Dear Robert,

I've experienced a severe case of bullying
at work which to this day I still bear
the scars. However it was from
two females - so I won't discuss my case
on this thread of yours which is about
male bullying of males. I also experienced
bullying from my female maths teacher -
who took a great delight in mispronouncing
my name at school - and having the class
laugh at me - to this day I also have a
mental block when it comes to mathematics.
She tried to convince me that - I was stupid,
and totally worthless.
Luckily, I was able to move out of
her class.

My sons have experienced male bullying. It was
when we enrolled them in a private all male
Catholic school. And after one particularly bad
incident - in which our younger boy came home
severely beaten - that we asked the school for
an explanation of the incident - the only
resolution we received was a letter telling us
to more or less mind our own business, and how
dare we bring into question the authority of the
school and teachers. We ended up taking our children
from that school - and have never regretted doing so.

My son later told us a story about a boy named Witt
who gave the wrong answer to a simple question.
The teacher said, "With a little more brains you'd
be a half-Witt." The class burst out in thunderous
laughter. The boy blushed and went meekly to his seat.

From that time on, the children teased Witt
mercilessly. They followed the teacher's lead and
improvished on it. They called him, "Half-bright,"
"Half-idiot," et cetera. They made his life
unbearable, until he finally also changed schools.

That particular teacher is still there teaching as
far as I know.

A teacher, like a surgeon, must never slash haphazardly.
The damage may be permanent.

There is nowhere to turn when a teacher either participates or goes so far as to instigate bullying.

Do male teachers use bullying as a technique of 'toughening up' a boy they regard as too shy or quiet? What purpose do these adult bullies serve if any?

I understand why children bully others: its about power and control, compensation for something lacking in their own lives or just imitating their parents. Unfortunately, bullying is a behaviour many do not grow out of.

When bullies are young men:

Where 'victims/initiates' are forced to endure hazing? For acceptance into a club/gang/social situation? How do males cope with this type of group bullying?

If one is an adult white male of reasonably athletic proportions, then surely there is no need for these men to bully. They already hold a greater status, which others have to earn. They can walk into a car-repair yard and will not be treated as ignorant (unless they reveal themselves as mechanically challenged) but at least the assumption is there. When someone is already the alpha-male why would they need to continue intimidating behaviour?

This is difficult, keeping the topic to male on male bullying, when I know there is a whole painful world of female on female bullying and I really want to avoid cross gender bullying; there's enough of that already on OLO.

To R0bert, Belly, Robp and other men who have yet to post, what do you do when you see someone being bullied?

R0bert has already mentioned not being believed. I have experienced the same. If this has been the case, how would this increase the difficulty of not going to someone else's aid?

I raise these questions knowing there is no ideal solution, but to create thought and maybe some people can talk about the action they have taken. Like changing schools - which is sad - the bully should be the one to leave, but this rarely happens.

In John Clarke's book, "Working with Monsters", the author admits that there may be no other course of action than removing oneself from the situation.

My brothers went to an all male Catholic School with some very rough Christian Brothers.

While my younger brother was excellent at sport, he was dyslexic and had hard times academically. The Brothers bullied him mercilessly in the classroom, sending him to stand in a corner for hours because he could not say his times tables like the other boys. Some of the other boys bullied him for being 'dumb'.

My older brother was hopeless at sports and was bullied by all the Brothers and the other boys for not being 'manly' enough to play football or basketball well. He was considered a 'nerd'.

Eventually my parents pulled them out of this college and sent them to the local co-ed college, where they both thrived.

One is now an electronic engineer and the other is a chef. They both still bear the emotional scars of that early bullying.

However, they are certainly doing better than many of those loving Christian Brothers who were eventually jailed for child abuse.

>>To R0bert, Belly, Robp and other men who have yet to post, what do you do when you see someone being bullied?<<

Severin,

It depends on the situation. I'll be honest and say whether I do something or not depends on how close it comes to hurting me. And that is balanced up against the odds that you have of actually winning the battle. I'm not really into being a martyr for a cause, so I will mostly wait for an opportunity rather than take up a battle I can't win. That goes for helping both myself and someone else I see getting bullied.

The reality is if you take up a cause you can't win, you run the risk of having things get worse.

PS: I did once report a public servant bus driver for aggressive driving and driving past gaping passengers at stops who didn't hail the bus even though his was about the only one that serviced that stop. Particularly gruff and arrogant piece of work, he was, who got up my nose. I remonstrated with him when he took off too fast from a stop and simultaneously did a hard right turn after just picking me up, slamming me into a pole. When he was about to let me off at my stop, he insisted that, as it was his bus, I had to apologise to him. When I apologised to him for my tone, I said he should apologise for ignoring his passengers. He didn't want to concede the point so I wrote a letter to the Government and he got a talking to and a note on his file. The look on his face when he next saw me was pure gold.

My father was a company trouble shooter, so we moved about a bit, to branches doing badly. I went to 17 different schools. AS a new chum, from out of town, the local boss kid, [bully perhaps], would have to assert his authority, in the first day or two.

After I came home bawling a few times, my father, who was into such stuff, taught me to box, & when that didn't work that well, to brawl. Over the years I then bashed up quite a few bullies, on my first day, at a new school.

When I then showed no interest in taking over the bully roll, they then had no idea of how to deal with me. After a while they would ignore me. I became a competent footballer, & cricketer as a way to establish myself in a new school. Luckily, the family got sick of moving, & my last 4 years were in one school. What heaven.

Years later, when my daughter got off the school bus crying, 2 days in a row, I took quick action.

The next day, with a borrowed 15 Ft stockwhip coiled over my sholder, I climbed onto the bus. The drivers face was a sight. Looking vaguely down the bus, at all the kids, I said something about taking flys off horses with the whip, & something about taking ears off, too.

My daughter was never bullied again, & the driver used to tell the kids that played up, that Mr Hasbeen wouldn't like it.

Nothing like a reputation, even if only contrived

Severin it depends how confident in making the call about bullying vs a mutual conflict and what options I have available. I don't see much real bullying in my day to day life, my workplace is generally pretty good in that respect (but I have heard second hand stories from friends ), in one case the individual concerned was head of the department and the bullying was to those in the level immediately below her.

When something has looked like a pattern at school for my son I've spoken to his teacher and asked that they watch out for the situation - that does seem to have helped.

The topic of on line bullying crops up on OLO often but I think getting into that would be a great distraction from what is being shared here.

R0bert