Many people can easily remember the good memories from high school, but for every good memory there are 5 bad ones. Many of these bad memories are cases of bullying. A lot of my friends have had at least one case of being harassed or bullied by another classmate. My girl friends have all been sexually harassed and my guy friends have been harassed violently. Although many schools have taken measures to ensure bullying is being stopped, it is still a very pressing matter in today’s society. The reasons why violence in schools is still very prominent is because many of these cases are not being reported, young boys are taught to fit certain stereotypes of what a man should be and how girls show dress and act, and lastly, school boards aren’t giving children the support they need to help stop this bullying. The biggest aspect to violence in schools is because society teaches young boys to be heroes and fight their own battles.
Bullying is still a very present matter because many of these cases are not being reported. According to the documentary “The Mask You Live In” one out of four boys have encountered harassment or violence, but only 30 percent report their incidents. This reason is because boys are scared that they will be considered “wusses” or “babies” for tattling on their peers. They have been taught by society to man up and deal with bullying with violence. This aggression stems from the fact that boys and young men are holding in all their emotions because society and their peers say that they can not show emotion.
Boys and men can not show their emotions because ever since human beings distinguished between male and female, there have been differences for each gender and what they are expected to do in their day-to-day lives. Women are stereotyped to be housewives and men are supposed to be the money makers. This is why violence is such a big part of a young man’s life. It has been drilled into their brains ever since birth to be violent and to not let other men step on you. It is also drilled into men’s brains from society that sexual harassment in any shape or form is okay. Rape culture is a very real concept that women must face at least once in their lifetimes.
Lastly, school boards do not do their best to help these situations. This is more of a biased opinion because there are no statistical facts to prove this, however many people, including myself, can agree to this statement. A friend of mine was sexually assaulted at my school. Usually the principal would do something more than just suspending the perpetrator. and the school board did the bare minimum to help her. They suspended the boy and that’s all. They could have done more to reprimand this boy, but they did not. These issues have not only been presented in my high school but other of my friends’ high schools. At my neighboring high school there was an incident where a boy beat up another boy and the principal did nothing other than send the boy to detention. These situations are very common in high schools but there is a mix of students not reporting and the school not doing many things to help the victims of these terrible situations.
In conclusion, the things that we need to do is to stop making violence our social norm and making the school boards stricter on these violent acts. There are some possibilities that these boys are suffering, and they release their tension an anger by violence. It is not okay for these people to do this but if they were helped, they would not do these terrible acts. If it were a social norm for boys and men to be emotional then our lives would be so much more different than how it is right now.
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 