Independent Study

2010
Discrimination against Women: Does
discrimination and bullying affect girls in grades
5th- 8th?

Elise
5th grader at Towne Meadow Elementary
 Just think, you are an average girl in middle school. You don’t hate school, you
actually enjoy it. You hang out with your friends, get a locker, and just have to deal with the
work. One day, you sit down in French class and find a small sticky note taped to your desk.
You unfold it and discover it says, “You suck, never talk to me again” written in your best
friend’s handwriting. What is going on? Is it the beginning of bullying and discrimination?
Does this affect you and other girls your age? YES! It can make a girl feel badly about
herself, about how she looks, and about how she acts. It can affect her schoolwork
indirectly, and it can really affect her social life, directly.

Bullying as Gender Discrimination?

Bullying is a form of gender discrimination because boys and girls choose to bully
based on general information, like outward appearance. Bullying can happen when a kid
chooses to hurt another kid. It can make a kid unfocused because her mind is filled with
thoughts about what is going on and if it is really true like “Am I really as ugly as Amber says
I am?” or thinking how much that hurt your feelings. Something like that can fill their
minds. They can think of all the things that happen or dwell on these things. It is unhealthy
to do this and causes stress and many setbacks to a girl’s life. The girls become unaware
sometimes of what is happening after dwelling on these subjects. Wouldn’t you?

Relational Aggression

Girls and boys can both use hands and words to hurt girls, but girls use something
called relational aggression, the weapon of friendship. This is VERY powerful against girls
because friendship is one thing girls just don’t live without! There are different ways to use
relational aggression. One way, is to say “If you don’t do ___________ (Blank) I won’t be
your friend anymore!” That is so powerful. It can put girl’s friendship in jeopardy. That is
really hard for a girl. Think about it. What if the girl this is happening to were you? That is
why bullying makes long and lasting effects on girls. Their social lives are at stake in this
situation. Another way of relational aggression is when there are more than 2 best friends

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and some of them get in a fight. One girl may say stuff to bribe to take their side of the fight
and may again threaten not to be your friend anymore. (Simmons, 2010)

School

An extremely effective thing is bullying or discrimination is when it is during school.

It can distract the girl from their school work. When just recently bullied girls may take long
trips to the bathroom to get away from bullying and not think about their schoolwork.
They will keep dwelling on what happened to them. Also some girls may skip school or act
sick so they can stay home away from what is happening at school. The girls may also feel
unhappy with themselves, like feeling bad about how they look or act, if the bully says
something mean about how the girl looks or how they act.

Mom

Discrimination is really effective, especially when your mom and you are
discriminated against. One thing is when a kid’s mom is being your typical regular mom.
They stay home when kids are sick, cook, clean, do laundry and all your typical around the
house jobs. You may say “How does this affect the kids?” . Their father may not ever do any
of this work and the kids may get a lot less attention from their mom when she has to do all
the work. Also there is violence against women so, the kid may see this violence happen and
that may scar the kids for life. Their father could also lash out at the kids! That causes many
emotional and stressful issues for a kid.

Afraid of a friend

What is the worst thing that has happen between you and your best friend? Have
they physically hurt you, called you inappropriate names, forced you to take blame for
something you didn’t do, forced you to hurt someone, to do something bad, or anything
along these lines? Is that a friend? Some kids are bullied by someone they thought was their
friend. The friends you have known since 3rd grade are not your friends anymore. Sometimes

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girls are once bullied by their friend then they make up again and this happens over and over.
This is a very good weapon. Some girls recognize they are being bullied, but they are too
afraid to tell a grownup or someone older that they are bullied because they are afraid the
bullying will get worse. They think they are tattling on the bully and that would give the
bully an “excuse” to bully the victim. In these cases the victim MUST speak out or the bully
may rise to the next level, like abuse. Bullying has no excuses really! It is unacceptable!

“The new girl”

You have probably heard “The new girl” before and you may have even been the new
girl, but when there is a new girl and someone is always mean to every new girl, this is a form
of discrimination! It can make the girl feel bad about herself and not like her new school.
Some female teens have had to move away to get away from the bullying. This can really
affect a girl’s social life and activities! Girls who are bullied may not have any friends and be
miserable all the time. This really takes an affect because when a girl has no friends, they have
nothing!

“She won’t win she’s a girl!”

I’ll bet you have heard something like that before. A lot of girls are discriminated
against just because their girls. Like the stereotype that girls are not as good as boys at math
and science. Girls are described a lot as bad at gym and sports phrases like “She throws like a
girl.” Or “I can’t fight her she’s a girl.” Being a girl has nothing to do with your skills. I
personally have a friend that is super involved in sports! Title IX fixed a lot of things, but
people still can say things that discriminate against women and girls. Title IX is a law passed
in 1972 saying that any child must be given the chance to do any sport or activity they want
to be involved in. It gave girls the opportunity to participate in more activities and be treated
a lot more fairly.

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 “Many . . . girls have faced obstacles, limitations, fears, doubts, losses, and tests of their
physical and mental endurance,” according to the book Gutsy Girls. (Tina Schwager, 2000)
This is very true! All girls will face stressful issues and challenges. Sports will involve a lot of
that. Girls who work hard will succeed in sports and not be bothered by the people that think
they are better than them. “Confidence is at least half of everything you do,” said Tara
Hamilton, a female wake boarder featured in the book Gutsy Girls. “To achieve success,
you’ve got to really want it,” explained Rachel Cook, Teen Athlete of the Year in 1997. “Girls
playing sports is not about winning gold medals. It’s about self-esteem, learning to compete
and learning how hard you have to work in order to achieve your goals.” — Jackie Joyner-
Kersee, member of the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and three-time Olympic
gold medalist in track and field” (Inspirational Quotes (from athletes)) These are all “Word
of Wisdom” for female athletes. They are all saying that your confidence and skill is what
really matters and when another person says something that doubts a female athlete’s skill,
most of the time it is just to make them make them feel bad about themselves. When
someone does this though, it can really affect and hurt a girl’s self-esteem in sports.

Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying is terrible! The victim may not know who is the one saying terrible
things on the web. It could be their best friend or a bully that has a false identity. It can even
be a stranger. When a child doesn’t tell an adult about these strange messages and people
they trust it can just get worse. Things people say online can really lower a child’s self-
esteem. It can make them think about how they look and feel ugly. Cyber bullying has
caused people to feel like they are not wanted or needed in the world and has caused suicide.
There was a regular girl and she was sending and receiving messages from a boy she was fond
of, but she didn’t know that this wasn’t a boy at all. It was a girl and her mother posing a high
school boy to bully a girl in the daughter’s grade. The mother was helping her. Finally these

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messages became a weapon against the girl and this girl, Phoebe Prince received a message
saying something like “The world is better off without you.” She killed herself after that. She
thought it was true if her boyfriend was saying it. Yeah, Cyber bulling is bad and can REALLY
hurt girls.

Conclusion

So, you now can see why I think all of this can take serious effects on girls. It can
make them feel bad about themselves, become unfocused in school, not pay attention, and
it REALLY can affect their social lives at school and even at home. All these things I have
mentioned make a difference on girl’s lives all around the US. It’s a problem, and it is good
to be aware of the bullying and discrimination against young girls in the world.

Works Cited
(n.d.).

Background on Discrimination Against Women. (n.d.). Retrieved April 2010, from Do Something:
http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/background-discrimination-against-women

Luscombe, B. (2008, October 31). Pregnant Women Still Face Job Discrimination. Retrieved April 14,
2010, from Time: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1855441,00.html

Simmons, R. (2010, April 28). (E. Levy, Interviewer)

Tina Schwager, P. A. (2000). Gutsy Girls. Broadway,NY: Scholastic INC.

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