Normative cruelties and gender deviants: The performative effects of bully discourses for girls and boys in school

Abstract

Since the 1990s the educational community has witnessed a proliferation of 'bullying' discourses, primarily within the field of educational developmental social psychology. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative interview data of primary and secondary school girls and boys, this article argues that the discourse 'bullying' operates to simplify and individualise complex gendered/classed/sexualised/ racialised power relations embedded in children's school-based cultures. Using a feminist poststructural approach, this article critically traces the discursive production of how the signifiers 'bully' and 'victim' are implicated in the 'normative cruelties' of performing and policing 'intelligible' heteronormative masculinities and femininities. It shows how these everyday gender performances are frequently passed over by staff and pupils as 'natural'. The analysis also illustrates how bully discourses operate in complex racialised and classed ways that mark children out as either gender deviants, or as not adequately performing normative ideals of masculinity and femininity. In conclusion, it is argued that bully discourses offer few symbolic resources and/or practical tools for addressing and coping with everyday school-based gender violence, and some new research directions are suggested.

Constructing respectability from disfavoured social positions: exploring young femininities and health as shaped by marginalisation and social context. A qualitative study in Northern Sweden

“…Hence, norm-breaking femininities could be ‘respectable’ and health promoting by constructions of being rebellious and strong, and demonstrating resistance to traditional and ‘conservative’ constructs of girls and women as entirely ‘nice’ and ‘there for others’ [34]. Coming from subordinated social positions, and despite lack of social support, the women constructing norm-breaking and independent femininity were forced to show strength to uphold their respectability as worthy mothers and equal women.…”

“…Ringrose and Renold [34], as well as other scholars, describe the idealised cultural expectations for girls (‘the normative subject position girl’) to perform ‘niceness’. This means being good, caring, nurturing, sexually innocent, and respectable, as well as being ‘supportive’, ‘non-competitive’ and ‘there for you’ (p. 1730).…”

"Blanditos, débiles y sumisos”: La feminización de las víctimas de bullying

“…De forma que, si la víctima es un hombre, éste, a través de discursos heteronormativos, será automáticamente "feminizado, ocupando así uno de los "puestos más bajos" en el "ranking" de la jerarquía del aula (Epstein, O'Flynn y Teldford, 2003). En esta línea, si los niños sufren victimización por parte de sus iguales, entre otros motivos, por transgredir las rígidas normas asignadas a su género masculino, tal y como se ha puesto de relieve en las pioneras investigaciones sobre esta temática (Young y Sweeting, 2004), esta victimización va a enfatizar todavía más su "feminización" incrementado el riesgo de ser agredido sistemáticamente (Ringrose y Renold, 2009).…”

“…En esta línea, el trabajo que aquí se presenta pretende problematizar el discurso clásico del bullying o maltrato entre escolares, poniendo de relieve que éste tipo de situaciones de maltrato entre escolares constituyen muy habitualmente un efectivo instrumento que los y las estudiantes manejan para crear, controlar y consolidar las normas sexuales y de género que podrían enmarcarse dentro de lo que Butler (1990) ha denominado "La matriz heterosexual" donde género (masculinidad/feminidad) y orientación sexual (heterosexualidad/homosexualidad) son ambos jerárquicamente y opuestamente organizados. En una perspectiva de trabajo escasamente explorada en el contexto español, pero que ha dado fecundos resultados fuera de nuestras fronteras (Lahelma, 2002;Renold, 2005, Ringrose y Renold, 2009 …”

Slut-shaming, girl power and ‘sexualisation’: thinking through the politics of the international SlutWalks with teen girls

“…Indeed this is a phenomena that has played a large part in the research literature on teen girls' Gender and Education 335 sexual regulation from each other and from boys in their peer group in the international educational literature on girlhood and adolescence (Cowie and Lees 1981;Hey 1997;Kehily 2002;Tolman 2002;Ringrose 2008) and for young girls in primary schools (Thorne 1993;Renold 2002Renold , 2005Bhana 2005). Because we study and critique the developmental discourse of relational aggression between girls (Ringrose 2006), and the sexual regulation of femininity in tween and teen cultures (Ringrose and Renold 2010), this was perhaps the most poignant message of the SlutWalk for us; the refusal of slut as a signifier of shame, in particular, the attempt to explicitly transform it through mass political action.…”