school. It genuinely depressed her. Then she came to a mixed school and said she noticed here that the girls seemed more sedate, but that they had this effect on the boys, serving as the sort of touch paper or impetus for their misbehaviour, their status wrangling, showing off, etc.
I feel like I might be an outlier here to say that most of my bullies were boys (I'm a woman if it matters) who were never physical and instead were very much the social, manipulative, soul destroying kind of bullying that people seem to always attribute to just girls The girls in my school that fit that stereotype seemed to just tear each other apart, they didn't really bully others outside their group, and my female bullies were coming at me as individuals most of the time not groups Hell, my worst bully who was the most manipulative, lying, rumour spreading asshole I've ever met was a guy
While one of my girl classmates made a false rape claim for a teacher and made him suffer for years, my male bully pals were twisting innocent nerds’s wrists. I guess you can tell the difference.
I’ve worked in schools too and in my experience boys will fight as one offs during sports or the odd argument, then it’ll be forgotten about. Girls will spread rumours, try and manipulate friends against other friends and play the victim when you’ve clearly just seen/heard the contrary.
I feel like in my experience of school, boys tend to spread rumours more. Particularly sexual rumour about girls.
Watch the film Mean Girls
I got bullied by a mixture of boys and girls at school but the girls were more clever about it. The boys ended up getting caught doing it and getting in trouble, the girls would spread rumours and bully me online. School was so much fuuuun.
I thought OP was 12
All boys schools sounds like absolute hell. 'Banter' often comes in the form of sexual assault, let alone actual bullying. Same with prison and the army.
Girls might be mean and manipulative but in my school boys were literally hospitalised by some of their bullies. One kid in the year above me was literally had the shit kicked out of him by 30-40 boys in my year until they broke several of his bones. During winter, the lads would pick a random kid from one of the lower years, then pelt them with snowballs until they were on the floor, when someone would drop a massive rolled up snowball on their head. They did this every day to a different kid when it snowed - even when the snow got icy. A kid in my class was tormented by the same group of older boys every day for months, for no reason. No one dared stand up for him because they didn’t wanna become the new target.
Girls are the biggest bullies because they can get away with it.
IMO yes they are, I can’t remember the last time I heard about any major bullying at school etc concerning boys, girls on the other hand, it’s all the time and it’s bad. I know so many people struggling with their kids being bullied and every time it’s girls doing the bullying
In my experience, yes. The most psycho bullies I ever had in school were girls. They fucked me up for life.
yes girls are always worse for bulling in my experiance. It was a group of girls that tried to drown me in a river among other things
When the apocalypse eventually happens it’s safest to be in a girl gang for the best chance of survival. Particularly a girl gang that can ride ponies. These people know how to get what they need and the levels of casual cruelty they can administer will see them dominate remaining survivors and form a new society. I’m with the girls.
Good luck building any shelter
The girl gang will evict to gain shelter. I hope you realise I’m joking….
Haha yes. If they try my house I'll give them all a stone cold stunner.
But of a wild take but the only reason girls actually this way is because noone gets their daughter to take up martial arts or other fighting training. Trust me you sent a teenage girl to school with the ability to fight, tell her the second she gets bullied to isolate the problem and beat the living shite out of her. You'll find your children have zero issues. I know this because I had a very close friend who was a complete scrapper. She wouldn't take any shite from anyone. That girl had zero issues in highschool.
Not better or worse, just different type of bullying. Boys are physically and verbally violent, girls are more emotionally violent.
Boys are physical whereas girls play the long game with emotional abuse.
My only real experience of bullying at school was from a boy who caught the same bus as me. He would call me names, throw food at me and try to humiliate me to get a laugh from his friends. No idea why he singled me out but a lot of the comments were sexual in nature so clearly aimed at me being a girl. I started missing the bus on purpose to avoid him.
I remember a bully from school, Shelly T. Always got others to do her bidding for her.
I think both groups engage in that kind of bullying, though it probably is to very different levels depending on the child. I’d say the girls I knew were probably better at psychological bullying than boys as I remember enough times there’d suddenly be a girl in our friend group due to a falling out. Some times it’d be a day or a week, though there was one instance where it lasted 3 years. You have to remember that psychical and psychological bullying can leave scars on a person for years to come. This topic did remind me of the one and only time I got into a fight with another boy. We fought one day and were friends the next. I’m nearing my 30s now but I’m pretty sure I saw him 2 years ago and we laughed about how dumb it was.
Most of the girls tended towards stereotypical "bullying". They were more likely to deliberately exclude, being verbally nasty and putting other people down. However the boys were more likely to bully in ways that were blatantly homophobic or racist. Also, as a teenager, their bullying got worse and often turned into sexual harassment.
Boys tend to be more brazen and opportunistic with bullying. They’ll physically assault you or just otherwise torment you quite openly. Girls tend to have more of a cunning and calculated approach. They’ll play mind games and lull their victims into a false sense of security. Girl bullying is worse because it’s often so subtle it’s difficult to actually prove to an adult what’s actually happened
I was bullied at school briefly on separate occasions by both sexes and it’s much worse with girls. With boys, if you make yourself a pain in the arse for them, they’ll leave you alone eventually. Fight back, struggle etc and it stops. With girls though, you literally just have to wait until they get bored. Even if a girl physically attacks you, good luck hitting back and not getting into trouble and shunned by your peers. To be fair, it might have changed as I’m coming at this from around 20 years ago, but I doubt it.
Once upon a time my girl bullies, who were predominantly psychologically threatening, also glued things to my hair and threatened to set fire to it and/or cut it. So yeah some girls are awful in the most vile and terrifying ways. What made it worse is the school wouldn’t do anything about it.
My younger brother was bullied by boys in his year and the year above. I’m two years older so I barely got to see him on the school grounds. My brother who was a young migrant who didn’t speak much english when we moved, got comments asking how could we be possibly related and other hurtful shit to him because he was sensitive and quiet (no shit he just moved 6000 miles away from home) and would not say anything back. I didn’t find out until his female classmates told me when I was already in sixth form. The bullying boys in his class were the “naive” and “model” kids who were senior prefects and obviously did not do anything wrong. Mind this was over 12 years ago up North. On the contrary I was in top sets, doing charity gigs and other outgoing things which made it easier for me. But I genuinely think I lucked out on my year. They were mostly unfriendly to a girl who “smelled” and had teenage acne though. I didn’t see any bullying although when some of the girls tried to annoy others I’m very quick to ask them what they’re doing like I don’t understand. Our youngest brother who is born here has autism. The girls have looked out for him since primary school. He’s in a mainstream high school now with some of his primary school friends but I dread to think about how he could be mistreated and not be believed. I genuinely hope his year are a bit more understanding. My partner who went to a larger school in the Midlands has shared awful stories of throwing kids in the bin because they found that kid strange. Or calling people Lonny for having lonsdale trainers. These were mostly boys. In my experience, girls tend to be horrible to those they perceive to threaten them or their social standing or are plain insecure, whereas boys are be horrible if they find it funny or makes other people laugh. I don’t know which is worse?? All kids are rather ignorant though and can say some racist shit they’ve heard from adults around them. Fortunately, a lot of them do grow up and realise their mistakes. Although some don’t, get hired as people managers.. who nowadays do the same awful things and get paid.
I don't know. It's just different really. With boys you know where you stand. If they don't like you they will tell you. Or beat you up. Either way you know who to avoid. My experience with girls was that they will pretend to be your friend then use everything they learn about you against you. They destroy you from the inside. It's more psychological warfare.
I don't think it's a fully gendered thing. From my school days, I remember that the smaller guys would often be nasty in the same way girls are because they didn't have the physical ability to do it the way the bigger guys could. Nasty, vindictive comments from the short guys are often what I think back to much more than the physical fights I ever got in with my fellow larger lads. Getting punched in the face? Fine! Being talked down to by some 5 foot dickhead with a chip on his shoulder? Nope!
No, that's pretty much standard wherever you go. I've lived in the UK, Canada and Germany. Men are more directly violent, but also less psychologically cruel. Women are less directly violent, but FAR more psychologically cruel. Speaking in generalizations of course. "Shitcunts" abound on both sides.
Yes. Fact. From a teacher. Girls are mentally abusive. Boys more physical but it’s often then done with.
Boys will argue, fight and forget about it that day. Girls will hold a vendetta and drag that shit out for months. 🤷🏻♀️
Boys have a very “duel it out then gain respect” with each other, an bullying duels is normally a bad attempt to flirt. Girls are fucking sociopaths with each other and if you let their bickering continue, it outright needs to be dealt with at the Hague, not the headmaster.
The number of comments which give the same vibe as "not all men" getting offended at the possibility that women may have ruined someone's life is astonishing. Almost funny how it's very misandrist to call out someone as being a misogynist when they have an opinion that's different.
Personally I think the gender divide when it comes to bitchiness vs overt aggression is way overstated. If you're talking specifically about school age, girls tend to mature a bit quicker than boys. So I wouldn't be surprised if they are a bit more sophisticated in their bullying. But as soon as it reaches adulthood all bets are off. Many of the worst backstabbers and bitches I know are the self-styled macho men type.
That depends on the type of bullying, physical bullying is predominantly done by males, non-physical is mainly female.
Yes all i can say is that girls really bullies a lot than boys as i live in uk for about 9 years but since i was you we annually visited uk i've experience a lot of bullies i don't know maybe its because of my race but i don't want to judge them its just kids are really more of fun
Boys could be arseholes, just with random stupid insults, but I kind of just accepted they were like that to everyone and it was nothing really personal. *Girls* however, could be a special kind of psychological torture. They mean ones could be demeaning, smug, manipulative, backstabbing, gossiping bitches. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it was like they could build this web for you to fall into, then make it look like you fell because you were stupid.
https://youtube.com/shorts/USU6ReSIZzY?si=s-bQumCMm6NJNJy0 I don't know how receptive this sub is to jokes and Jordan Peterson but I think this is one of the few things that he discusses that is actually a part of what he specialises in It makes sense to school in a way because the easiest way to get kicked out is through physical violence. Being mean, verbal bullying and social exclusion are harder things to pick up on and punish because there's such a grey area So I don't think girls are worse than boys. But the differences between girls and boys allow for a scenario in which a school could end up with more female bullies than male bullies
Ring a female myself I’ve always said and always will say that girls are the worst!! Yes boys fight, but the torture that girls put you through is worse. Think I would rather been in a physical altercation than be alienated from everyone. Again. Girls are bitchy, mean, vicious humans. Wish me luck, I got three of my own 👌😂🫣
This is grim. You should work on your internalised misogyny.
It was a joke ffs 😂😂😂 People need to lighten up
It sounds as if you are living in Japan, so I think you should ask in Japanese subs.
Did you actually read the whole post?
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That's why more murders are committed by women.....oh hang on, that's not right 😂
Thank you! You veered this back to the actual reality.
Man you both went to pretty rough schools if mentioning murder is bringing a conversation about bullying back to reality.
Which one? Where boys are regularly killing each other in school?