Effects of Bullying
Introduction
Having been recognized as an expected yet serious problem in the society, bullying is no longer considered as new problem in the society. Bullying can come in various forms and it can happen to both children and adults. There is a high likelihood that most adults and children each have stories to share which relates to each of their personal experiences either of bullying, or victimization, or witnessing acts of aggression toward others. As perennial as it can get, becoming a victim of bullies has often received the notion of being viewed as a normal part of growing up, or as some have put it, a rite of passage for children and adolescents. In the late 1970s, perspectives began to change as this outlook was looked into by the different researches. It sheds new light on the damaging effects on youths’ growth and development with respect to bullying and victimization. An increase in the awareness of bullying and victimization as well as how it resulted to be a widespread societal problem has been the initial outcome of the innovative research which has encouraged other research on this phenomenon. The beginnings of research on this social issue have been primarily conducted in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries for a number of years. As the research has been shared with other experts the world over, it resulted to the spawning of the exploration on this topic and has reached other countries, including Japan, England, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and the United States. These countries have shown interest in the study of bullying and victimization and have begun research as early as the late 1980s.

What is Bullying? Bullying is defined as an aggressive behavior that is shown through the use of force or coercion in order to affect others. Bullying happens when the coercive behavior becomes habitual and already shows an imbalance of power. Bullying can come in many forms such as verbal harassment, physical attack or coercion to a specific person in a repetitive manner. This act can be based on various grounds such as race, religion, gender or the sexuality of the person (Cambridgeshire County Council, 2012). Over the years, bullying has become quite a social issue that has spanned generations. Its effects are varied and have changed over the years. Recently, there has been a lot of media attention that has been going on in the violence that is happening in schools in the United States. Although most of the events that are presented by the media are focused on shootings, there are other issues within the U.S. schools systems that are not given focus but exist. School violence, bullying and a whole lot more of these issues remain unaddressed. This violence does not affect students alone, but the educators and the entire school as well. Preventing incidents like bullying and physical and verbal attacks are the responsibility of the school educators. It is the responsibility of teachers to look after the students even if they have already stepped out of the classroom.
Forms of Bullying Bullying can come in a variety of form and it knows no gender, age and status. Bullying among school children is a common occurrence. For many people, bullying is said to be a normal part of the daily life of school children, which can pass like a normal phase of growing up. However for some individuals, bullying can have long-term effects. Different forms of bullying can have different effects on the individual and sometimes it can range from short-term effects to long-term ones. Sexual Harassment Sexual harassment among students has become an issue in American schools. Sexual harassment by students from fellow students is becoming more common these days, which has prompted district officials to look into their policies regarding sexual harassments to address the issue among students and their peers. According to the study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the sexual taunting of elementary boys of girls have are the main reason for the emergence of sexual harassment cases in schools (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 1993). Unwanted sexual attention is the definition of sexual harassment. Acts of sexual harassment include leering, pinching, fondling, grabbing, suggestive verbal comments, spreading sexual gossip, subjecting someone to sexually oriented materials as well as pressuring the other party for dates and/or sexual activity. To some extent it may lead to unwelcomed physical contact that is sexual in nature, sexual assault, and rape. Not all forms of sexual harassments are reported to school officials, especially the ones that have lesser forms. The truth regarding this is that many people perceive this as a normal behavior among teens, which is why it is being ignored. However, it has come to the attention of educators that these occurrences can create an impact on how students behave in class. Sometimes, it becomes a reason why some students drop out of a program or class to avoid certain school situations, thus creating a severely negative impact on the educational experience of the student. Although students, especially those in higher education are engaging in sexual relationships, many of them are not yet aware of the complexities of it. This then leads to many students especially female students to experience acquaintance rape or date rape. Date rape is referred to as an assault or attempted assault that is usually committed by a new acquaintance involving sexual intercourse without mutual consent (Curtis, 1997). What constitute rape is very difficult to grasp for the reason that it is reflective of both the political and sociological differences on how gender roles are viewed by the society. The difficulty of defining what date rape is comes in the confusion of how a perceived normal male sexual behavior should be and what a woman’s willingness to engage in a sexual activity is ought to be. Even adults are finding it hard to define how a date rape is, much more for students who are inexperienced when it comes to sexual relationships. Homophobia Gender issues not only comprise of issues between heterosexual males and females. Homosexual females and homosexual males are also affected by the issue. Bullying among homosexual students is the most common issues that these students encounter on a daily basis. According to a survey among teachers on their perspectives regarding homophobic bullying, about 90% of these teachers say their students are bullied, harassed or called names because of their sexual identity (Tickle, 2009). Telling someone “you’re gay” is the most common language that these children are using to call other students that are homosexual. For an ordinary individual, school authorities may have a say on this issue and expect to interfere with the matter. However, the survey have stated that school staff are very silent about discussing such issues because teachers are unsure whether to discuss such issues with their students (Tickle, 2009). LGBT students, which is a more appropriate label for gay students since being gay encompasses more than just one stereotype, are faced with all the scars of dealing with homophobia is school every day. The problem with this is that they do not get the support that they should have from school administration. These students face tremendous taunting everyday from fellow straight students who shin the idea of homosexuality. Homophobia affects students in a variety of ways. As an adolescent, these students develop their self-concepts at this stage, much like every normal adolescent would. However, as they grow older, with all the taunting and prejudice in their surrounding, they tend to become adults that still carries this notion of self-concept that being gay is unacceptable in the society. This then leads to a lowered self-esteem as an adult. Although this may not be true to all adult gay people but a majority of them who experienced prejudice during their teen years are likely to experience that. LGBT students are often made to believe that what they chose to be or what they are is wrong, strange or hated. If this continues on, the students’ adult life would be filled with anxiety and self-worth issues. This will also lead to feelings of inferiority around everyone, including other members of the LGBT community (Cox, 2010). School Shootings Over the decades, there have been many reports of school shootings in many American Schools. One of the most notorious of all these is the Columbine High School massacre that happened on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Columbine, Jefferson County, Colorado. The incident involved two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who embarked on a killing spree that took the life of 12 students and 1 teacher and injured almost two dozen students. The issue gave light to several issues in American schools including the accessibility of young people to guns, effects of violence to young adults and children, subcultures in schools and most of all bullying. There were many factors that can be attributed to the provocation of the two perpetrators; Harris and Klebold. Bullying is said to be one of the reasons why the two students went on a killing spree. According to reports, the climate of bullying coming from jocks and athletes are extremely high on Columbine High School and many teachers and school administrators had long condoned this climate of bullying. It has been reported that these acts of bullying could have been the factor that triggered the extreme violence shown by Harris and Klebold, whom were also said to have received homophobic remarks from bullies (The New York Times, 1999). Cyber bullying The young people of today have infinite access to all materials online and with the power of media and social networking sites; people can gain access to the lives of everyone simply by accessing one’s profile page in social networking sites. This can also lead to people having the capacity to pose threat to the lives of other people easily via electronic means in the form of cyber bullying. Overt the past few years, cyber bullying has been increasing rapidly due to the advancement of technology. Cyber bullying can be a continuous threat on one person to another that can escalate to the creation of fear in the victim. Cyber bullies have the ability to mask their identity as oppose to the traditional form of bullying wherein the bully is a known person. The objective is the same; to put the other person to shame, humiliation and inflict emotional harm. The worst thing about cyber bullying is that it can spread fast like wildfire, wherein consequences can be very drastic. Sometimes victims come to the point wherein they commit suicide due to the humiliation that it can bring (Puar, 2010). In the adult perspective, cyber bullying can lead to cyber-stalking or cyber-harassment, which indicates that bullying using the internet knows no boundaries to the point that it can accompany the person wherever he goes. Since technology today is mobile in the form of laptops, mobile phones and other mobile electronic devices, the bullying may occur anytime even at home. Normally, victims of bullying seek refuge at home. However, since technology can be brought at home, the bullying can take place even inside the place where a victim can consider as his safe zone (Puar, 2010). Workplace Bullying Acts of bullying also exists outside of the academe. In the professional world, bullying also prevails. Bullying in the workplace have similarities with how bullying takes place in schools. It can be a repetitive behavior that inflicts physical or emotional harm to the individual in the form of threat, humiliation, intimidation and sabotage. Although there are no definite definition of how workplace bullying takes place. Women, according to statistics, are more likely to experience bullying in the workplace. Discrimination is considered as a form of workplace bullying and can come in a variety of ways. Some may be subtle and some can be as blatant as not allowing women to participate in the decision-making process of the organization or not allowing women to sit in the company board of directors (The Role of Women in a Business World). This form of bullying, which can also be referred to as sexism, still plays a major role in how women are treated today in the society especially in the professional world. Glass ceiling in particular is referred to as the situation where the advancement of a qualified person within the organization is hampered at a lower level due to some forms of discrimination. Although the term “glass ceiling” refers to a variety of discrimination in the workplace, commonly it is the female population of the organization that fall victim to this form of discrimination. Women have been attributed to the substantial progress of closing the gap between genders in the managerial and executive positions, according to the report of the International Labour Office in Geneva (International Labour Office, 2004). Despite this however, many women are still barred from taking on top level positions in most organizations, whether in the public or private sector. Most women only hold 2-3 percent of top jobs in many business corporations despite their abilities to lead people and to run a business and this is due to glass ceiling. According to the explanation provided by the Hansard Society Commission, the glass ceiling is created because of the way the working structure in the organization works. Like mentioned, the patriarchal working structure prohibits women from taking on roles that were usually reserved for men. The working practices as well play a role in this scheme because if women are trapped within a very patriarchal practice, they will never get the chance to move up the corporate ladder. Lastly, the outdated attitude towards the role of women, which is due to the patriarchal structure and practice of the organization, will prevent top management to see past through the stereotype roles that women have been associated with. This makes top management become blinded and fail to see the skills and abilities of the individual, which are important in taking the roles that the women of today should have (Loughlin, 1999). In certain societies, bullying and inflicting harmful behavioral patterns to other individuals have escalated to a higher level that it has already came to the point of violation of human rights. The United Nations have reported that war torn African regions are using sexual violence as a form of war weapon and according to the UN; the act is becoming an epidemic. Rape as a war weapon is used by soldiers as a means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the people and bruise their morale, which is similar to the objective of bullying to intimidate and humiliate the person through acts of bullying. War rapes are often done in a systematic manner by the occupying soldiers and military leaders may encourage their soldiers to rape civilians. In Africa, many countries have reported war rape occurring in their countries. In Rwanda war rape has ceased to occur and in Sierra Leone and Liberia, cases of war rape have diminished. But what is bothersome and concerning is the rise of war rape in countries like Congo, Uganda and Sudan, where soldiers use war rape as a way to overthrow the government and to impose the power of the militia. Reports have said that in more than 40,000 women including children as young as three are raped and mutilated with objects like knives, sticks and even guns. The primary concern of human rights activists in these regions are the spread of HIV/AIDS and its effect on the lives of the women and children that were victimized by war rape.
Conclusion
Bullying has never ceased to exist in the society be it in schools or in the professional world. Imbalance of power is the primary factor in the existence of bullying. It may be difficult to abolish bullying because gaining control over the situation and policing every action that people does can be a very difficult task. What needs to be done is for people to become vigilant about the situation and become informed of what can be done to mitigate the effects of bullying. Every individual has the right to know and the right to know the ways on how they can protect themselves from bullies. Becoming attentive and being always on one’s guard will help in the process of mitigating the long-term effects of bullying. It must be always remembered that every individual has the right to express his own concern about the safety of his future from the effects of bullying and other harmful acts.

References
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Cox, A. (2010, March 25). Homophobia in America’s schools: How psychological warfare is adversely affecting LGBT students. Retrieved April 16, 2012 from http://www.sdgln.com/news/2010/03/25/homophobia-america-s-schools-how-psychological-warfare-adversely-affecting-lgbt-stud
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U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. (1993). Elementary School Sexual Harassment Incident. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights