Bullying and Harassment

Welcome to NWLC’s first weekly roundup for April. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, so I thought I’d kick things off by sharing a few ideas of how you can support victim of sexual assault and help raise awareness during the month. Also this week: our latest infographic, some lady athletes making history, and more.

All throughout April, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center will be providing resources and ways to get involved with Sexual Assault Awareness Month, or SAAM for short. The 2012 SAAM Day of Action passed us already (it was this past Tuesday, April 3), but you can see what other current campaigns are in the works here, including Tweet About It! Tuesdays every Tuesday in April at 2pm ET. SAAM activists from around the country will be using the hashtag #Tweetaboutit for these weekly chats, in addition to #SAAM and #SAAM2012.

You can also check out Take Back The Night’s calendar to see if there will be a TBTN event in your community in the coming weeks.

Yesterday we published a new infographic detailing what tax breaks for millionaires cost. The

 average tax cut per millionaire in 2012 – $143,000 – could help support a number of programs, like Head Start or Pell Grants. Want to learn more? Check out the graphic – it opens in full size if you click on it.

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My 5-hour trip to a New York theater this weekend was the longest I have ever traveled to watch a movie, but the 1.5-hour “Bully” film was an even longer emotional journey.

It’s hard to sit in a theater and eat popcorn as kids are being brutalized and taunted in front of your eyes. “This can’t be happening,” you think, before remembering your childhood - it does. This isn’t a John Hughes’ movie. Jokes about “geeks” aren’t funny. It’s real life and kids go home thinking their lives are not worth living.

Alex, 12, is stabbed with pencils, strangled, punched and pushed, but it’s what he says that makes you really cry. When asked how the abuse makes him feel, Alex replies, “I don’t feel anything anymore.”

The film shifts between the stories of five children, capturing the struggles of these different families and their powerful stories in context of a systemic crisis. With more than 13 million children falling victim to bullying each year, the problem transcends geographic, racial, ethnic and economic borders.

It forces us to look at greater issues, including violence, homophobia, and a pervasive “kids will be kids” attitude that perpetuates bullying culture in schools, rather than focusing our anger on the faceless child issuing beat-downs on the skinny kid in glasses who has trouble making friends. Read more »

We’ve been celebrating and talking about the Affordable Care Act second anniversary all week long, so today I’m going to bring you some non-health-care-related stories. Here’s what you can look forward to: dunks in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, speaking out against street harassment, a new interview that follows up on last week’s bullying documentary on the Cartoon Network, and Amelia Earhart – found at last?

Who says the girls can’t play like the guys? Check out the video of 1-seed Baylor’s Brittney Griner dunking during the Bears’ March 20 NCAAW tournament win vs. 9-seed Florida. Baylor is now headed to the Sweet 16. Brittney’s the second woman to dunk during the NCAAW tournament, and this is the sixth dunk of her college career.

Cool as her moves may be, dunking isn’t Brittney’s favorite. Instead? “My big thing is blocked shots; that's my favorite thing to do.” And you know how the saying goes – offense wins games, but defense wins championships.

Speaking of the NCAAW tourney, in case you need it, here’s the latest bracket.

This week in our weekly roundup: a new documentary on bullying to air this weekend on Cartoon Network, Doonesbury on abortion in Texas, and the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

First up, I want to make sure you know that there’s a new documentary on bullying that will air on the Cartoon Network this weekend. Unlike Bully, the documentary that’s set to be released on March 30 (and is currently wrangling with the MPAA to have its rating dropped from R to PG-13), Cartoon Network’s Stop Bullying: Speak Up will air on television – making it very accessible to a wide audience.

The documentary features real stories from kids who’ve been bullied for a variety of reasons, so hopefully it will resonate with kids in school. It also features stories from some well-known people who advocate for ending bullying, including Cartoon Network’s CJ Manigo, Ali Sepasyar and Jackson Rogow, former NBA player Chris Webber, and pro BMX biker Matt Wilhelm. Bullying prevention expert Rosalind Wiseman will also answer questions before, during, and after the documentary airs. Read more »

On Monday, the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Justice (DOJ), six student plaintiffs, and the Anoka-Hennepin School District just outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, filed a landmark consent decree that resolved the plaintiffs’ claims that middle and high schools in the district failed to address pervasive bullying and harassment of students who failed to conform to gender stereotypes. The students alleged violations of a number of laws, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination — including sex-based harassment — in schools that receive federal funding.

In the Anoka-Hennepin School District, students who were or were perceived to be LGBT endured near-daily sex-based harassment, in some cases for years on end. They were subjected to awful slurs, were told by their peers that they were “sinners,” would go to hell, and should kill themselves. Tragically, some student in the district did take their lives as a result of the bullying and harassment. (For further details of harassment targeted at LGBT teens in the district, see the recent Rolling Stone article.)

The consent decree, if approved by the district court, will put in place many essential protections against sex-based harassment, including requirements that the district hire an expert consultant to review its policies and procedures, develop a comprehensive plan to prevent and addressed student-on-student sex-based harassment, provide improved training for both staff and students, and submit annual compliance reports to the DOJ and ED for five years. Read more »

 Happy Women’s History Month! All throughout March, we’ll be sharing quotes on Facebook to celebrate, so watch our page. Also this week in our roundup: The Oscars and the Bechdel Test, public breastfeeding, and a new documentary on bullying in schools.

Via Feminisim2.0 – The 84^th annual Academy Awards were broadcast last Sunday night. Say what you will about Billy Crystal’s hosting job, but a new video from Feminist Frequency hits the nail on the head about one of the most frustrating things about Hollywood: the lack of strong, fully-formed roles for women in blockbuster and award-caliber films. Specifically, this video takes a look at which of the films up for Best Picture passed the Bechdel Test. (Spoiler alert: not many.)

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Hi all, and welcome to another weekly blog roundup! This week we’ve got stories about some anti-choice bills in Virginia, a new video and call to action on SNDA,  an update on Samantha Garvey, some of the perils faced by pregnant women on the job, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure decision on Planned Parenthood, and some wrap-ups on blog carnivals we participated in this week, all after the jump. Read more »

“Amber Cole,” has been been a trending topic on Twitter and much-discussed in the blogosphere after a video of a 14-year old girl engaging in oral sex with a male classmate, with another boy looking on, was posted online and immediately went viral a week and a half ago. (It turns out that her name is likely not actually Amber Cole; her real name has not been disclosed.) Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube allowed the video to remain online for four days.

Amber quickly became the subject of online gender-based bullying on her Twitter page—people called her a “slut,” “ho” and other names and asked her for sexual favors. She had to change schools as a result of bullying and harassment. (Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding, covers gender-based harassment and bullying, but it’s not clear how much of the bullying was done by classmates, as opposed to random jerks on the internet.) Read more »