You see it everywhere in public groups, too. From church to community causes, where people are sticking behind their public "I'm a nice person" face while jabbing passive aggressively any way they can. This style isn't restricted to women at all.
Looking back, my autism actually defended me against female bullying because I simply did not notice other girls' attempts to ostracise me, and continued to be friendly with them like nothing was amiss. I think they got bored and gave up pretty quickly 😂
Same here. I was dense enough with subtle image, friendly enough with most, with a clear image of myself and dangerous when angry. The one girl who tried to bully me just gave up, and apparently felt in love with me? Never noticed, nor would I have dated her, because even if her bullying was innefective she was still an obnoxious girl.
@@somewhereatvinland Indifference is a signal of strength. The fact that you don't care about their opinion of you (from their perspective) elevated your status.
I’m a middle school teacher, and I initially started watching this to recognize potential bullying among my students.. but now I realize we have much more bullying among some of the teachers as well !
Yes, it's sad. I worked as a substitute teacher and some women really look down on substitutes and even the students do it. I just ignored them cause I was normally only there for a day.
@@awena8295 Very True and I have seen some of the TH-cam discussions in America with some school board where one of the women was very hard to listen to when a mother came forward about her daughter who was blantantly mistreated by some people in some inner circle. My heart went out to her because I had the mother of one of the boy bullies call me up on the phone to threaten me and my family. She wanted me to keep quiet or she hurt my family. I was only 10 years old and I became very over protective as a result of that phone call. It took me years of repressed memories to tell my parents. Then my parents said why didn't you come to us? I was 10 years old and terrified of this woman. I was a child of a very naive era. I didn't know what a rapist or child molester was back then. I do now! It took me years to figure out everything that happens. With all the therapy I received and I had a lot. I wasn't able to talk about it. As a child I didn't know how to communicate what happened to me that was so traumatic. Childhood/Teenage Bullies then rape. The bullying continued with some church people and adults. I have been through a lot.
The weirdest part to me is when women bond with other women by bullying. A group giggling about how ugly and pathetic someone is and now theyre friends. I've been particularly ostracized by not participating in gossip and bullying along with those women, and by opting out, I have made myself a fellow target. Thank you for this Dr.K. I'm also a woman who had experienced bullying from women, like many others here, and this conversation is so important
Me too! It was one of the primary reasons I got ostracised by my friend group in Grade 4 and continue to have issues making friends with women even as an adult.
You are not alone in this world. I have the same experience being bullied by group of skanks when I was in school. Now I am 29 and still suffering from the trauma. It really affected my social skills.
I have seen total strangers bond through bullying a third party who is casually minding their own business. It must be something primitive at work which has evolved over time. Mature souls don't bully either I notice. It's something that the immature and insecure seem to partake in, obviously in all circumstances as they have never addressed why they feel threatened by other people.
@@harmez7I would say the generalization is useful, but of course the world isn’t black and white. All categorization is useful, but it’s important to remember that categories and generalizations are never concrete.
@@ExcaliburCool it's also important to remember that there's a MASSIVE section of the population who doesn't care and will use categorizations as fact. We can say how it should be or is supposed to be all we want, but the vast majority of people do not care or think about anything beyond surface level.
@Blakoss true sociopaths and evil? Rarely. But every patient I interact with is having one of the worst days of their lives. That suffering brings out the darkest impulses in people. As far as the people I work with, everyone copes with that stress in their own way. The video really explained how the worst bullies I work with behave and illustrated a lot about how poor unit culture develops. You get one of these women into a leadership role, and it's just caustic to moral.
@@ForgottenNavigator Ive just heard a lot of stories about terrible people in that field and have had family members mistreated in the past. A lot of high school bullies like this vid talks about ironically get into care worker jobs
@Blakoss yeah, the high school mean girl pipeline to nursing is real. Even as a healthcare worker, I have a pretty firm rule against dating healthcare workers.
@@ForgottenNavigator And people don't understand why I hate going to the doctor's.... after overhearing nurses making fun of me for coming in for panic related symptoms, I avoid going to any medical office like the plague. I feel like the workers especially the female ones are so detached from everyone and don't know how to treat people like real human beings, just NPCs.
I think more men need to watch Mean Girls and The Devil wears Prada. I think those movies show GREAT examples of emotional/communication based bullying
@@Kanye2028Reall? I see men falling for these types a lot, because they weaponise sex and flirtation to gain them as allies. Most men fall for it. A lot of the time the aggression is reserved for women, but yes, men can be victim too, i just think it's far less common in general.
Found out the hard way (again) that so many people (especially women based friend groups) bond by bullying people. People who have slightly wronged them, they just don’t like, people they’re jealous of, and ESPECIALLY people who choose to opt out of the stupid social gossip game. If they’re talking trash about everyone else, chances are they’re talking about you as well. And when you confront them about it you suddenly become the problem for not giving into the gossip/bullying anymore.
I am distancing from my main group because one girl does it, and then a guy takes it and does the same multiplied. lucky they target bad people but what is going to be bad enough to be bashed like that? Idk. I do care about them tho 😢
@@justadummy8076that's because JP cultivates an audience that will use it as an excuse for misogyny, as Dr. K worried about in the first part of this video
It is even worse that girls often bully their own friends by ignoring them or putting them down in a subtle way. Random strangers bullying you isn't that big deal when you have a friend group to count on, but if everyone you know is ignoring you and think your opinion matters less, it is very hard to have any kind of social life. The worst thing is they don't realize they are bullying, often they think of you as a part of the friend group, just not as a close friend, though I have experiences where someone who obviously wanted to be friends with me, was bullying on and off. Like one day ignore completely and telling me she doesn't want me here and the other day asking me to come somewhere with her. Later on I realized it wasn't something I did, she was just manipulative like that.
@@analogueapples ok but I’m confused how is that bullying? Like I say no to hanging out with friends a lot bc I’m an introvert and I can’t handle hanging out with ppl every day. If they want to be ur friend then I think they’re not manipulating you they js can’t hang out with someone consistently. Maybe im wrong but im talking from experience bc I lost many friendships bc I can’t be social with ppl consistently and I want to know if ppl see that as bullying😭
I was bullied by mostly girls when I was in school. It was so insidious. It was mostly one girl pretenting to be my friend, but she was making fun of me, stealing from me, spreading rumors about me, etc. I would get weird looks from the other girls in my class. And everytime I would call it out, I was always the one who had to apologise. It destroyed my self confidence, even a decade later, I'm slowly betting better, but it's hard. Tomorrow, we are celebrating our 10 years out of school. Most of my old bullies will be there. And I can't wait to prove them that they couldn't destroy me.
@@SimsyHazel the party itself was pretty boring, not a lot of people came. But I had a good time with the ones who showed up. I was able to joke around with some of the girls, while some of them didn't really seem to be interested in talking. That one mean girl I was talking about in my original post didn't show up, the only thing I know is that she's a heavy smoker now lmao. I still managed to have a good time cuz some of my buddies were with me.
Bullying ruined my life. They'd go hot and cold. They'd get close to me, pretend to be my friends and then ignore me, spread rumours about me, turn people against me. school was hell. After all these years I have no friends, people getting close to me, being friendly feels dangerous. I know I'm not in school anymore and that I have control of my social interactions now, but I can't shake off that feeling that anyone getting close to me is doing so to hurt me.
Get close to people, you have to be super proactive. You will struggle with that lack of control feeling otherwise. Its not easy but you might find it rewarding.
It doesn't matter if you're in school anymore or if it's been too long. Trauma is still trauma. It affects our daily life, relationships. I understand you.
I feel you. What wild is they probably don’t think twice about it now. I was hugged by my bully years later like she didn’t torment me in school. She was so happy to see me. I’ve been building relationships with ppl online. No it exactly fill that human need for contact but it feels like a safer way to try and you can go to communities that you know relate on something. 💖
Letting your female friends get close - big mistake. They are for fun times and hanging out, going out etc but not real stuff. The whole "girls supporting girls" is a bunch of crap.
I experienced this as well and I feel the same way. I have zero friends, not even online, but I feel lonely anyways. So I tried to get close to others again, but whenever I do I end up pushing them away again. Which makes me feel guilty of it somehow. Somehow nothing changes that anymore.
In grade school, I always used to tell people that a boy bully might be willing to hit you, but a girl bully would make your whole life a living hell. As girl who got a bit of both, the male bullies were infinitely easier to deal with. Once they realized you were willing to hit back they usually quit. The girls were running friggin psy-ops out there. We had a couple bad female bullies in my grade growing up, and it was no coincidence that their parents acted exactly the same way. The bullies just treated us the same way they were treated at home.
True! I actually ended up becoming friends with my male bullies because they realised I could hit back just as hard. The female bullies? I ended up blocking them out of my life altogether (I used to be in their "friend" group) and to this day I don't even say hello to them on the street (it's been more than 10 years lol). They were pure evil.
The thing about the parents is SO true. I was bullied by a girl in elementary school and when the teacher approached the mom about her daughter’s bullying, the mom told another parent, “Well, some kids are leaders, and others are weak.” So that was the narrative this girl was told growing up.
Just yesterday I cried because of my female colleague. Today I saw this video and had a lightbulb moment. It took me 2 years to realize she’s an actual bully. She’s so passive aggressive that it screws up with your brain and you don’t know how to protect myself. Today, after she made me cry yesterday, she’s acting all sunshine and roses. This cognitive dissonance is screwup up my brain even more! Upd as I listen: It’s not just being pretty. It’s any threat - being perceived as smarter. Threatening to pull attention away from the bully. Etc.
Bullying victim here. Stand up for yourself as soon as possible. Don’t be scared, don’t be meek. Show them you will not tolerate that type of behavior. I let it slide for too long and pretended it didn’t bother me but would go home and cry. Took me 20+ years to heal. Do not let anyone ever make you feel lesser than, unworthy, devalued etc. you got this! 💛
Ya that didn’t work for me they made false claims about me to the police the investigation ruined my life I was eventually found innocent but it didn’t matter my reputation was ruined
@@Handlewithluv that’s so true, I’m 16 now, I started getting bullied mainly by these 3 kids 2 years ago, for some reason. I never did anything to them. I never stood up for myself and just pretended I didn’t hear the giggles, or felt the stares or even recognize their intentions. I always told myself I didn’t care, but every time they did something I would later cry in the bathroom. I’m still not 100% percent healed but I’m walking my way through it. The next year I got bullied by some other kids but these ones are just pathetic. I’m not the only person they did this shit with and honestly, people do the same to them too, and they can only act in groups. This year I’m with 1 of the kids that bullied me 2 years ago and his friends, who are more tolerable, they just follow this kid around bc they were friends with him before he became like that. I thought I was almost healed but I caught my heart skipping a beat when I saw a girl who looked similar to her. I could already imagine it her passive aggressiveness. Anyway, say something while you can people!!
@@JohnkyTonkbadonkadonk Holy crap, I hope the second person got many years in prison for what he did, he is clearly very dangerous, and I'm so sorry you went through that stuff in school without intervention
I’m a neurodivergent woman who experienced a lot of this throughout school.. it’s super insidious and really hard to recognise. I just always felt like there was something wrong with me and no one wanted to be my friend. I ended up hanging out with the boys because that kind of bullying was way more tolerable!
"...because that kind of bullying was way more tolerable" 😭 Oh goodness dear! I'm so sorry you went through the mess of the only choices being peers without the skills to be kind and accommodating!
@@immortal_inanna That's gaslighting. Litterally how women have been treated by men for centuries to be excluded from all types of jobs. It's weird that these days it's called 'female' bullying when that was a technique mostly used by men before women fought for their rights.
Yep. I’m a woman in her 40s. Bullied at school by the other girls, bullied at home by my stepmom and stepsister. Never had a female friend. And to this day I can’t talk to women outside professional environments without feeling judged and shamed and hated, even though I know logically and objectively when that is not the case, I still feel that way and can never relax around women.
Bullying in middle school destroyed me and turned me from a naive nice extrovert girl to an antisocial introvert. I struggle with trust issues, struggle to make and maintain friendship, have low self-esteem, and feel like a failure and a freak.
While therapy can help, it is a matter of trying a variety of social situations until you find something that works for you. As an adult you have more freedom to engage and disengage from social environments. You didn't become introverted, you experienced emotional scarring to the point you've needed to withdraw from your immediate community.
That's extremely relatable even though I had the same thing happen only as a man. Couldn't talk about it growing up because" how could big strong man" be bullied by girls? Girls treated me so badly up to middle school that it made me hesitate a lot when trying to date. I didn't get better until being a mid 20s dude. Sorry to hear this happened to you as well and hope you can make small but significant steps over time to get better.
Saaaame. I had asshole friends who dumped me in 5th grade and later on in middle school because I wasn’t cool enough for them and the bullying was so subtle but it felt like the worst thing ever at the time,
I’m glad you said being attractive is not all pretty privilege, but you can get really bullied by people who see you as prettier than them. It’s really sad because all I’ve ever wanted was friends but some people have treated me very differently once I lost weight and had a “glow up” after taking care of myself. I was bullied by my own sister and her partner, and it got so bad they were trying to exclude me away from MY PARTNER. It was insidious. I can never trust them again. Thank you for bringing this to light. This stuff is so important to talk about. My heart goes out to all of those who have been bullied. 💔💔💔
It happens to guys too. Middle school was hell for me and high school got a little better but as a socially anxious guy that got attention from girls, all the dudes at my school were determined to make my life miserable
I knew a girl who said that other girls would try to fight her at her school. She was also very pretty and a sweet girl. I suspected that it was because they were jealous of her looks.
@unionunicorn6776 I'm struggling with this right now... I was not very pretty for a long time and women were always very nice to me, but some things changed in my life physically and now I get tons of attention from men yet so many women are passive aggressive to me from the second I meet them. I don't even want relationships, I just want friends and this feels like hell. I miss when it was easy to make friendships because I wasn't being judged right off the bat
@@unionunicorn6776 last year (16) I was at the park spending time with my two younger siblings and I was on a swing just minding my own business and a group of mostly teenage girls and a couple of teenage boys who I didn't even know were coming up to me and one of the girls pointed out and said I looked ugly and that I did my makeup terribly when I didn't even do nothing and were being incredibly mean, the others didn't really do much aside from giggle but me being passive and more socially anxious just left the the park with my siblings without really arguing back while they were hitting their vapes
I have quite a lot of _"male attention"_ often, and women are never quite right with me. It also doesnt help that I've always been tomboyish, so on a personality level i get on better with guys. But being bullied by jealous women is SSOO real, no matter how much other women will try and deny it. Only thing is, then they judge you for not having female friends! I've tried so hard to have female friends I've had all this done to me. At this point, I'm convinced they just do it with the intention of isolating you.
Nobody really talks about how attractive females get bullied, especially if they are smart… thank you so much. I’m bringing this to my therapist and I think I just found a cure for my social anxiety
@@userdoijfoijd These bullies love to weaponise "pretty privilege" against you and people eat that shit up. My bully straight up told me she's jealous of me when it was just us. Later when she started attacking me verbally in front of everyone I told my other "friends" that she said that she was jealous of me and I thought that was where she was coming from. Big mistake. I was told I was arrogant to say that and mean.
by other attractive females though most of the time.... i don't get the recent trend of trying to make pretty girls victims when they've been the bane of mine and other "ugly" girls' existences since forever. i mean really how often do you see nerdy quiet unattractive girls bullying a pretty girl??
Lol. This recent trend of trying to make pretty girls victims is pathetic. I hope it stays in the West. How do you think girls considered unattractive get treated by everyone? I'd rather take that and be attractive any day than being unattractive and being treated like trash by everyone.
@@heartboba I don’t think its about ugly girls and pretty girls. All girls can get bullied. I was bullied by an „ugly” girl cause she used her insecure persona to make me out like I was the mean pretty girl. Narcissists can be pretty and ugly. I totally have had a lot of pretty girls bully me when I was „ugly” too at school. It can go both ways but its good to remember that just because you’re pretty now doesnt mean you are the problem or cant get bullied.
I’m glad someone is talking about this. There was an antisocial girl in my class all throughout primary and middle school. She was intelligent and incredibly good at manipulating people so she got good grades and was actually called an “angel” by the teachers. But she was also probably the most ruthless bully in the whole school. She bullied one girl for 9 years and completely destroyed her. But I still have trouble pointing out exactly what she did. I think women communicate non-verbally on a completely different level compared to men. And what she was essentially conveying to my friend, the girl who was her main target, was that she was utterly worthless, every second she possibly could. And she loved it, thoroughly enjoyed it. She was pure evil. And I still don’t understand how people didn’t see through her. I just do not understand.
I've seen this too. There are lots of nonverbal cues beyond eye rolling and fishhooks in the eyebrow. They'll subtly but clearly turn their body away from the target in a group setting and won't look at the target when they're speaking. They won't laugh at their jokes, or respond to their statements or even direct questions. Often they'll act as though what the target has said doesn't make sense or is stupid or strange. The group picks up on these cues subconsciously and it's nearly impossible to call out or prove. Groups of insecure women will follow suit and isolate the target. The only solution is to find someone who are more confident. They're more interesting to be around anyway.
These kinds of bullies usually have specific targets, whilst at the same time they are over the top nice, or fake nice, to everyone else to ensure they themselves have a good support group. They are incredibly manipulative and will often act like everyone's best friend, whilst at the same time subtly trying to weaken and break any strong bonds between others, and play them off against each other, in a sort of divide and rule strategy. Their aim is to ensure that everyone (except for their target) likes them more than they like anyone else. So they will then be the de-facto leader, and there won't be much united opposition. They then concentrate on trying to isolate and turn everyone against their targets by feeding people fuel for their negative emotions and attempting get them to direct this negativity at the target. This may take a couple of forms: 1) They feed the ego of others by telling them that they are superior to the target who is worthless in comparison to them. 2) They pick positive qualities that the target has and try to stir up jealousy and resentment against them. 3) They start false rumours that the target did something shameful, or something negative against members of the group, or has negative intentions towards them. 4) They try to emphasise how different the target is to the group and how similar they themselves are. 5) They love bomb everyone else, and exclude the target from as many activities as they can, whilst encouraging the rest of the group to do the same. Some people don't see what is going on, because from their perspective, the bully actually seems really nice to them. They don't have the same manipulative mindset, so they take the bullies niceness at face value, because they can't imagine that it could just be an act performed for ulterior reasons. Some might notice something is wrong, but as long as the bully is nice to them personally, they don't care about anything else, and others might also notice but simply not want to step in because they don't want the bully to turn their focus on them as well. Moreover, some people may just not want to get involved in what they see as other people's arguments or problems when they have their own problems to deal with. One other significant concept that bullies take advantage of is the phenomenon of "group think," whereby people in a group influence others to conform to group norms and patterns of thought. So, if the bully can manipulate the group to align with their ideas, then these ideas can become the generally accepted views of the group. Once that happens the group is basically an extension of the bully, unless you can muster sufficient resources to move them in another direction. So, often you will find that some of the most unpleasant bullies are quite popular and are thought of by most people as being incredibly nice. Personally, I've seen this a number of times myself, where the majority of people around me have been raving about how nice someone is, whilst in reality, that person was actually a manipulative troublemaker. Whenever I meet someone like this, I generally distance myself from them and minimise contact where possible. They are usually looking for attention and drama and I don't want to waste my time on petty spats with such prople. However, if I witness them trying to manipulate or bully anyone, I will try to steer things in the opposite direction by appealing to people's general sense of fairness and decency to make it embarrassing for the bully to carry out any negative actions. These bullies are usually keenly aware of their reputations. So, they try to operate in the shadows rather than doing anything publicly incriminating. It's not always possible, and sometimes, the only option is a confrontation. You may be able to shut them down. However, you need to pick your battles, and if you're not careful about this, you will always be at war with someone. There are also degrees of such behaviours, and some people exist on a spectrum of mild to severe bullying mentality. You might meet some people who seem truly 👹 whereas others might be okay most of the time, but will exhibit some bullying behaviours under certain specific conditions. So, it's not always black and white. There are a lot of shades of grey. In general, most people are transactional in nature. So, they will look out for their own interests more than they value any sort of shared moral code. So, the way to beat a bully is to become a person of value who can contribute more value to any group than the bullies can. Generally, bullies are selfish. So the main thing that they offer is flattery and fake praise. This is surprisingly effective, because it makes people feel good, but if you're offering something genuinely more valuable than a bit of flattery, you'll usually find yourself ranked above any bullies in the social hierarchy of the groups you are in.
Most people I have noticed do not pay much or any attention to what is going on unless outrightly visible & aggregious. Why underlying problems in churches, family or work never are addressed therefore never solved. Why people end up just leaving.
@@sebfox2194Very very good explanation. You have said what I have noticed through the years. Would be worth repeating on many platforms seriously. Thankyou.❤
@@WyomingGuy82201 no, no, do address these things. “Obviously you don’t care for what I have to say, so let me ask for your input? Why do you think you’re correct and I’m not?”
I got bullied by a girl in university. When i got angry i got suspended for 2 months. It was impossible to prove what she did. Even if it would be possible, what are you gonna say? "she looked at my funny"?
@@robotnitchka I feel for you. Doesn't seem like there is anything you can do against that. In my chase when i got back into the class after the 2 months i sort of got "revenge" on her. I played her own game against her. How she bullied me was, she knew i was attracted to her and played me on it. When i got back, since i was looking for a GF anyways i flirted with more than i would have otherwise. I made sure she saw the attention i got. I had never seen her so sad/angry before. It sure worked.
This behavior was leveled at me by other women a lot when I was younger, and men when I was older. A lot of men learn the behavior in the workplace because they’re afraid of losing their jobs. People who do passive aggressive crap have loved to zero in on me since I was a kid, I think it’s because of neurodivergence. There’s a joke I’ve seen online that a panel of middle school girls can diagnose autism in other girls faster than doctors- I do think there’s a grain of truth in that. Middle school girls can sniff out difference of any kind like bloodhounds. Most people, men and women, are cool, but I have to admit I go from zero to hating a person’s guts the second I notice passive aggression these days. It makes me want to start overt arguments just to speed it up and get it over with.
Middle school girls can sniff out difference of any kind like bloodhounds... and unfortunately some never outgrow that age group mentality and remain "girls" throughout life. I hate the enforcers, who go around with their version of "if you talk to her, nobody will talk to you. Which way is it going to be?" like some "karen" bullying others as an adult.
Your comments echoes my experiences as a kid. Even now, I have some small “fear” of making friends with girls because I’m afraid that the same thing that happened to me in middle school (an all-girls school btw) will happen to me again today
@@imCyanne I recommend looking for women that aren't afraid to break convention in some way, and seem at peace with who they are. I've never had issues with women in the tabletop, Maker, or art communities- I'm sure there are jerks everywhere but I've found women who actually have something going on besides being a Queen Bee are very friendly.
As an autistic 52 yo male this was my first though. This is why autistic girls have a worse time in school. I have worked in both male and female dominated workplaces and this behavior is almost openly cultivated in female dominated places.
That's very interesting, I hear people say the same thing, but I've had the opposite experience. I've been to the ER plenty of times because I'm a physical guy, and volunteered at a hospital holding courses for a few years. It was me and 200 female nurses. I tend to be reserved in my free time, but every time I go to the ER, I've always been a social butterfly. All the nurses end up tearing up from my jokes. It's always been an awesome time seeing these serious people laugh their hats off. I've also heard female coworkers talk about other female coworkers specifically being nasty bullies, as a third person, but I've never once experienced any of it personally. Totally oblivious. I feel excluded in a positive way, but it's fascinating how I've never been targeted or noticed. Why is that?
@vulnikkura it is literally just social cohesion. People adapt to their surroundings to survive if there is no positive benefits to fighting. So if one of the female nurses cheat the others won't snitch since it can hurt them a good chunk of the time. Add that to classic mean girls tactics that are borne from stressful environment and the average moral girl becomes mean whilst it takes a truly good person to stay good. So if you are susceptible to peer pressure then you will turn cruel in a hospital
I was bullied for 8 years throughout school. Grade 2 through 10. Socially bullied like outcasted, exclusion, spreading rumours about me, being verbally abusive to me. I developed social anxiety and was lowkey depressed. I used to think why me, but I never realised it was bullying until i finished school and until a year later when i read a paper on types of bullying. It all made sense now and i finally had the courage to talk about it to my parents and take a step forward to healing.
I was bullied for 6 years in the elementary school. It got me to 2 suicide attempts. Luckily I started writing at the age of 12 and it saved my life. Because of bullying I am now a completely different person compared to who I would have been if I wasn't bullied. I am a better person because of it. If it wasn't for bullying I would probably have never discover my love for writing. My life would have been completely different. I would be more trusting and less compassionate. Everything would have been different. Sometimes I imagine meeting the parallel universe version of me that was never bullied. What is her job? What kind of music would she like? Is she happy now?
As a woman that is both neuro-atypical and as I hit puberty actually was attractive to my peers, female bullying really messed me up. Women made me feel like I was the problem, that I was a monster, and then later on that I was ugly and undesirable. As a result I had very few lasting female friendships. I used to always tell my mom, "Boys will fight you all at once and then things move on. Women will never confront you and make your life miserable forever." Female friendships felt like I always had to be on my guard and if at any point there was a chance to exploit prior/current weakness they would take the chance and lash out at me. Its to the point that even now I don't feel comfortable often around female peers. Another thing people don't talk about is malicious compliments. Women will deliberately compliment other women on certain traits or actively coach them on behaviors that will screw them over socially. Once you turn around and ask them why they said it to you, often they will deny everything and leave you to become the villain. This was particularly harmful as I had autism and generally trusted that these women were helping me learn social secrets.
About malicious compliments: in my experience they are actually two-sided and always end up with you being the butt of the joke, because there are two ways you can react: 1. you get a disingenuous compliment and react to it like you believe it. They will then ridicule you for believing it. 2. you get that disingenuous compliment and react abrasively because you know full well that it is just meant as an insult. They will then blame you for being unfriendly because _obviously_ that compliment was meant nice (it wasn’t, but they got plausible deniability). You just can’t win.
Dang! Yes, I'm a woman and I've witnessed and/or experienced pretty much all of this kind of female bullying. The problem is, women these days are not as 'afraid of retaliation' and trying to peacefully talk to bully women would end up with me getting laughed at in my face, and I've encountered plenty of women who would outright admit proudly that they're NOT nice, and then proceed to bully me more. I don't know what to do about people like this so I just avoid them best I can.
Our culture, especially through feminism, has held up this sort of bullying and pretended that is showing strength. So I am not surprised some are proud of it.
These kinds of bullies usually have specific targets, whilst at the same time they are over the top nice, or fake nice, to everyone else to ensure they themselves have a good support group. They are incredibly manipulative and will often act like everyone's best friend, whilst at the same time subtly trying to weaken and break any strong bonds between others, and play them off against each other, in a sort of divide and rule strategy. Their aim is to ensure that everyone (except for their target) likes them more than they like anyone else. So they will then be the de-facto leader, and there won't be much united opposition. They then concentrate on trying to isolate and turn everyone against their targets by feeding people fuel for their negative emotions and attempting get them to direct this negativity at the target. This may take a couple of forms: 1) They feed the ego of others by telling them that they are superior to the target who is worthless in comparison to them. 2) They pick positive qualities that the target has and try to stir up jealousy and resentment against them. 3) They start false rumours that the target did something shameful, or something negative against members of the group, or has negative intentions towards them. 4) They try to emphasise how different the target is to the group and how similar they themselves are. 5) They love bomb everyone else, and exclude the target from as many activities as they can, whilst encouraging the rest of the group to do the same. Some people don't see what is going on, because from their perspective, the bully actually seems really nice to them. They don't have the same manipulative mindset, so they take the bullies niceness at face value, because they can't imagine that it could just be an act performed for ulterior reasons. Some might notice something is wrong, but as long as the bully is nice to them personally, they don't care about anything else, and others might also notice but simply not want to step in because they don't want the bully to turn their focus on them as well. Moreover, some people may just not want to get involved in what they see as other people's arguments or problems when they have their own problems to deal with. One other significant concept that bullies take advantage of is the phenomenon of "group think," whereby people in a group influence others to conform to group norms and patterns of thought. So, if the bully can manipulate the group to align with their ideas, then these ideas can become the generally accepted views of the group. Once that happens the group is basically an extension of the bully, unless you can muster sufficient resources to move them in another direction. So, often you will find that some of the most unpleasant bullies are quite popular and are thought of by most people as being incredibly nice. Personally, I've seen this a number of times myself, where the majority of people around me have been raving about how nice someone is, whilst in reality, that person was actually a manipulative troublemaker. Whenever I meet someone like this, I generally distance myself from them and minimise contact where possible. They are usually looking for attention and drama and I don't want to waste my time on petty spats with such prople. However, if I witness them trying to manipulate or bully anyone, I will try to steer things in the opposite direction by appealing to people's general sense of fairness and decency to make it embarrassing for the bully to carry out any negative actions. These bullies are usually keenly aware of their reputations. So, they try to operate in the shadows rather than doing anything publicly incriminating. It's not always possible, and sometimes, the only option is a confrontation. You may be able to shut them down. However, you need to pick your battles, and if you're not careful about this, you will always be at war with someone. There are also degrees of such behaviours, and some people exist on a spectrum of mild to severe bullying mentality. You might meet some people who seem truly 👹 whereas others might be okay most of the time, but will exhibit some bullying behaviours under certain specific conditions. So, it's not always black and white. There are a lot of shades of grey. In general, most people are transactional in nature. So, they will look out for their own interests more than they value any sort of shared moral code. So, the way to beat a bully is to become a person of value who can contribute more value to any group than the bullies can. Generally, bullies are selfish. So the main thing that they offer is flattery and fake praise. This is surprisingly effective, because it makes people feel good, but if you're offering something genuinely more valuable than a bit of flattery, you'll usually find yourself ranked above any bullies in the social hierarchy of the groups you are in.
@@sebfox2194 Wow. This is my older sister to a T. Especially the 3)4) and 5). In my other post I explained that I’m on the younger half of 10 siblings and she basically runs the family. My parent are very naive and very christian. All this flies under the radar. Looking back I can see where I’ve even participated unknowingly. It’s to the point where I would only go outside of my house to hangout with friends. I feel bad for anyone getting to know my family because they quickly find out that she’s the boss and usually in some humiliating way and we all just watch and don’t know what to do because we’ve all been put through that process ourselves and at a very young age where we don’t even know what’s happening.
@jordanalozier4515 Sorry to hear about that. It is difficult to stand up to a much older bully when you are young and don't fully understand what is going on. However, once you understand their behaviour, you will hopefully be able to predict and prevent what they are trying to do a bit more.
I’m literally only 53 seconds into the video but I HAVE TO pause it and comment because Dr. K, i need you to understand how much your female audience (myself included) appreciates the nuance and care and compassion that you hold space for when you cover these topics. A lot of feminist content creators say don’t listen to any men on women’s topics - and I always say, please don’t group Dr. K into that. Because your content is SO TRANSFORMATIVE and you have so many men in your audience so then hearing you talk about women as equals is SO IMPORTANT for society. Dr. K, you’re doing the lords work. Please don’t ever change 💕🙏🏻
Beware of anyone making blanket statements like that. (Don't listen to any man/woman for wisdom in said topic, for instance). Not a good look. It shows tremendous bias and absolutism
@@phillystevesteak6982 dude i feel you REALLY missed the point of my comment. This is me thanking Dr. K for being more amazing than any other male content creator on here when it comes to women’s issues - not dunking on the equally talented and brilliant female content creators who give that advice. It’s generally helpful because there are a lot of bad actors out there. Dr. K is very unique and an exception. Most men don’t take the time to understand women the way he does.
@@lexa_power I didn't miss your point. I still stand by what I said. My philosophy: hear anyone out. Take what's useful (that resonates with you), leave the rest behind. There are bad faith actors on any end of the gender spectrum, so you're not safer sticking with women advocates that are women. Further, there are others like Dr. K with a sort of intuitive brilliance to understand the opposite gender. I really don't understand your clapback, to be honest. It's bizarre you turned this into a confrontation because I basically agree with you - but extrapolated what is (in my mind) additional wisdom about arbitrarilly limiting who you derive insight from.
@lexa_power I've always appreciated the nuances Dr.K seems to carry, too; the way he's able to analyze topics really shows how much he related to the average young person. I'm still trying to find someone online similar to him lol to find other sources of physiology
@@lexa_power You made at least 3 points. First, you appreciate Dr K for going out of his way to have nuance, care, and compassion when he is saying about women. Second, a lot of feminist content creators say don't listen to any men when they talk about women. Third Dr K deserves to be listened to and has a large male audience and talks about women as equals. Philly is talking about your second point, he believes it's overly general. Your response is that it's correct more than 50% of the time so it should be stated. Philly believes more than 50% accuracy is still not correct enough. Does this help?
Yup. Become invaluable at your company, keep to yourself, and if they try to say something to HR like, "We don't feel comfortable with how he's avoiding socializing with us," politely reply that you're at work to *work,* not to socialize.
@@CeaserMadrazo that dosen't work either. My mom did this They still bounded to take her down, ended up fired without a clear cause because everyone thought she was trying to sleep with her boss
In principle this is a great idea but in practice it fails because most bosses aren't paying you to do the job, they're paying you to make them feel important.
"You can feel it happen, but it's so hard to blame them." This has been eye-opening. Whenever this happens, I've always felt that there was a sudden tone shift, a change in the air. But it's not something that you can specifically pin point, nor is it something that you can call out.
especially in school what are you gonna say you THINK they were talking about you?? say you THINK they purposefully bump into you in corridors? like its so hard to get like proof of female bullying
I'm glad to absorb this perspective. I've always suspected that female social aggression was subtle, but not this subtle. Thanks for putting it out there.
@keymaster2502 come now, girls talking about you behind your back is a nightmare? What do you think boys following you home and threatening to hurt themselves if you don’t give them another chance is like?
@@jaybee4288 They're both nightmarish. People talking behind your back can sabotage your social life and ruin your confidence in the long run, it's not a situation that you should ignore. The same goes for people stalking you and threatening to hurt themselves. This is a terrible world we live in, but we can only move on and hope to make things better
This is esp nasty in the workplace. Workplaces treat social abuse (bullying) like it's just two people who can't get along. Doesn't matter how bad it is. Doesn't matter how flagrant. They don't want to touch it. And if things are looked into, it's the word of the abusers against the victim. No one speaks out for the victim because they're all scared of being next and the victim is either fired or driven out. And it's often the most manipulative sorts who get promoted. The ones who know how to sound good and look good to higher ups. Smile up shit down is what I call it. They have all the right friends. And it can take years. Maybe even decades. Before they get found out. And they've destroyed lives and ruined careers and had fun doing it. Anywhere where people get to be seen as good people just for working there? Watch out. They love jobs like that, and they love destroying people who have potential and ability. Nursing. Education. Social services. Elder care. Any job with a halo. It's fun for them. They love every minute.
Oof yeah, I’ve seen some nursing professors and nurses on the floor that I wonder why they’re even in the profession as they are not the most inspiring people and love tormenting their students/other nurses.
OMG you literally just described my experience last year 😭. There was a younger colleague from a parallel department, and I didn’t like how she talked to me nor anyone else, so I tried to distance myself, place boundaries. Big mistake - she lashed out multiple times, basically called me insane and many other things, and made my life a living hell at work. And my manager? She just told me we should be quiet about these things. And the HR said it’s just “cultural differences” (I’m European and she’s East Asian)… in the end I was the one who got terminated. And that girl kept on stalking me for a while. I know I’m good at what I do, I have a top degree, I’m motivated, I’m empathetic. But they really messed things up for a while. I still have flashbacks. And it makes me feel like female bullying is following me around
@@Miss_Swede it’s more than likely that since you’re good at what you do that they feel threatened that you’re going to get their coveted raise. People need to become more aware about this unacceptable behavior and rise in numbers against the bully. IMO people like this should be blacklisted and given the worst jobs. Did they tell you why you were terminated? You may want to bring a lawyer into it if it was wrongful termination. If you have proof of her stalking or any other issue she brought you you can sue her for that and for emotional distress
@@sgnibble1 I totally agree, unacceptable behavior should have consequences. Unfortunately they weren’t legally obligated to provide a reason. I did try to complain about wrongful termination but couldn’t bring the case further since the company wouldn’t provide a reason (to cover their a**es). And I was in a foreign country so I don’t think I would’ve been able to do much more with that girl.
This happened to me at my job last year. The ring leader did all these things to me, turned the entire coworker base group (her friends and even some not her friends originally) and even the 2 HR women against me because she was jealous of me and thought her boyfriend liked me and was going to leave her for me. It was group shunning, excluding, gossiping, laughing and bad talking about me, whispering about me infront of me, undermining me in my work and job...she "thought I wouldn't last the year" under those circumstances she created. But I grew up in a toxic, manipulative, traumatic childhood so little did she know I can take a lot and it affected me very little. She got so fearful when nothing she did affected me. In fact when I was laughing and joking at work she nonstop watched me the whole day and got so angry and panic stricken and I stared her down so she knew that I knew. She stopped after that. I don't participate in these mind games with jealous, insecure, envious, selfish, childish little mean girls.
Can you please tell me how to handle this situation, when you feel leftout and lonely and when people deliberately leave you out of group things. How do you still get included and can make friends with them in that situation...Cuz when this happened to me I completely shut down my friends group, even the non bullies who have good relationship with bullies .... and now I feel lonely and can't make new friends cuz I don't go out a lot.
@@btscafeforlife5095Those people are not your friends. You can be friendly to them, and be the bigger person and stand your ground. But don't confuse yourself in thinking you should be their friend, because that's how they get you. You will end up wasting your time and energy trying to please and entertain them. It's better to find your value in yourself, keep yourself busy and stay kind and not fight fire with fire. The true friends will come along. You might even make friends online (if you need anyone to talk to, I could though no promises that I respond fast). Trust me, I have the same experience as the OP.
@@btscafeforlife5095though I should add, if it's a work situation you might want to be included. I would do so from a safe distance and feel my way forward. Be kind and friendly and discuss work or the issues at hand, if you're invited to things say yes and show up, but don't exert yourself or do more than what's necessary. If you don't feel like showing up find an excuse they can't blame you for. You should never go above and beyond for people who will never do the same to you
@@btscafeforlife5095 Okay so like I've been bullied many times and the honest answer to dealing with exclusion, is to have multiple sources of socializing. Making new friends is scary but having few friends puts u in a vulnerable position socially. Start new hobbies, join a subculture, start talking to new people. And, like OP demonstrated don't let their mind games impact u, it is simple but not easy, you have to start accepting everything they say and do at face value. You cannot care at all about this person, to you she is a stranger you have no attachment to, you don't care what she says, what she does, or even what she thinks, you cannot care about hurting her feelings. You don't need her approval, her friendship, or even her neutrality. Focus on your goals, your connections, your actions, and your life. Every weird judgemental look? Ignore it, it doesn't exist to you. She commented on your body? Take it as a compliment very aggressively. ("That top makes you look pregnant", 'oh my gosh pregnant ladies are SO cute! Thanks ☺') It's also very important that you form strong or at least positive bonds with the girls that aren't the bully. Spend time independently, asking someone for help on something small makes them like you more, asking about them and relating to it, making a connection. But I will say there is a reason this person thinks you're an easy target, maybe you're quiet and have self-esteem issues and have a hard time socializing. So am i, I just got better at holding my cards closer to my chest
this video literally describes how i got fired at my job. i was doing a great job etc and a group of girls wanted to get promoted, so they "betrayed" me and told management lies about me. they literally had everyone change their opnionon me and i end up getting let go because of a bunch of false claims. keep in mind these women were my "friends" i have not once did anything wrong.
I am an adult woman and I was never popular in school but I also never got bullied. I think one of the main reasons was because I always naturally inserted myself in a big group of friends (like Dr. K mentioned, seeking out another social group). Sure, I was closer to some people than others but as soon as one small sub group started with social drama/agression, I would just start hanging out with another sub-group. I think I always unconsciously realized you are safer if you blend in with the crowd. I was also always very confident in myself and the few times people would try to socially bully me I would just be the class clown and throw in a joke. It immediately undermined whatever they were trying to hit me with. Another tactic I employed since young was what Dr. K said about "bringing in an audience". Whenever a bully would try something I would just gather a crowd and create a group conversation (specially if it's people the bully does not interact with often), that throws bullies off very often. Now they have to be accountable to other people and cut out their aggression really fast. Weird to say this but, in a way, I am glad to be a woman: it's easier for me to detect social bullying and understand what are the social dynamics at play compared to physical strength. If I were a man and I had to deal with men bullying by having to be physically strong, active and intimidating, I would fail hard.
I’m the polar opposite hey. I’m a 27 year old man and if someone has a problem with me then either fight me like a man or stop being a little coward hiding behind manipulation and plausible deniability. I can’t understand social bullying well at all and even when I do it takes me ages to finally understand because I’m mostly direct and to the point. My dad was a boxer who owned his own gym and was a coach aswell. He taught me boxing and was extremely hard on me since I could basically walk and I can’t thank him enough. Anytime someone ever tried bullying me they were too scared to ever try again after a straight right to the face and realising I’m going to really mess them up bad and sleep like a baby after the fact if they try it again. Honestly can’t think of anything worse than manipulation and bullying vulnerable and most likely weak people, that are already in a bad place mentally and emotionally with nobody in their lives that care. Not to mention feeling threatened if this same person starts becoming a happier and healthy person they try their best to ruin it, pathetic disgusting little cowards who do that.
I'm a woman and I'm the opposite, it's much easier to just be strong, direct and intimidating, not let others see you in the role of a victim. I can't read social cues at all but ever since I got huge arms and learned to take punches while standing firm, nobody's disrespected me, even though I've never had a friend group.
@@outlawsyl i see this is my cue to get strong and buff arms. i can read social cues most the time but not always respond because it’s very mentally draining, and i think looking intimidating enough might be an easy way to deter some of that.
That’s amazing. As an autistic woman and that seems basically impossible and extremely tiring. I have been bullied to the point of having ptsd symptoms without realizing it was actually bulling. I thank Dr. K from bringing it up.
@@MonkeyLiggaScrumptiousNan I admire your directness. My default way of handling things has always been blending in and dealing with things in a mostly indirect way. This method is not always good in the long term, and being frontal and direct is something I actually work on. One of the disadvantages of blending in with the crowd is that nobody actually knows the real you. Not being afraid to offer my real opinions (even if it makes me blend less) is something I try to do more now as an adult.
Thank you very much for talking about this. I am a high school female student and what you are talking about is pretty prevalent. I look forward to see more women standing up for themselves and disarming the bullies using these prevention tips you shared
I heard somewhere that there was a study that found that women were just as aggressive as men but that they expressed that aggression passively, more through gossip and shaming than what you would normally visualize as aggressive behavior like physical bullying and direct insults. It’s more subtle I suppose but it’s also still super obvious if you look for it.
Related and relevant: Women will often start to cry in situations that would cause men to rage. The crying is often rooted in *frustration* at not being able to express and act upon genuine *anger* and adjacent feelings.
Do you know the name of that study? Please? It would mean the world for my personal life right now. My stepmother is doing this to me and my dad doesn’t believe me. She has destroyed my life. He doesn’t understand how women can be cruel without being violent. My mother was violent. My stepmother is evil in other more subtle ways. She is a complete sociopath.
usually the exact same but the work hierarchy and experience also become a tool to hold power over others, seen alot of men go into workplaces with mostly women and often get completely blind sided by the tactics they use since its simply not something they have come across before nor have learnt to expect, the fact it happens to so man y people and there are so many peeps who do it is honestly kind of disturbing
More. Please. I’m in med school and I’m being covertly bullied and I’ve always said that people who are bullied are different and there’s a reason why they are they need to learn how to fit in but I’m just not able. It’s consuming me. I have my exams coming up in 3 weeks and I can’t breathe. I can’t turn it off even when I’m home. It’s ruining new relationships and everything. It’s shattered my confidence. I just feel heavy and like I don’t even feel able to smile anymore or confidently make friends. Im 31. They’re all like 25ish. I want to drop out
AS A PERSON WHO AS FUKCING SUFFERED THIS IN ACTUAL MEDICAL SCHOOL. please do yourselfa favor and fucking move out. Your education matters more than their bullshit. You do like Dr. K said need to invest in social skills and find supportive friends. God bless. I am the same age my love. Stay strong.
Prioritise yourself and your education, you've worked so hard for this❤ find new friends or even acquaintances or study partners, if not in person, online ones, there are lot of study groups and forums etc. Keep in touch w your family and other nice friends. Get a pet dog if you can. Make sure you always tell yourself they are insecure and do it to inflate their ego, don't take it personally do your thing. Sending best wishes❤
as a young kid this kind of bullying absolutely destroyed my mental health. i had undiagnosed adhd and was ostracized for acting out, by EVERYONE (my tiny school had only about 50 students in total). the hardest thing for me was the gaslighting from all angles. teachers didnt want to deal with me, so even female teachers who knew people were being nasty shrugged it off and told me i was imagining things. this type of behavior can be so detrimental, but its hard to address because we have tools for talking about classic overt bullying but not covert stuff like this. for that reason im really glad youre bringing this to light and making more people aware of the different ways mistreatment can manifest.
Omg thank you for calling out the teachers I'm still a student my self but I can tell what's right and wrong so I know the teacher knew people were being nasty to the autistic kids and didn't care like they would often make noises to trigger them to scream or something and then teacher didn't say anything and this happened almost every day until the school year ended
You are my soulmate. This is exactly what my life has been like. And to date some part of me blames myself because I had adhd. I feel like it was always my fault and I always deserved it. Not once have I ever been in a comfortable environment. I have been so severely bullied I haven't had a friend in 5 years. And to date, in even in Uni I'm still bullied even though I don't talk to people at all unless I'm spoken to. It has deeply, viscerally wrecked my sense of self completely. Worst is, I still think it was all always my fault.
I really hope we heal because the level of gaslighting I've endured has absolutely altered my sense of reality. To the point where when another person is in trouble, I shudder in fear of getting blamed even if I wasn't present. I feel like it's my fault. I have to forward movies when someone is being confronted or bullied because I feel like I'm living it and it's absolutely unbearable to me.
This is actually helpful. I told my therapist about bullying happening by one of my friends to one of my other friends and they didn’t give me any shit to work with as advice. She just agreed with what I said. This is actually helpful thank you so much because it’s becoming really complicated and I didn’t even realize it was bullying until i noticed as I watched this video what it was. You have no idea how much this has helped me understand this situation, and how they are trying to isolate them, and how I didn’t even notice that they were trying to keep one of my other friends from making new friends. Thank you genuinely.
My boss (in a feminist project!!) is a female bully. I had never suffered from female bullies in my life so I was super overwhelmed. Last year she had me in tears because I just couldn’t deal with her subtle hostility, this year I’m playing her like a fiddle :D I grew up with a narcissistic father and know how to passive aggressively fight oppression. But it’s sad, I’m a girls girl usually and would love the world to be a fluffy place but this woman just crossed a line with a lot of my coworkers and me and the power disparity doesn’t help either. Shes getting my best powerplay at practise!
no it's not. people just love to nitpick women and every little mean comment is viewed as heavy bullying. and also let's not forget that we live in a patriarcal society where men's rage and mean comments are more acceptable and like +90% of aggressive crimes are commited by men....
Completely agree. I've had girlfriends, female friends and sisters. All would bully and be bullied by women. It was normalised and totally forbidden to talk about society, unless you encouraged it.
Everything you talked about resonated with me so much. I was literally made to believe that it was my fault that they didn’t invite me places or straight up ignore me. The backhanded compliments the looking at each other and laugh when I would say something or make fun of me for saying something with an accent when it’s completely normal. It literally ruined my life for 2 years. I stopped going to school because I hated it so much and I HATE the fact that how they treated me actually affected me. I’m not friends with one of them anymore but the other one I still talk to because I have no one else, but then after saying that, I don’t like her, in fact I hate her so I don’t know why I keep messaging her everyday. I’m in denial or something, even my mum and sister hates her, they saw how much she tore me down and treated me like shit and they don’t understand why I keep talking to her. I’m just scared to let her go because if I do then I’ll have no one to talk to, she’s okay sometimes but deep down I know that it’s wrong that I still talk to her. She would also tell me the guys I would be talking to or close with were ugly and made me think they were not it, and then when I’d break it off with them SHE would start talking to them. Broke me when I found out she got with this guy I used to be super close with but fell out with him because of her. Idk why I felt the need to write all that but it’s kinda comforting unloading stuff on the internet where no one actually knows who I am lmao
@@Bunbun10100 that's not even a friend, that's like an enemy that is out to get you. Ive been there, done that. I clinged onto that friend of mine cause i felt like i had nobody else, not realizing she's pretty much the reason I'm always turmoil. Im 31 now, I never saw her again since i entered college, but recently this year I did bump into her, she still acted the same petty way towards me. Free yourself from that person, they are perpetually bitter, just let go, embrace the loneliness and solitude that comes after that, just know that you are making space for better things and people to come into your life.
When my ex GF was aggressive, she said something like: I need to express my emotions. But I was hurt. I wanted her to express her emotions in a healthy way. Some days before I broke up I wasn't happy when she came to me, I was afraid about upcoming drama. And I felt relief, when she left my apartment. That was my alarm sign, that something was wrong. We had a talk and as she said, she doesn't want to change anything, my decision was clear. We had some good times too, but after the break up everything was just better! And I don't hate women, I love them, but I love and respect myself too. Thank you for this important video. We need it!
And my female friends were like: are you complaining about eyes rolling? And: you are not entitled to intimacy, she can say no whenever she wants. That's true, but it was her way to fuck me up, after I opened up about being vulnerable being rejected.
I hate how people have to reiterate that they ‘don’t hate women’ whenever they criticise any single woman. Everyone should feel free and supported when they come out about evil things that people have done to them without fear of people demonising them for it. Saw it a lot with the amber heard case as well. Even though she was proven to be an abuser, women would dogpile on dudes who criticised her online, calling them incels, sexists etc. Anyways, hope you’re doing better dude
Something I said to shut down a bully is "omg you have such a low opinion of me" and "we seem to have opposite personalities I think this is why we're not really getting along".
I'm imagining this, but if it's a group of people they'd just laugh at you and continue to find you weird. Maybe 1 on 1 but against a group of bullies there's almost nothing you can say that will actually do anything. You are the clown. Whatever you say, you are saying with a big red nose and make up on in their eyes.
@@EyesDontCry Yeah it always depend on the context. It's really hard. It doesn't work everytime, but something I try to do is understand their psychology, motivations and fears and target that. I also show unwavering confidence like it doesn't affect me. And it doesn't.
I’m wondering if this would work on my mum, the gaslighting and plausible deniability is strong with her. Right now she’s telling me that I must have dreamed some of the stuff she has done/said 🙄 How do you not let that get to you and show confidence/not get triggered?
Hi! Thank you for the video! This is a very personal topic for me, and you captured the subtlety and insidiousness of this behavior very well. I was bullied in school, and it was really hard to get out of that situation (I even ended up changing schools). At the moment, it doesn't seem like much, and if you bring it up, people think you're exaggerating and making a scandal. But once you look back and see all the microaggressions piling up, and how they end up destroying you psychologically, it’s horrifying! So I'm very thankful, Dr. K, for giving me concrete tools to use if it ever happens again, so I can see things as they are and defend myself effectively! Thank you!!
Thank you for addressing this! Female here 🙋♀ It's so hard to document because you'd have to delve into credibility factors for everyone involved, and no "community" is equipped to hold people accountable for lies and the social damages they cause. Women have 100% wrecked my life in a way that can't even shake a stick at the violence that men have perpetrated in it.
When i hear or read someone say that false allegations can't screw someone's life because there are no arrests being made, it makes my blood boil. It's so easy to to screw someone's life by making their entourage leave them, or make them lose their job, etc. -_-
@@ryanutterback "Learn" what? Handle what? After 20 years of unimaginable horror I now live out in the wilderness, off grid, isolated from humans. 54 years old and a whole lot of wasted life later. I first hand LEARNED that the human race is self-absorbed & hideous, I believe it's going downhill fast because of massive psyops driving us all to the brink. I just thank God every day for what I have now, no matter how much I missed or how much it's always raining here! Dark and soggy out here, but much better than living where everything is burning up or getting swept away in floods! My greatest heartache is that I never had the chance to give the many loving gifts I had to offer humanity. Breaks my heart every single day, knowing how much need there is out there. Can't do a thing as long as backed into a corner, will be here until I am HEARD about what happened, am discredited into oblivion, and not interested in touching that place inside where the outrage and trauma is stored. If it just generates more, it can't be touched. Without a life that's interactive and involved, it remains.
The gray zone and isolation are where I was from 3rd grade to 12th grade (whereupon someone kindly wrote me a letter apolgizing saying it was just a joke to see if they could do it), with 8 months off in 11th grade to be an exchange student overseas. I wouldn't say it wrecked my life, but it did skew it off into a very different direction, and set me up for other types of trouble down the road. The invitation to our 50th anniversary class reunion took me a bit to process, as they say, but nobody seems to remember it now. .. Dr. K very nicely outlines the plausible deniabilty of it all, the lack of defined activity to document, and some of the things that can be done to combat it if you're in a very lucky place when it happens. Very sorry for the lies and social damage that was caused in your life. It wasn't right, and if there were a replay, it would have been so nice to be the cool new friend for each other, to let us step out of the circle of control they were weaving around the group for their own self-protection.
@@MNkno it wasn't just social damage. it led to very physical damages for a very long time, and currently I still am socially defunct. When the unaccountable tyranny of psychiatry is called onto the scene and you're from a non-family background, expect to expect nothing from humanity but total condemnation. it's not for their self-protection, it is out of sheer racism. there really is no need for such nonsense, long run it's robbing everyone. psychiatry was used as the weapon to create a permanent, unfixable rift, psychiatry admits no errors, functions with impunity, iron hand of domestic terrorism. it's much like Nazi Germany before WW2. Invisible, insipid, based around eugenics, and nobody wants to admit it's right in their face. People LIED. A LOT OF PEOPLE LIED. Like a WAGON TRAIN OF LIES. Today, 20 years later, PEOPLE STILL LIE, people I meet, don't even know, they LIE TO BACK UP THESE STRANGERS WHO DID THIS, because the REALITY of what happened and STILL IS HAPPENING is just too huge for ANY of these soft, sheltered people to admit. Classism, Racism, Sexism, and Female Cattiness, The Movie. Nobody is watching, they don't want to.
this is so true, I have a female bully at my school and she is impossible to fight, the teachers are scared of her parents, she likes to use her asthma to make herself invulnerable to getting punished as she would just cry and act as if she has an asthma attack which spooks the teachers as they fear her parents would get mad at the school. It hecking annoying she manipulates men and women to do her biding and somehow has sexually and physically assaulted both men and women while also getting away with it all. It is a whole nother can of very rotten worms. I deal with the male bully by getting jacked up but this, I can't fight this.
The same with BLM movement and how over exaggeration of BLM ruins the black ethnicity group social experience. women's rights movement ruins feminine experience and any female related involvement when it comes to social interaction. Tl;Dr exaggeration ruins female social interaction
What's with them using asthma as an excuse? My bully did the same, particularly when she got called out or felt she didn't get enough attention(in the competition for men's attention she created herself, may I add.. and I'm gay). But once the little tantrum was over, it the asthma attack was suddenly over. Lol.
@@rongike I did actually and also I am the type of person who helps everyone and my way of fighting back eventually boiled down to not helping her at all while helping others in fronnt of her. that really pissed her off.
I'm a man and I've been bullied by both. The bullying by men often was instigated by a women though, they can be masters at pitting men against other men.
@@MrR4ndom115 I guess it kinda is, in the 21st century. Many countries are actively doing information warfare on social media by employing a lot of these bullying tactics. 😅
@MrR4ndom115 yes, the recruiting people to their gang/or cause is pathetically juvenile. I have heard it often said that bullies are really just cowards. I think bullies are very immature people in their development towards being an adult. This kind of behaviour that they display is definately immature. People that are grounded/confident in who they are don't act in these destructive ways. It's very telling who is mature as an adult and who is shamefully immature and acts out in this bullying inappropriate behaviours. It's simply not a pleasant experience to see bully behaviour in men or especially women. There is something repulsive about it when you witness it.
It is psychological warfare even above the acceptable NATO standarts my friend. For this type of combat, you need the kind of tacticts that a diplomat would employ (or an intelligence officer or a military attache). What you need to know is manipulative tactics and a long term strategy to outmanouver your opponent(or incapacitate) by using interpersonal relations. They will target your core doctrine (in this case, your sense of self); which is way more dangereous than simply destroying a military base. Military bases can be built again or replaced; but doctrine? That takes years to build up again. So be safe out there and become aware and also practice, practice, practice. Cheers. 🥂 (oh, and if you want to retaliate to this kind of bully, make sure to not leave ANY evidence behind. It could be used against you without any mercy whatsoever. )
That's not too far off because the book that mean girls was based off of (Queen Bees and Wannabees) said something like that high school girls have better politics and hierarchy system than most political leaders and governments
I got a story I think touches on all the points made in this video from back in the days when I worked at a summer camp. I was asked midway through the summer to take the job as the nurse's assistant at a camp for girls (about 120 kids). My first day on the job I arrive at the infirmary to find three girls ages of about 12 sitting on the bench on the deck outside the door. I sat down nearby and began listening to their conversation, which was rather animate. They were talking about another girl who was a occupant of their cabin who they were roundly condemning as being 'immature'. From their tone it was clear that they weren't just talking behind this girls back, clearly it had gone beyond backstabbing. And these girls also were very much aware that an adult was listening to their talk, and they clearly didn't care because they fully expected no consequences for their words. I just waited for a pause and then I said, without a tone, no loaded message, no sarcasm, 'it's really good that you girls are there to be role models for her'. The blank deer-in-the-headlights looks on their faces was priceless - I'd stopped them completely in their tracks. And I, without much thinking involved, embodied the attitude of if the standard is maturity, one that your young 'friend' isn't meeting, lets see what you've got. Just thought I share this. P.S. Didn't witness any bullying again that summer.
As a woman, I grew up with countless instances of indirect aggression. Mostly from women, but also from men. I fell into the trap of reacting very emotionally, and this has frankly scarred me for life. It just made me believe that people in general were really bad, and that I had to be really bad if I ever got into any social group and had a good standing. I wish I could have watched this video 30 years ago, and understood how to protect myself. I wish everyone would watch this video today. Thank you, more of this!
im a girl. i have a girl in my class who’s one of these bullies. to people who she deems to be of higher status, she’s perfectly mellow; but to anyone else, she’s the epitome of a demon from hell (over-exaggeration lol). one day during first period, she asked a boy in my class if he had a charger she could use for her chromebook. he blatantly ignored her, instead choosing to focus on the work assigned to us; I didn’t like her at the time, but I chose to swallow my pride and offer my charger to her. she didn’t say thank you, she just took it, and so I shrugged it off. afterwards however, she picked up my charger and was about to leave, so I asked for it back. instead of thanking me and handing it to me like a normal civilian, she decided to be obnoxious and shot me a criminal side eye, then threw the charger at me. during second period, she got mad at me cud i was literally js standing there helping a peer and she wanted to get past, so boom, another side eye. during PE, my 6th period, i was discussing something with the coach while she was standing by him. I wasn’t even in the way, but when she left, she purposefully shoved me and said in the most shrilling, obnoxious voice, “EXCUSE MEEEE GET OUT OF THE WAY”. i ignored her but gave her a nasty side eye that told her to cut her bleep bloop cud i was tired of dealing with it i continued to be nice to her, and eventually she stopped harassing me and instead started getting giddy anytime i showed up. still continued to ignore her afterwards. i strongly dislike people like this
Ahh sorry to hear that. I wish I could say it gets better when you're older but nope, some people stay like that for the rest of their lives. As an adult though, you get more choices in choosing your friends and circles because you have more choice to choose your setting in terms of personal life, so you have more choices on who you can hang out with outside of work/other activities and not bother being friends with those girls (work and other places are different story)
@@kyt-nh1ef it’s a sad thing but definitely true. best thing you can do is avoid those people, cud 9 times out of 10, they’ll js end up dragging you down with them if they don’t have the heart to change thank you for sharing your perspective 💛🙏
She was mean to you because you witnessed her getting ignored by that boy. It made her feel insecure and she didn't know how to handle that feeling, and she couldn't deal with the idea that someone else saw it.
@@HolaMindy, she's been insecure since middle school. whether or not i saw her being ignored wouldn't matter cud she'd always choose to be rude nonetheless, trust me i've seen it with other people too. nobody in my classes is fond of her, aside from her friends, cud of that though i appreciate your insight!!!
I think I'm autistic but the way my mind interprets your story is she liked that boy and wanted to get his attention so she came up with the ploy to ask him for a charger, probably left it at home on purpose. Then she gets ignored by him and she's embarrassed as f*ck. You witness the whole thing and in her mind you're pitying her by offering the charger. Her computer might not even need charging. So, frustrated, angry and embarrassed she just takes your charger 😅 I mean, it's highly unlikely that my made up back story is correct and I'm not saying she's a good person but there's often more to the story than meets the eye. In fact, usually there's layers upon layers that people don't talk about
The negative experiences I had in school were so difficult not just because I was bullied but because the bullying was subtle to the point where I would blame myself for being "too sensitive" because the people around me (even those who knew I was being mistreated) would not help me, making me believe that I was the issue. It took YEARS for me to stop blaming myself and realize that I was actually bullied and it wasn't just silly teasing.
Well I had my own strategy when I dealt with that when I was a teenager. It’s probably not as effective as Dr. K’s advice but here it is: I never showed the bullies that what they did or the rumors they spread affected me. I was a lone iceberg that wasn’t affected or bothered by anything or anyone. And I never emoted at school. I trained myself to do that at home when I was alone. Is this healthy? Most likely not. But at least by not giving my power away, no one was able to take it from me. And when the rumors got back to me I was the one who rolled my eyes and walked away.
I did something similar to that, on top of being physically aggressive. They stopped being catty real quick and some suddenly became very nice 😂 not something that works as much in adulthood. I feel like most people generally hesitate messing with you, if you show them you aren't afraid of the negative consequences for retaliating, though.
@@Dolritto Nope you are wrong maybe coz she act like she doesn't care so its good and I prefer she could have said that into their face .... like I would have done that I would tell them that I know ur bullying but I'm not mad I'm mad bcoz I can't believe how pathetic they can be LOL 🤧ig
I’m a tomboy. I’ve always felt so much more comfortable around guys. I appreciate straight forward, honesty. Yes, dudes are also capable of these manipulative tack ticks, but they’re easier to avoid/shutdown, because they’re usually solo actors. My last female friend group bullied me for 3 years, ostracized me from an entire community I helped to make, and made me question what it meant to be a friend anymore. When I finally reached out to my parents, my dad told me to cut them off, and that they weren’t actually my friends. While I’m sad about losing my fan community, my life is so much happier again. Sadly, I’m slow to trust other women now. I also don’t tolerate this behavior and will shut it down right away.
Same, it's even worse when they call you a "pick me girl" or whatever from that when the reality is you had more positive social interactions with men than women on average. And you can still be a feminist and critical of men while doing so.
@@Windmill5 Honestly, I would recommend you to ditch up feminism entirely. It had done less than nothing for over a decade at this point and is a big contributor to this stupid gender war.
Meh. The older you get , the more you realize the "one of the guys-type girls" can also be pretty awful. They become "pick me" women. I think it's good to have a mixed gender friend group and perhaps you've just not found the right ones yet. Look at this comment section for example. There are lots of women here with similar experiences . These numbers mean the probability of you finding a good female friend is still decent.
@@MaybeitsclusterB I have 2 female friends now, because they’re mature and don’t play mind games. Otherwise the rest are dudes. I see actual “pick me” women as those seeking male attention, not real friendship. I’m a tomboy, I have always gotten along better with guys due to similar interests and down to earth temperament. I only dated 3 men, not my friends, and I married the 3rd one. Now he’s friends with my guy friends. Lol. (I remained celibate until I married him at 31, so I have a proven track record of being able to “just be friends” with guys)
@@MaybeitsclusterBpick me girls are the type of girls that would literally ruin male friendships by flirting with everyone else in the group, just for the fun of it
16:22 Reminds me of the quote I heard about video games and life. "The thing that video games taught me about life is that when you are facing obstacles or opponents, it means that you are heading in the right direction that the game wants you to go in."
Wow, dude, I'm 44 and have been laid-back all my life. You have me seeing things that happened in hi-school to me or just witnessed by me so differently.
I was bullied by girls basically all through school. When i made friends with other people they would be attacked as well, often worse initially (only if they were girls). The teachers encouraged them, i would often get detention despite not retaliating in any way. At home I was told never to take any action back. For added context i was around 6ft at the end of primary school, not skinny. I switched schools midway through and it didn't stop in the new school. Hearing girls laugh / giggle triggers my fight / flight response.
So sad to hear your story. You are strong. But you can switch School while I can't do it thanks to my f parents. Bully will always be bully. I would say stick with quiet ppl. Move seats to smartest and quiet students help me get a better grade. At least one positive side about school days.
@@neuAsa-c1t no offense but "I switched schools midway through and it didn't stop in the new school." so i don't think your point really applied for that particular argument
at one point I was bullied by like four different people at once, who were mostly girls. they were finding old photos of me in primary school, finding embarassing videos of me and when one of their friends defended me in an online chat, they started attacking her. literally, I'm talking about regular shaming and laughing at her eMo FaShIoN TaStE and hair.
I'm at university with two girls that often turn their noses up at me and don't say hi when I say hi to them, etc. I spoke with one of them privately and asked if she had a problem with me or if I'd said anything to offend her and I explained that I noticed how she treated me differently from others. She said that she wasn't sure if I was open to being social so she hesitated to talk to me. I'm iffy about that response considering I had spoke to her a few times just for her to ignore me, but regardless, she apologized for making me feel isolated and that I had never done anything wrong. (I knew this, but wanted to take a compassionate and concerned approach to the conversation.) Since our talk, she says hello to me first, smiles at me, and sometimes goes out of her way to make conversation. There's been such a noticeable change. I'm hoping that it was a genuine misunderstanding between us and that she actually isn't a mean girl, but time will tell. The key point is that I told her that we don't have to be friends but we should be kind to each other.
@SteadyState_8 Tbh, this pissed me off about this video tbh! He kept making disclaimers (which fair enough, he has to, I dont blame him specifically), but he would never need to do that if the genders were reversed.
@SteadyState_8 I agree and in a way I think there is some problems too, I don't think he is geting cancelled for daring to say women aren't perfect. im sure he isn't geting cancelled because of one thing not because of the disclaimers but because it's only a minority of women and men who can't handle a fair and respectful criticism, and can't grasp that not everything is all women. You can also kinda see that in the comment section of this video not many people are hating of him, didn't find one but even if so you can also see that it's a minority of the portion that says that. Its just my opinion so yeah don't take it seriously unless you want to
@@kushalramakanth7922 he would bc we as a society always need to defend men regardes, saying that ofc women does this as well and etc, so be for real and enjoy the video
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS VIDEO! I've been watching your channel for years now, and you've already helped me with so much. After working a lot on myself, one of my biggest problems actually has become female bullying. I'm a woman too, but I'm so sick and tired of pretending that all women are like angels, that we are always the victims, the poor poor women, etc., when I see constant bullying in the real world by women, especially in the workplace. Most men don't notice it, or they notice it when it's too late, but I swear I've seen the dirtiest tactics from women when it comes to gaining leverage: spreading lies, manipulation, gaslighting, etc. I think most men see women as a harmonious group, but the truth is that there are brutal hierarchies in all-female groups. Whenever you step outside the line, it doesn't even matter if you're outshining in a positive or negative way-like being really good at what you're doing, or really bad; being too good looking or too overweight; talking too little or too much; wearing something that stands out; being overly educated, or just disagreeing on something small-you get bullied so hard. And it sounds stupid, but whatever you do, you HAVE to be average. Actually, most of the bad comments about my appearance have come from other women and not men. Whenever I knew something or did something really well at my job, men would praise me, while the 'alpha' woman would start hating me even more. Also, what I've noticed-and maybe it's my prejudice-but in meetings with mostly men, the best idea usually gets taken. That’s not the case in hierarchical women groups. The most popular or most controlling 'alpha' women will always take the lead, and whatever you say is seen as a personal attack. It's so brutal, I swear. I've seen so many people get fired because one 'alpha' woman didn’t like another. They’ll spread lies like, "Yeah, she threw a stapler at someone," and get someone fired for something that never happened. Or they’ll tell you the wrong meeting room on purpose, so you’re late. Or they'll push you around, make nasty comments about your appearance, etc. And there’s nothing you can do about it! I’m so sick of this behavior, but I see it so often, and nobody talks about it! And the worst part is, if you speak out, the 'alpha' women will make sure you’re the next victim, and suddenly your job is on the line. And yes, calling 'that' woman an alpha women is totally stupid. I know. But I have no clue how to describe this one person. It's this one narcissistic women who's just manipulative and makes your life hell if you step outside of her area and she has to control every single little thing about your life, otherwise she will get mad. I hope you guys know what I mean.
Very strongly agree. I think that masking these issues as men vs. women is a huge problem. There are bad apples in both groups, and I think claiming that either group is *all* bad apples or *no* bad apples doesn't help anyone, especially since it prevents people exhibiting unacceptable behavior (like bullying, abuse, violence) to be held accountable for their actions. We should all be working together to call out and correct unacceptable behavior regardless of the gender without fear.
I see your point. But I've faced many men that feel so insecure facing an independent powerful woman. Unfortunately the bitter truth is women are always jealous and destructive towards each other while being good with men and also men are like being destructive and jealous towards women and being good to eachother. We should be more kind supportive towards each other....
That comment about women wanting everybody to be average hit so hard. I'm so sick of dimming my light so other people can shine. I don't need to be a star, but I want to be able to live up to my potential and I feel like people have such an issue whenever I try to exhibit growth. It's disgusting, really.
I’m so glad for this video because I’ve never been treated worse in my life than at the hands of other women. No man ever hurt me like other women did.
Dr. K, THANK YOU for talking about this as it’s neither talked about nor taken seriously enough. I was bullied by my female friends twice in middle school 20 years ago and I couldn’t find any help or support for YEARS. It traumatized me and broke my self-confidence, though the lack of support and dismissal afterwards is almost worse. I even wrote a research paper in school and described what you said earlier on the different forms of bullying after I read Margaret Atwood’s book “Cat’s Eye” where the protagonist was being bullied by her 3 friends, just like what happened to me. I have some important points to bring up: 1. A lot of the advice you gave wouldn’t have helped me at the time. The problem was that I moved a lot as a kid, so I always had to make new friends (which I was good at). But that meant that my social circle was limited and I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I also tried to confront and ask the first group that bullied me why they were excluding me - I tried to talk to the nicest-seeming girl, but she just said “hm there are about 100 things you’ve done wrong but I can’t tell you one”. Also, it’s really hard as a lone preteen to use humor to deflect when they’re running away from you or laughing at you for no reason - your brain is just frozen. 2. The insidious nature of the bullying made it so hard to get support during it. I tried to reach out for help from the adults around me (parents, teachers, counselors) and nobody took it seriously. It was really hard to explain what was going on, and the fear (of what was going on, and of how they would retaliate) also paralyzed me, so I never got them to take the time to listen. 3. I feel you focus a bit too much on sexual and physical sides of things, and that annoys me because there are other topics and problems when it comes to girls... I understood later in life that the two groups that bullied me did so hugely because of just plain JEALOUSY. Both times it was because I was better in school, but the second time was also because of my international exposure. These made me feel ashamed of good things I may have. 4. Yes there is often a ring leader who steers the group. One time I confronted a girl in the second group to ask why she was always siding with the ring leader, and she said it’s because she was scared to be against them as they were “very good at arguing.” The other time it was 2 girls that had been friends the longest, so they had the power in the group. 5. “Mean Girls” was triggering af for me - it came out around that time and everyone thought it was funny for some reason, which further confused and isolated me. It added to the feeling that people seemed to think this is all a normal part of growing up as a girl. 6. When I tried to talk with some of these girls as adults, the ring leader didn’t seem to remember many details - because that time wasn’t special to her, it didn’t get stored as a traumatic memory. She had saved a diary (like a Burn Book) that documented their hate towards me, and only then did she realize how mean they had been. But then in the end she wasn’t able to handle discussing it because she blocked me lol. 7. It has been so hard to even get help and validation later on…because it’s so hard to see indirect aggression and exclusion on the outside, and because it’s not talked about and researched enough. Multiple times when I tried to tell a therapist my story and talk about why I’m struggling today, they just skipped over the story and tried to diagnose me with e.g. social anxiety disorder. It’s insulting. Trauma-informed therapy is key here. 8. The gray zone, all the confusion, secrecy and exclusion is soooo damaging. As I found out while researching for my paper, internal wounds from indirect aggression are much worse and longer lasting than external wounds from direct aggression. Nobody believes you or takes you seriously, and you end up always questioning yourself, your feelings and judgment, and believing that you’re wrong and unlovable. It impacts all of your life. There’s so much more I could say but this is already very long haha. But the last thing to mention is that the most important thing for a victim in this situation is ALLIES like you said, since the victim is so disempowered by bullies that won’t listen to their target. And yes, there also has to be some kind of consequence to this kind of behavior, otherwise perpetrators will continue to get away with it and more people will have their lives turned upside down by bullying. Whenever I see someone getting bullied today, I get so angry at the injustice and try to stand up for that person. I hope we can all stand up for the victim, talk about and do more research into this kind of bullying, and ultimately create a kinder society. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!
Omg I've been dealing with indirect aggression all my life and just now realized it! I was so confused on why I couldn't get over it but multiple times I've thought that if people just told me they hated me it would be better. This push and pull of people who are your "friends" SUCKS.
Me too! She always made me feel so inadequate but now I realize she’s the problem not me and don’t put up with her BS. She loves giving the silent treatment and expects us to mind read.
i was mostly bullied in middle school and while i always called it bullying, it was never the physical type of bullying others would imagine, it was exactly this. my self esteem dropped drastically, so low. but i suddenly got this moment one day where i realized i had to change. i watched so many videos online on how to increase self esteem, be better at socializing, and how to interact with people. even videos analyzing the human body language. and slowly by the time high school rolled aorund i was way better. im so glad i was able to heal myself. i wouldnt say im fully healed, but it is better
I have a son in 3rd grade. Boys lean towards physical competition naturally but az we all know that is heavily discouraged in school outside of sports because it leads to violence and injury. This is probably the lesser of two evils so I won't comment on the merit of that, but I have noticed that one side effect of the strong no tolerance policy to physical bullying is that boys are now inflicting more indirect aggression on each other. Generally, boys are slower to mature social-emotionally, and they aren’t socialized to learn these sort of group dynamics from a young age. So it can actually be very damaging to a young boy when he becomes a victim of this insidious form of ostracization. I'm a neurodivergent woman who was bullied like this in school by the people I thought were my closest friends. That violation of trust is the part that causes lasting trauma and it has taken me a long time to process; so in no way am I trying to co-opt a lady topic and try to swerve it back to the fellas as is so common on here. I just wanted to make sure any young men watching felt seen, and that parents of boys dont brush this off as a "girl thing" because some of youngest suicides are from boys who are picked on in this way even though "they weren't even touched!"
@@aawillma cheers for that, im male but this doesn’t relate to me individually other than same gender. I felt the need to show appreciation because boys and men’s struggles very often don’t even get a mention. The rare occasions they do it seems to spark more hate and backlash then anything else just for merely acknowledging men are struggling with xyz, which no doubt can make boys and men in bad places emotionally/mentally feel the entire world is against them often leading to like you said, them taking life as they knew it back where it came from earlier than intended.
Although men don’t really get into fights any more, I’ve seen 3 fights so far, and all of them were for “fun”. I wouldn’t say that that is as rampant as for girls, instead I’d say it’s more rejection and loneliness for men, might be wrong though, I’ve never gotten bullied.
Thank you so much for this video. I was a victim of female bullying at 11 by 14 girls for nearly a year and a half and it destroyed me completely at the time. I consider myself mostly if not fully recovered from that experience, but it left permanent scars and changes to my way of thinking. I struggled with accepting that what I had gone through had been bullying because of its secrecy, because I didn't have visible evidence of any harm. Everyone must know that this form of abuse can be just as bad as male bullying.
I went to an all-girl's school for 6 months. The female bullying was RAMPANT and filled with hazing. Not to say "all female-only schools" are like this. The other female-only school in our area was very much NOT filled with the bullying culture that the one I went to was. But I made the mistake of choosing the school where bullying was not only expected, but encouraged by the culture, by alumni, by teachers, by seniors given the "responsibility" of taking new girls into the school and culture. It was a culture of fear and gossip and rumors were rampant. It was terrible. Miss Porter's School. News Stories about it blew up about 10 years ago now for this very issue, the hazing and bullying. No idea how it went from there and the only reason I even know about it was because one of my teachers from my time there was found to be a predator and I was asked by my mother if anything had happened there with me (thankfully it hadn't)
Yeah, generally speaking single-sex schools are documented to have milder bullying compared to co-ed, cross-culturally. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and when it does, it's still bad.
About standing up with the victim - I realized that I've been doing this without even thinking for the past several years at least. Like, when at work one woman starts to belittle or otherwise attack another woman - all other women are in silent approval, but I would always step up and say something to defend them. Not attacking the bully - I know it wouldn't work. But I would say something like "hey, I'm the same way" (as the victim) or "we're all in it together, relax", or even take the heat from the victim to myself, because I know that I can handle the bullying relatively easily. And it usually diffuses the situation
This video being so triggering for me with my “bestfriend” because even though I’ve come to realize how she competed with me constantly (after the fact), and it stemming from her deep rooted insecurities, she was bullying me the entire time. Isolating me from my friends, etc. I’m near the end phase of my quarter life crisis and separating myself from my past life (I just graduated college), just when I thought I’ve done the healing and forgiveness within myself from the people apart of my past, and still being thankful for the experiences they’ve given me, I continue to make sense of their behaviors. To realize how blind I was and thinking I’ve seen everything for what it was, and still being shown their resentful behaviors is so heartbreaking. I’ve come to terms with their narcissistic behaviors and patterns, but now labeling it as bullying (by definition) just takes it to a whole nother level of betrayal. I hope I find a friend like me one day, and until then I’m enjoying my own presence.
This resonates so much, we have measures in place for male aggresive behaviour like physical violence but there is none for mental violence, the aggresiveness that woman use the most. As a young boy i was exposed to this early and alot and it made me insecure and unsympathetic towards woman rights like feminism, not understanding why it was needed or it was just triggering to see the unfairness in society's bias towards woman being pure and innocent while they usually are the instigators of aggression, escalation and getting away with it. Its strange that the general concensus is that woman need to be protected, they are the prize, they are most fragile but they can also have the greatest nasty traits. A good example is how most woman are 'boss' of the household by mental abuse to their male partners.
It’s hard to have a conversation about this topic because of how unpopular it is. A lot of people dislike being told that they too can be a bad person by doing bad things. It comforts many to believe they can’t actually hurt someone or that whoever they hurt deserved it. Unfortunately a good amount of people genuinely believe that men are the only people capable of harm, and this misunderstanding has caused countless broken men to lay out perpetuating the cycle. It has also caused loss of life seeing half the population praised as being innocent and pure and your half as evil and dangerous.
@@LGrian and there are millions of resources for people who are victims of male violence, including mental violence. Societally we call those people abusers, we ostracize them, and push them out. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a female only thing, but statistically women do this much more than men. However the resources available to people who are victims of female abuse are nearly zero. Seriously, go ask lesbian couples about this. I guarantee most have a story to tell. As a society we forgive these people and downplay their actions. People will laugh at you and call you “sensitive” if you try and call it out. Don’t get the wrong idea, nobody is saying women are the only perpetrators of this sort of thing, and your experiences are valid, however that isn’t what this comment is about. This comment is here for those who are unheard.
The whole section about prevention was fascinating, but I was left wondering; how do we socially hold these bullies accountable for their bad behaviour if all the tactics to disarm them include "no blaming them"?
Well these tactics make their actions ineffective. So basically you're sending the signal that whatever they're doing is worthless and you're weak lol.
you can't punish someone for not hanging out with you, or not being your friend. What do you do when someone who claims to be your friend, doesn't treat you like a friend? you just stop being friends with them. That's it. But if you're not gonna do that... you can't force people to be your friend. In some situations you might force people to be cordial or polite towards you, but you can't force them to be kind to you. Someone who is sabotaging your social life through the means of exclusion, never has any obligation to include you so they can exclude you as much as they like. The damage that exclusion does to you is completely internal, but the source of the exclusion is external. so the emotions that you feel when you're being excluded can be blamed on you and your inner insecurities or self-esteem issues. but all of that is coming from what's happening externally. and the bully knows that. they know that when they exclude you they are causing you some type of internal emotional hurt, and they also know that all of the emotional hurt that you're experiencing can be blamed on your own internal problems and conflicts, that you have with yourself. so they don't have to take responsibility for what they do to you. They just say well "you're just an insecure person" or "you're just an entitled person, so i actually didn't do anything wrong." Or "The reason that you feel excluded is not because you're actually being excluded, it's because you have some emotional pain and hurt that is happening for any reason other than someone actually emotionally hurting you" you dont want them to be able to say that. so basically you have to show that your otherwise emotionally sound, and not entitled and completely confident and also somehow sneakily oblige them to include you. You have to be creative at that point and kind of make it seem like they really are doing something wrong by not including you or they're really the asshole for not including you. something that can't be brushed away or dismissed with "Oh I forgot" you have to get creative at that point, then there you go, but you have to have a good reputation of being like a emotionally strong and kind of just a chill person in general and not an entitled asshole, because one of you is gonna be made to look like an asshole at the end of it. Be SUPER SUPER chill. like way too chill. way too nonchalant. So remember, you have to be extremely chill and they cannot be punished unless they are somehow obligated to include you which they are not inherently. so unless you can maneuver and fabricate some type of obligation that is legitimate in the eyes of the group, then they won't be punished. so you have to come up with something you have to be creative. Im sorry if this is gibberish im half asleep
I got bullied by friends of a girl I asked out in the high school for whole year. She immediately said no to me and then told her friends about me. They made fun of me for a whole year about how I could even think about asking out their friend. I had no option other than ignoring them or acting like I didn't hear them saying sh*t about me. That scared me so much and it took me 4 years to ask out a girl again (she said no, too)😂
Thanks for speaking to this. I was bullied in school, and your words definitely resonated. But I also left a work environment a year ago that had a ton of bullying behavior. I worked at an inpatient unit for Behavioral Health, so the majority of staff were nurses, aids, and therapists. About 90% of our staff were women. And the politics were brutal. There was so much indirect/subtle bullying, especially from our unit director. It felt maddening. And we were the ones trying to provide psychological care. This topic also speaks to the different ways men and women are taught to joke. Women are typically encouraged motivate each other by lifting each other up, rather than trashtalk. So, if a joke's being made at your expense, the lighthearted inflection is used in order to get away with the actual mean comment the joke's meant to insinuate. It's a generalization and some women can have healthy banter with each other. But it can be an indication of bullying especially when paired with other behaviors.
It’s insane how pervasive this behavior is in society. Makes me so sad to hear that it’s even like this among people who are in a profession where they’re supposed to HELP struggling people 😭😤
I can not thank you enough for taking the time to make this video! 🙏🏾I feel like I’ve been dealing with this since puberty and it’s really destroyed me. One of the biggest things I’ve always struggled to understand is passive-aggressiveness and why people communicate in such a covert manner. It would seem as though it destroys the point of communication almost entirely? I’m 24 turning 25 in December; what has been one of the biggest disappointments of my adulthood so far is the realization that many women still behave like this even up until their 30s,40s and beyond. Truly an epidemic that needs proper addressing.
This is so freeing. I was ostracized but also the heart of a toxic friend group from elementary to mid high school and it still affects how I feel to this day. I felt so alone in a a group of five other girls even tho we spoke everyday and hugged all the time. When I confronted them I was treated poorly for the next year. I was kind of their toy. Then I made other friend groups and suddenly I was treated more kindly. We had a huge falling out after high school as the group was afraid of drifting apart and became defensive about my relationship with my now husband as they thought I wasn’t spending enough emotional efforts on the group (we texted every day and met once a week). I feel so free knowing why they suddenly stoped picking on me. I was an awkward but cute little girl, and I may not have been the best at making friends, but I never did anything to deserve the level of ignoring, snide comments and at one point in elementary hard core throwing out my shoes and hitting me bullying. I felt very suicidal as a ten year old, I had been convinced I was not fun to be around, down right ugly and a non righteous person (Christian stuff). Looking back at old photos, I was really cute.
the worst part about that is, if you are a male victim, you don't even have vocabulary to describe what is happening. You just know something terrible happened to you, but you can't explain what.
Manipulation tactics should be taught in schools honestly. Dealt with some abusive women before and it’s nice to have the knowledge on what’s going on rather than the confusion that i used to have
The difference between women and man who has been bullyed at this way isn´t that women knows what is happening and the man doesn´t, its that you as a women know this form of bullying more closely, but Im a victim right now and I just discovered like a week ago...
@@Blakossi dont like to put a label on specific bullying tactics based on how bad they are bc bullying as a whole is just not okay 😭 but at the same time, preventing and spotting any psychological bullying tactics should be spoken about more often in social settings. like at where we are at this day and age, i have like this hunch that everyone is at least aware or acknowledges that physically hurting someone is not okay or considered socially acceptable 💀 also while its still not yk good, something about being manipulated, gaslit, lovebombed, etc. into staying; thinking im insane for being suspicious of the people i supposed to trust; and being emotionally distressed constantly bc of them ,,, like i think id rather get beaten up and/or get stabbed, and actually know that the situation im in is bad than be in an emotionally toxic environment under the belief that its "normal" 💀💀💀
@@zimphobic352 yeah the worst part of psychological abuse is that usually the victim of it is lead to believe they are in the wrong. It’s real nasty stuff and i’d go as far as to say that it’s much more dangerous than physical abuse. I believe many people taken by the s-cide epidemic are victims of psychological abuse
Plausible deniability can also look like passing it off as a joke, “banter”, just harmless sarcasm, or just having some fun. It can be further extended that the receiving person is just too sensitive, making a mountain out of a molehill, can’t take a joke. Actually emotionally developed folks would almost never turn to such choices because well, they actually care how you feel. If you told them you felt hurt, they would take it seriously. If anything, things would not likely evolve into these hurtful situations to begin with because they already have in mind your wellbeing. Anyone who passes it off, brushes it aside, hand waves it away, minimises more likely than not are not the type of folks with whom we can truly build enduring, enriching relationships with. IMO we ought to believe in our hurt feelings and thoughts in these moments. IMO a really underrated life skill that practices and cultures that undermine the validity of emotions, that push a narrative of that indiscriminately examining, re-examining every thought as if it was wrong and pathological from its inception as the right, valid path, leave folks shortchanged and confused.
This was such a great video. My attention span has reduced to seconds because of shorts mostly, and it's been ages since i watched a guy just sitting and talking for half an hour, but this topic was so relevant and your advice is so practical, not to mention you spoke so respectfully about a difficult topic to address... well, i watched the whole thing, and I'm going to try this out in my life. I've self- isolated for about ten years to avoid difficult social situations, because school sucked, and I'm trying to get back into a life and trying to learn how to actually deal with these situations... I'm glad i watched your video. It'll really help. ❤
God this hits hard. I've been bullied for 8 years straight. 5 years by a girl that I got attached to since she was my "only friend" and I totally believed it was my fault especially when all her other friends and my former friends started blaming me. Then 3 years of getting bullied by two girls but at the time I actually managed to stand up for myself and distance myself from them which stopped the bullying. However, I ended up with depressive thoughts during the time I got bullied. I never went to therapy for it as how do you start explaining as a 10-13 year old that you're having these thoughts to your parents? I never told the teachers since they believed we were "best friends". Tbh, I think I have anxiety disorder because of the bullying.
Many of these tactics, I've seen and experienced... It's great that you are talking about this type of emotional abuse, since it's something that is continually swept under the rug.
Oh my god this. One of the worst experiences with this in my adult life was doing a youtube table top campaign with a group that had 3 guys that did these exact tactics to me all the time, the other two women at the table saw it happening and would even talk with me in private about how not fair it was but when everyone was together they clammed up and wouldn't talk. For a year (the length of the campaign) I was constantly ostrasiesed and alienated. By the end I was oscilating between anxiety and depression and honestly believed I was just bad at this hobby that before coming here had brought me so much joy and I'd made so many friends through. I am so grateful that one of my friends from outside of the youtubers community pushed me to go do a dragon age ttrpg campaign afterward when I was convinved that I was the worst and always the problem. I played in that campaign for 4 years and had such an amazing time with terriffic people that welcomed me as I was who weren't either trying to change or silence me. I've been a part of their friend group now for 5 almost 6 years meanwhile the youtuber and his group I've lost almost all contact with.
Thanks so much for talking about this Dr K. As a woman, I can tell you it is absolutely spot on. When I was at school I tended to have more male friends because of the nastiness of most of the girls in my friend group, and I just wasn't interested in participating in that behaviour. That also made me more of a target because I found it easier to socialise with / talk to boys. I have noticed though, that a lot of men have moved toward these sorts of methods since overt aggression has become less socially acceptable. My daughter is currently struggling with a similar situation in her friend group at school. She hasn't been invited to the last 3 parties ( one, literally a week before her own birthday). I dealt with this by telling her she should invite ALL the girls in her group to her own party. Interestingly, the 3 girls who had excluded her declined the invitation. BUT most of the other girls came, and they all had an amazing time. I was very relieved by the outcome, because her self esteem had been really knocked around, and this gave her a bit of a boost. I can't help but think the mothers of some of these girls play a big part in this. It's such a shame.
Spectacular video. 10 out of 10. Can you do a video on workplace bullying? It's quite similar to this, in that it is indirect bullying, but usually what happens is one person makes up stories about their victim to others around them, usually to management, and if they're particularly good at crafting their stories management doesn't echo these concerns to the victim nor fact checks them. Instead the victim inevitably gets laid off with zero warning. Often times the only tell tell sign is isolation happens at the end of this process, sometimes in the middle, sometimes the last week or two before they're let go. I read a book on the topic and the most common target of workplace bullies is competent senior workers. My guess is anyone that can stand in the way of the bully getting promoted becomes a target.
I was bullied at work on a graduate scheme by an older senior woman in a mostly male environment. I stood up to her and showed other people her behaviour. Other people I know who were bullied worked in mostly female environments.
@@MsPeabody1231 When it comes to gender it seems to be more common when ones gender is the minority, so e.g. female software engineers are more likely to be bullied by male software engineers, due to it being a male dominated field. In the other direction, male nurses are more likely to be bullied by female nurses. You can also see this in the macroeconomic data from the BLS and similar government sources. Tech jobs right now the majority of the layoffs are women, despite women making up a small fraction of the workforce. From the book I read on the topic there isn't an overall gender divide, in that all around women are not more likely than men to bully their coworkers. The strongest factor by and large is more competent senior employees are more likely to get targeted than junior ones. This is just my read on the topic, but I think some of it is unintentional. People will make friend groups at work and often times the bully is choosing who they want to work with. If someone is not in their friend group they're more likely to find ways to get them fired. Men are more likely to have men in their friend group and women are more likely to have women in their friend group. This might be why in male dominated fields women are more likely to be bullied, and vice versa.
This is true for groups of women outside of workplaces as well. Anyone who threatens the Queen Bee's sense of superiority is a target, whether because you're better at something than the QB or just don't fawn over her excessively enough. She needs to win or you're gonna get it. If you don't buy into the hierarchy of a group and submit to her, she'll go after you.
You don’t know how badly I needed this video. This is happening to me at work. I’m a nurse, and I’ve been here a long time. This office has always had a lot of cliques but now we have more men. Those men I work with including the bigger boss don’t think there’s a problem. They can’t see it. So helpful. Thank you so much!!
This opened up a whole bunch of memories for me. First on the playground this group of girls excluded me in second grade. I said okay then went over to the swings by myself. They stood in a circle and made it very obvious they were laughing at me being by myself. When I was a kid I retaliated with aggression and became known as the bully after that. Then both the boys and girls made fun of me all throughout elementary school. I finally made some friends in junior high but the same exclusionary bullying happened again. As an adult I still feel very behind socially. I went on a TH-camr’s channel trying to get help about a year and a half ago without realizing the whole intention of his channel was to bully people. It made me realize I’m probably just going to have to deal with bullying for my whole life. At least some people are nice and remote work exists now. I don’t really care at all about other people’s thoughts or opinions anymore and I’ll cut someone off the moment I sense passive aggressive behavior. I’m sometimes lonely, but it’s better to live a lonely life than one where people just constantly prove why you started avoiding people in the first place.
@@lavendercait I feel you. When these things happen, they plague your mind with questions like "why me?" " I am the faulty one" and it ruins your self esteem forever. I am the "don't care what others think" kinda person. But bullying kind ofade me extremely sensitive to any kind of judgement, or being seen by people at all. It's so hard to just "get over it", because it's not in my thoughts, the hurt is ingrained in my body.
Same, but except that I don't think of it as being lonely. I have stuff to do so there's usually more important stuff that overrides any priority I place on trying to not be alone.
I feel ya about preferring to be alone and leaving someone when i pick up on red flags. The main thing that irks me is how others criticize that. I think it’s a marker of being a True adult to be able to take responsibility for your chosen company, and yet i see so many people either romanticize that forever soulmate idea, use their loneliness as an excuse for shitty behaviour, and so on. I’ve had to make the tough decision to cut people off because they were choosing to stay with assholes - and they knew they were assholes and kept complaining about them. If i didn’t leave them cuz of their poor choices of friendships, i sure as fuck left them cuz i didn’t wanna deal with the constant complaining.
Thank you thank you thank you. This is my sister and my mom against me, gaslithinging me because I’m so “dramatic”, “problematic”, all the retaliation you talked about. You game so many tools and new understanding.
Thank you so much for making this episode! I have absolutely witnessed this in my friend group. The isolating, the "subtle" meanness, the passive aggressiveness, the way she has turned others away from me. All of it. It sucks, and I think that friend group is over. I'm just tired of fighting it, tbh! And I've taken the "ignore it and play dumb" approach, while looking at her slyly if she says anything untoward. (Like you said, to indicate that you're not reactive, but you do know what's going on.) I would add this, too - note how the female bully treats you when no one else is around, vs. when others are around. Or even - note how she treats you when your friend group is present, vs. when semi-strangers are present. She'll likely be more hostile if the main friend group isn't around.
my mother, my sister, and a lot of women i've met. and the women who aren't bullies i have problems relating to because im anxious theyll bully me too and i end up running away before getting close because i cant trust them. every time i have trusted a woman, she has betrayed me. i personally work very hard to be a girl's girl, but the girls around me don't seem too concerned with that.
Not blaming you, but in general why even use effort to be a girl's girl? Just do your best to draw your crowd, I think doing anything else is ultimately harming oneself more than it is doing good to the world
I hope you can step into being a "Your you", work a little less hard and see who stays and what new ppl come by and stay. This sounds very exhausting. It also sounds, like anxiety makes is hard to advocate for yourself and work through conflict. So if you choose to "work hard", then maybe building the resilience to be uncomfortable for others, might be most helpful to you. Trust is not something that is "there". Trust is the result when you are with people and run into problems, then make the experience that you DO manage to bring in the needed skills between each other to work out out! Ofcourse the base requirement is that we're speaking about regular relationship struggles and not abuse! I hope you can find a peer or group of comfort, given time!
The fact that you can't even be close to your mother & sister says More than you want to say. I'm not saying 'oh best buddies and friends with your parents & siblings. I am saying, that unless something is critically wrong in the relationship, or some real past abuse, you should atleast feel comfortable talking to your mother & sister about literally being ALONE, even if they can't directly help.
I think trying to stand by toxic people, whether they are girls or guys, is definitely not being a “girl’s girl”. Keep healthy relationships around, and if they are with men, so be it. You will come across healthy and well adjusted women too
@@DePhoegonIsleI interpreted that as the mother and sister are bullies. Also family relationships can be really complicated, so just because someone felt they couldn't talk about something with a family member doesn't always mean there's something critically wrong. My mother and I have our issues, but even without them I would have a hard time talking to her about someone being passive aggressive because she often still sees me as the ND little girl who often needed her to explain social faux pas. Even though she constantly asks for my input and interpretations nowadays, if she doesn't see an interaction she often doubts my ability to read between the lines.
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This kind of aggression and bullying is rampant in corporate world since there can be no fistfights in corporate
You see it more in the kids' of parents who work in corporate too. They learn early.
@@rpb4865 think i rather the rough and tumble of the trades at least you know where you stand with people.
You see it everywhere in public groups, too. From church to community causes, where people are sticking behind their public "I'm a nice person" face while jabbing passive aggressively any way they can. This style isn't restricted to women at all.
In academia too.
Yes. Super common among nurses, but you all probably know that since it’s the reason sitcoms and medical dramas exist.
Looking back, my autism actually defended me against female bullying because I simply did not notice other girls' attempts to ostracise me, and continued to be friendly with them like nothing was amiss. I think they got bored and gave up pretty quickly 😂
I have no evidence for this, but I believe you likely pissed them off a great deal by continuing to be kind to them... 🤣
@@Vextrove I've had this same experience. They do get pissed.
@@somewhereatvinland that’s hilarious
Same here. I was dense enough with subtle image, friendly enough with most, with a clear image of myself and dangerous when angry.
The one girl who tried to bully me just gave up, and apparently felt in love with me? Never noticed, nor would I have dated her, because even if her bullying was innefective she was still an obnoxious girl.
@@somewhereatvinland Indifference is a signal of strength. The fact that you don't care about their opinion of you (from their perspective) elevated your status.
I’m a middle school teacher, and I initially started watching this to recognize potential bullying among my students.. but now I realize we have much more bullying among some of the teachers as well !
People don't often grow up. Only taller
Yes, it's sad. I worked as a substitute teacher and some women really look down on substitutes and even the students do it.
I just ignored them cause I was normally only there for a day.
@@monicaz1558be like Mr. Garvey in Key & Peele
@@awena8295 Very True and I have seen some of the TH-cam discussions in America with some school board where one of the women was very hard to listen to when a mother came forward about her daughter who was blantantly mistreated by some people in some inner circle.
My heart went out to her because I had the mother of one of the boy bullies call me up on the phone to threaten me and my family. She wanted me to keep quiet or she hurt my family. I was only 10 years old and I became very over protective as a result of that phone call. It took me years of repressed memories to tell my parents. Then my parents said why didn't you come to us? I was 10 years old and terrified of this woman. I was a child of a very naive era. I didn't know what a rapist or child molester was back then. I do now! It took me years to figure out everything that happens. With all the therapy I received and I had a lot. I wasn't able to talk about it. As a child I didn't know how to communicate what happened to me that was so traumatic. Childhood/Teenage Bullies then rape. The bullying continued with some church people and adults. I have been through a lot.
Which always wonders me in a negative way, because how are adults still acting like this? Especially in social jobs
The weirdest part to me is when women bond with other women by bullying. A group giggling about how ugly and pathetic someone is and now theyre friends. I've been particularly ostracized by not participating in gossip and bullying along with those women, and by opting out, I have made myself a fellow target.
Thank you for this Dr.K. I'm also a woman who had experienced bullying from women, like many others here, and this conversation is so important
Yeah the theory of why as humans we developed bullying at all from an evolutionary pov is that it strenghtens the bonds within the in-group.
Me too! It was one of the primary reasons I got ostracised by my friend group in Grade 4 and continue to have issues making friends with women even as an adult.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t with two different sexes in that scenario. Never been bullied by a girl. Only by a guy once and that’s it.
You are not alone in this world. I have the same experience being bullied by group of skanks when I was in school. Now I am 29 and still suffering from the trauma. It really affected my social skills.
I have seen total strangers bond through bullying a third party who is casually minding their own business. It must be something primitive at work which has evolved over time. Mature souls don't bully either I notice. It's something that the immature and insecure seem to partake in, obviously in all circumstances as they have never addressed why they feel threatened by other people.
So basically,
Male bullying:
- Death by disembowelment
Female bullying:
- Death by a thousand cuts
It’s sudden vs subtle….
One gives you time to recover, the other actively pushes you to suicide and doesn't let you rest.
you're generalizing and it's wrong
@@harmez7I would say the generalization is useful, but of course the world isn’t black and white. All categorization is useful, but it’s important to remember that categories and generalizations are never concrete.
The former you can train against, not the latter.
@@ExcaliburCool it's also important to remember that there's a MASSIVE section of the population who doesn't care and will use categorizations as fact. We can say how it should be or is supposed to be all we want, but the vast majority of people do not care or think about anything beyond surface level.
I'm a guy and registered nurse. This video has been absolutely eye opening.
One of the worst professions for sociopaths and all round evil people, you must see it a lot
@Blakoss true sociopaths and evil? Rarely. But every patient I interact with is having one of the worst days of their lives. That suffering brings out the darkest impulses in people.
As far as the people I work with, everyone copes with that stress in their own way. The video really explained how the worst bullies I work with behave and illustrated a lot about how poor unit culture develops. You get one of these women into a leadership role, and it's just caustic to moral.
@@ForgottenNavigator Ive just heard a lot of stories about terrible people in that field and have had family members mistreated in the past. A lot of high school bullies like this vid talks about ironically get into care worker jobs
@Blakoss yeah, the high school mean girl pipeline to nursing is real. Even as a healthcare worker, I have a pretty firm rule against dating healthcare workers.
@@ForgottenNavigator And people don't understand why I hate going to the doctor's.... after overhearing nurses making fun of me for coming in for panic related symptoms, I avoid going to any medical office like the plague. I feel like the workers especially the female ones are so detached from everyone and don't know how to treat people like real human beings, just NPCs.
I think more men need to watch Mean Girls and The Devil wears Prada. I think those movies show GREAT examples of emotional/communication based bullying
we don't need to watch that's most of our interactions with women since birth
@@Kanye2028 Agreed
@@Kanye2028 Doubtful.
@@Kanye2028Reall? I see men falling for these types a lot, because they weaponise sex and flirtation to gain them as allies. Most men fall for it. A lot of the time the aggression is reserved for women, but yes, men can be victim too, i just think it's far less common in general.
Don't need to watch anything. My mother been bullying me for 23 years. I know a bully when i see one and i just avoid them these days 😂
Found out the hard way (again) that so many people (especially women based friend groups) bond by bullying people. People who have slightly wronged them, they just don’t like, people they’re jealous of, and ESPECIALLY people who choose to opt out of the stupid social gossip game. If they’re talking trash about everyone else, chances are they’re talking about you as well. And when you confront them about it you suddenly become the problem for not giving into the gossip/bullying anymore.
I am distancing from my main group because one girl does it, and then a guy takes it and does the same multiplied. lucky they target bad people but what is going to be bad enough to be bashed like that? Idk. I do care about them tho 😢
Jordan Peterson once pointed this out and got viciously attacked for even suggesting that women could engage in toxic behaviour
@@justadummy8076that's because JP cultivates an audience that will use it as an excuse for misogyny, as Dr. K worried about in the first part of this video
It is even worse that girls often bully their own friends by ignoring them or putting them down in a subtle way. Random strangers bullying you isn't that big deal when you have a friend group to count on, but if everyone you know is ignoring you and think your opinion matters less, it is very hard to have any kind of social life. The worst thing is they don't realize they are bullying, often they think of you as a part of the friend group, just not as a close friend, though I have experiences where someone who obviously wanted to be friends with me, was bullying on and off. Like one day ignore completely and telling me she doesn't want me here and the other day asking me to come somewhere with her. Later on I realized it wasn't something I did, she was just manipulative like that.
@@analogueapples ok but I’m confused how is that bullying? Like I say no to hanging out with friends a lot bc I’m an introvert and I can’t handle hanging out with ppl every day. If they want to be ur friend then I think they’re not manipulating you they js can’t hang out with someone consistently. Maybe im wrong but im talking from experience bc I lost many friendships bc I can’t be social with ppl consistently and I want to know if ppl see that as bullying😭
I was bullied by mostly girls when I was in school. It was so insidious. It was mostly one girl pretenting to be my friend, but she was making fun of me, stealing from me, spreading rumors about me, etc. I would get weird looks from the other girls in my class. And everytime I would call it out, I was always the one who had to apologise. It destroyed my self confidence, even a decade later, I'm slowly betting better, but it's hard.
Tomorrow, we are celebrating our 10 years out of school. Most of my old bullies will be there. And I can't wait to prove them that they couldn't destroy me.
@@elwensa4893 yo how'd it go?
@@elwensa4893 heyyyy how was it?
Please tell us what happened if you are comfortable
@@SimsyHazel the party itself was pretty boring, not a lot of people came. But I had a good time with the ones who showed up. I was able to joke around with some of the girls, while some of them didn't really seem to be interested in talking. That one mean girl I was talking about in my original post didn't show up, the only thing I know is that she's a heavy smoker now lmao. I still managed to have a good time cuz some of my buddies were with me.
@@elwensa4893 Bro you made it out one of the good ones. Glad you had fun
Bullying ruined my life. They'd go hot and cold. They'd get close to me, pretend to be my friends and then ignore me, spread rumours about me, turn people against me. school was hell. After all these years I have no friends, people getting close to me, being friendly feels dangerous. I know I'm not in school anymore and that I have control of my social interactions now, but I can't shake off that feeling that anyone getting close to me is doing so to hurt me.
Get close to people, you have to be super proactive. You will struggle with that lack of control feeling otherwise. Its not easy but you might find it rewarding.
It doesn't matter if you're in school anymore or if it's been too long. Trauma is still trauma. It affects our daily life, relationships. I understand you.
I feel you. What wild is they probably don’t think twice about it now. I was hugged by my bully years later like she didn’t torment me in school. She was so happy to see me.
I’ve been building relationships with ppl online. No it exactly fill that human need for contact but it feels like a safer way to try and you can go to communities that you know relate on something. 💖
Letting your female friends get close - big mistake. They are for fun times and hanging out, going out etc but not real stuff. The whole "girls supporting girls" is a bunch of crap.
I experienced this as well and I feel the same way. I have zero friends, not even online, but I feel lonely anyways. So I tried to get close to others again, but whenever I do I end up pushing them away again. Which makes me feel guilty of it somehow. Somehow nothing changes that anymore.
In grade school, I always used to tell people that a boy bully might be willing to hit you, but a girl bully would make your whole life a living hell. As girl who got a bit of both, the male bullies were infinitely easier to deal with. Once they realized you were willing to hit back they usually quit. The girls were running friggin psy-ops out there.
We had a couple bad female bullies in my grade growing up, and it was no coincidence that their parents acted exactly the same way. The bullies just treated us the same way they were treated at home.
The girls were running psy-ops LOL so true!!!!
Weak people who can’t confront you physically will use character assassination and all sorts of stuff to hit you indirectly
Weak people who can’t confront you physically will use character assassination and all sorts of stuff to hit you indirectly
True! I actually ended up becoming friends with my male bullies because they realised I could hit back just as hard. The female bullies? I ended up blocking them out of my life altogether (I used to be in their "friend" group) and to this day I don't even say hello to them on the street (it's been more than 10 years lol). They were pure evil.
The thing about the parents is SO true.
I was bullied by a girl in elementary school and when the teacher approached the mom about her daughter’s bullying, the mom told another parent, “Well, some kids are leaders, and others are weak.” So that was the narrative this girl was told growing up.
Just yesterday I cried because of my female colleague. Today I saw this video and had a lightbulb moment. It took me 2 years to realize she’s an actual bully. She’s so passive aggressive that it screws up with your brain and you don’t know how to protect myself. Today, after she made me cry yesterday, she’s acting all sunshine and roses. This cognitive dissonance is screwup up my brain even more!
Upd as I listen:
It’s not just being pretty. It’s any threat - being perceived as smarter. Threatening to pull attention away from the bully. Etc.
Bullying victim here. Stand up for yourself as soon as possible. Don’t be scared, don’t be meek. Show them you will not tolerate that type of behavior. I let it slide for too long and pretended it didn’t bother me but would go home and cry. Took me 20+ years to heal. Do not let anyone ever make you feel lesser than, unworthy, devalued etc. you got this! 💛
I agree. The more you accommodate them, the harder they push you. They fear repercussions.
The problem is, this works for male bullies. Not so much for female bullies.
Ya that didn’t work for me they made false claims about me to the police the investigation ruined my life I was eventually found innocent but it didn’t matter my reputation was ruined
@@Handlewithluv that’s so true, I’m 16 now, I started getting bullied mainly by these 3 kids 2 years ago, for some reason. I never did anything to them. I never stood up for myself and just pretended I didn’t hear the giggles, or felt the stares or even recognize their intentions. I always told myself I didn’t care, but every time they did something I would later cry in the bathroom. I’m still not 100% percent healed but I’m walking my way through it. The next year I got bullied by some other kids but these ones are just pathetic. I’m not the only person they did this shit with and honestly, people do the same to them too, and they can only act in groups.
This year I’m with 1 of the kids that bullied me 2 years ago and his friends, who are more tolerable, they just follow this kid around bc they were friends with him before he became like that.
I thought I was almost healed but I caught my heart skipping a beat when I saw a girl who looked similar to her. I could already imagine it her passive aggressiveness. Anyway, say something while you can people!!
@@JohnkyTonkbadonkadonk Holy crap, I hope the second person got many years in prison for what he did, he is clearly very dangerous, and I'm so sorry you went through that stuff in school without intervention
I’m a neurodivergent woman who experienced a lot of this throughout school.. it’s super insidious and really hard to recognise. I just always felt like there was something wrong with me and no one wanted to be my friend. I ended up hanging out with the boys because that kind of bullying was way more tolerable!
I think that’s worst part about it because you know something is off but the other person makes you feel like it’s all in your head.
"...because that kind of bullying was way more tolerable" 😭 Oh goodness dear! I'm so sorry you went through the mess of the only choices being peers without the skills to be kind and accommodating!
same. I rarely have healthy friendships with other women due to this. Passive aggression has become an EXTREME pet peeve of mine.
@@immortal_inanna That's gaslighting. Litterally how women have been treated by men for centuries to be excluded from all types of jobs. It's weird that these days it's called 'female' bullying when that was a technique mostly used by men before women fought for their rights.
Yep. I’m a woman in her 40s. Bullied at school by the other girls, bullied at home by my stepmom and stepsister. Never had a female friend. And to this day I can’t talk to women outside professional environments without feeling judged and shamed and hated, even though I know logically and objectively when that is not the case, I still feel that way and can never relax around women.
I’m a woman - this is the most important video on the internet for all girls. This video felt like a huge mental hug. THANK YOU!!
Bullying in middle school destroyed me and turned me from a naive nice extrovert girl to an antisocial introvert. I struggle with trust issues, struggle to make and maintain friendship, have low self-esteem, and feel like a failure and a freak.
Same. I don't even try to make friends any more, or ask women out any more. Every single time I let my guard down, they stab me in the back. 100%
While therapy can help, it is a matter of trying a variety of social situations until you find something that works for you. As an adult you have more freedom to engage and disengage from social environments. You didn't become introverted, you experienced emotional scarring to the point you've needed to withdraw from your immediate community.
That's extremely relatable even though I had the same thing happen only as a man. Couldn't talk about it growing up because" how could big strong man" be bullied by girls? Girls treated me so badly up to middle school that it made me hesitate a lot when trying to date. I didn't get better until being a mid 20s dude. Sorry to hear this happened to you as well and hope you can make small but significant steps over time to get better.
Saaaame. I had asshole friends who dumped me in 5th grade and later on in middle school because I wasn’t cool enough for them and the bullying was so subtle but it felt like the worst thing ever at the time,
Same as well
I’m glad you said being attractive is not all pretty privilege, but you can get really bullied by people who see you as prettier than them. It’s really sad because all I’ve ever wanted was friends but some people have treated me very differently once I lost weight and had a “glow up” after taking care of myself. I was bullied by my own sister and her partner, and it got so bad they were trying to exclude me away from MY PARTNER. It was insidious. I can never trust them again. Thank you for bringing this to light. This stuff is so important to talk about. My heart goes out to all of those who have been bullied. 💔💔💔
It happens to guys too. Middle school was hell for me and high school got a little better but as a socially anxious guy that got attention from girls, all the dudes at my school were determined to make my life miserable
I knew a girl who said that other girls would try to fight her at her school. She was also very pretty and a sweet girl. I suspected that it was because they were jealous of her looks.
@unionunicorn6776 I'm struggling with this right now... I was not very pretty for a long time and women were always very nice to me, but some things changed in my life physically and now I get tons of attention from men yet so many women are passive aggressive to me from the second I meet them. I don't even want relationships, I just want friends and this feels like hell. I miss when it was easy to make friendships because I wasn't being judged right off the bat
@@unionunicorn6776 last year (16) I was at the park spending time with my two younger siblings and I was on a swing just minding my own business and a group of mostly teenage girls and a couple of teenage boys who I didn't even know were coming up to me and one of the girls pointed out and said I looked ugly and that I did my makeup terribly when I didn't even do nothing and were being incredibly mean, the others didn't really do much aside from giggle but me being passive and more socially anxious just left the the park with my siblings without really arguing back while they were hitting their vapes
I have quite a lot of _"male attention"_ often, and women are never quite right with me. It also doesnt help that I've always been tomboyish, so on a personality level i get on better with guys. But being bullied by jealous women is SSOO real, no matter how much other women will try and deny it. Only thing is, then they judge you for not having female friends! I've tried so hard to have female friends I've had all this done to me. At this point, I'm convinced they just do it with the intention of isolating you.
Nobody really talks about how attractive females get bullied, especially if they are smart… thank you so much. I’m bringing this to my therapist and I think I just found a cure for my social anxiety
@@userdoijfoijd These bullies love to weaponise "pretty privilege" against you and people eat that shit up. My bully straight up told me she's jealous of me when it was just us. Later when she started attacking me verbally in front of everyone I told my other "friends" that she said that she was jealous of me and I thought that was where she was coming from. Big mistake. I was told I was arrogant to say that and mean.
by other attractive females though most of the time.... i don't get the recent trend of trying to make pretty girls victims when they've been the bane of mine and other "ugly" girls' existences since forever. i mean really how often do you see nerdy quiet unattractive girls bullying a pretty girl??
Lol. This recent trend of trying to make pretty girls victims is pathetic. I hope it stays in the West. How do you think girls considered unattractive get treated by everyone? I'd rather take that and be attractive any day than being unattractive and being treated like trash by everyone.
@@heartboba I don’t think its about ugly girls and pretty girls. All girls can get bullied. I was bullied by an „ugly” girl cause she used her insecure persona to make me out like I was the mean pretty girl. Narcissists can be pretty and ugly. I totally have had a lot of pretty girls bully me when I was „ugly” too at school. It can go both ways but its good to remember that just because you’re pretty now doesnt mean you are the problem or cant get bullied.
@@heartboba and also this type of thinking led to my bullying as no one believed me
I’m glad someone is talking about this. There was an antisocial girl in my class all throughout primary and middle school. She was intelligent and incredibly good at manipulating people so she got good grades and was actually called an “angel” by the teachers. But she was also probably the most ruthless bully in the whole school. She bullied one girl for 9 years and completely destroyed her. But I still have trouble pointing out exactly what she did. I think women communicate non-verbally on a completely different level compared to men. And what she was essentially conveying to my friend, the girl who was her main target, was that she was utterly worthless, every second she possibly could. And she loved it, thoroughly enjoyed it. She was pure evil. And I still don’t understand how people didn’t see through her. I just do not understand.
I've seen this too. There are lots of nonverbal cues beyond eye rolling and fishhooks in the eyebrow. They'll subtly but clearly turn their body away from the target in a group setting and won't look at the target when they're speaking. They won't laugh at their jokes, or respond to their statements or even direct questions. Often they'll act as though what the target has said doesn't make sense or is stupid or strange. The group picks up on these cues subconsciously and it's nearly impossible to call out or prove. Groups of insecure women will follow suit and isolate the target. The only solution is to find someone who are more confident. They're more interesting to be around anyway.
These kinds of bullies usually have specific targets, whilst at the same time they are over the top nice, or fake nice, to everyone else to ensure they themselves have a good support group. They are incredibly manipulative and will often act like everyone's best friend, whilst at the same time subtly trying to weaken and break any strong bonds between others, and play them off against each other, in a sort of divide and rule strategy. Their aim is to ensure that everyone (except for their target) likes them more than they like anyone else. So they will then be the de-facto leader, and there won't be much united opposition. They then concentrate on trying to isolate and turn everyone against their targets by feeding people fuel for their negative emotions and attempting get them to direct this negativity at the target.
This may take a couple of forms:
1) They feed the ego of others by telling them that they are superior to the target who is worthless in comparison to them.
2) They pick positive qualities that the target has and try to stir up jealousy and resentment against them.
3) They start false rumours that the target did something shameful, or something negative against members of the group, or has negative intentions towards them.
4) They try to emphasise how different the target is to the group and how similar they themselves are.
5) They love bomb everyone else, and exclude the target from as many activities as they can, whilst encouraging the rest of the group to do the same.
Some people don't see what is going on, because from their perspective, the bully actually seems really nice to them. They don't have the same manipulative mindset, so they take the bullies niceness at face value, because they can't imagine that it could just be an act performed for ulterior reasons. Some might notice something is wrong, but as long as the bully is nice to them personally, they don't care about anything else, and others might also notice but simply not want to step in because they don't want the bully to turn their focus on them as well. Moreover, some people may just not want to get involved in what they see as other people's arguments or problems when they have their own problems to deal with. One other significant concept that bullies take advantage of is the phenomenon of "group think," whereby people in a group influence others to conform to group norms and patterns of thought. So, if the bully can manipulate the group to align with their ideas, then these ideas can become the generally accepted views of the group. Once that happens the group is basically an extension of the bully, unless you can muster sufficient resources to move them in another direction.
So, often you will find that some of the most unpleasant bullies are quite popular and are thought of by most people as being incredibly nice. Personally, I've seen this a number of times myself, where the majority of people around me have been raving about how nice someone is, whilst in reality, that person was actually a manipulative troublemaker.
Whenever I meet someone like this, I generally distance myself from them and minimise contact where possible. They are usually looking for attention and drama and I don't want to waste my time on petty spats with such prople. However, if I witness them trying to manipulate or bully anyone, I will try to steer things in the opposite direction by appealing to people's general sense of fairness and decency to make it embarrassing for the bully to carry out any negative actions. These bullies are usually keenly aware of their reputations. So, they try to operate in the shadows rather than doing anything publicly incriminating. It's not always possible, and sometimes, the only option is a confrontation. You may be able to shut them down. However, you need to pick your battles, and if you're not careful about this, you will always be at war with someone.
There are also degrees of such behaviours, and some people exist on a spectrum of mild to severe bullying mentality. You might meet some people who seem truly 👹 whereas others might be okay most of the time, but will exhibit some bullying behaviours under certain specific conditions. So, it's not always black and white. There are a lot of shades of grey.
In general, most people are transactional in nature. So, they will look out for their own interests more than they value any sort of shared moral code. So, the way to beat a bully is to become a person of value who can contribute more value to any group than the bullies can. Generally, bullies are selfish. So the main thing that they offer is flattery and fake praise. This is surprisingly effective, because it makes people feel good, but if you're offering something genuinely more valuable than a bit of flattery, you'll usually find yourself ranked above any bullies in the social hierarchy of the groups you are in.
Most people I have noticed do not pay much or any attention to what is going on unless outrightly visible & aggregious. Why underlying problems in churches, family or work never are addressed therefore never solved. Why people end up just leaving.
@@sebfox2194Very very good explanation. You have said what I have noticed through the years. Would be worth repeating on many platforms seriously. Thankyou.❤
@@Ariel-q7n Feel free to copy any of it if you think it's useful. 👍
Eye rolling and sighs.... women like to dismiss in a manner that you can't address in polite company.
Because those women are incredibly impolite themselves lol! :D
If we addressed that behaviour they will use their parry tactics and makes YOU the bad guy.
you can address it, just call it out but not directly.
You just addressed it. Eye rolling and sighing dramatically.
@@WyomingGuy82201 no, no, do address these things.
“Obviously you don’t care for what I have to say, so let me ask for your input? Why do you think you’re correct and I’m not?”
I got bullied by a girl in university. When i got angry i got suspended for 2 months. It was impossible to prove what she did. Even if it would be possible, what are you gonna say? "she looked at my funny"?
I tried saying this at work in an attempt to explain why I wasn't socialising with the team and I got fired on the spot
@@robotnitchka I feel for you. Doesn't seem like there is anything you can do against that.
In my chase when i got back into the class after the 2 months i sort of got "revenge" on her. I played her own game against her. How she bullied me was, she knew i was attracted to her and played me on it. When i got back, since i was looking for a GF anyways i flirted with more than i would have otherwise. I made sure she saw the attention i got. I had never seen her so sad/angry before. It sure worked.
@@bilbobaggins138 it's a bit different in an open office corporate environment unfortunately
@@robotnitchka Yea for sure. Especially if you get fired at the spot
@@robotnitchka Sounds like you need a lawyer.
This behavior was leveled at me by other women a lot when I was younger, and men when I was older. A lot of men learn the behavior in the workplace because they’re afraid of losing their jobs. People who do passive aggressive crap have loved to zero in on me since I was a kid, I think it’s because of neurodivergence. There’s a joke I’ve seen online that a panel of middle school girls can diagnose autism in other girls faster than doctors- I do think there’s a grain of truth in that. Middle school girls can sniff out difference of any kind like bloodhounds. Most people, men and women, are cool, but I have to admit I go from zero to hating a person’s guts the second I notice passive aggression these days. It makes me want to start overt arguments just to speed it up and get it over with.
Same
Middle school girls can sniff out difference of any kind like bloodhounds... and unfortunately some never outgrow that age group mentality and remain "girls" throughout life. I hate the enforcers, who go around with their version of "if you talk to her, nobody will talk to you. Which way is it going to be?" like some "karen" bullying others as an adult.
Your comments echoes my experiences as a kid. Even now, I have some small “fear” of making friends with girls because I’m afraid that the same thing that happened to me in middle school (an all-girls school btw) will happen to me again today
@@imCyanne I recommend looking for women that aren't afraid to break convention in some way, and seem at peace with who they are. I've never had issues with women in the tabletop, Maker, or art communities- I'm sure there are jerks everywhere but I've found women who actually have something going on besides being a Queen Bee are very friendly.
As an autistic 52 yo male this was my first though. This is why autistic girls have a worse time in school. I have worked in both male and female dominated workplaces and this behavior is almost openly cultivated in female dominated places.
Took me 20 years to realize that this was my "best friend." She's also a nurse.
Classic nurse behaviour.
My aunt is a nurse and makes it seem like the profession is a profession from hell
@jayBBvid95 There's some real good ones, don't get me wrong. But a lot of them are just nasty and cruel. I believe it has multiple factors.
That's very interesting, I hear people say the same thing, but I've had the opposite experience.
I've been to the ER plenty of times because I'm a physical guy, and volunteered at a hospital holding courses for a few years. It was me and 200 female nurses. I tend to be reserved in my free time, but every time I go to the ER, I've always been a social butterfly. All the nurses end up tearing up from my jokes. It's always been an awesome time seeing these serious people laugh their hats off. I've also heard female coworkers talk about other female coworkers specifically being nasty bullies, as a third person, but I've never once experienced any of it personally. Totally oblivious. I feel excluded in a positive way, but it's fascinating how I've never been targeted or noticed.
Why is that?
@vulnikkura it is literally just social cohesion. People adapt to their surroundings to survive if there is no positive benefits to fighting. So if one of the female nurses cheat the others won't snitch since it can hurt them a good chunk of the time. Add that to classic mean girls tactics that are borne from stressful environment and the average moral girl becomes mean whilst it takes a truly good person to stay good. So if you are susceptible to peer pressure then you will turn cruel in a hospital
I was bullied for 8 years throughout school. Grade 2 through 10. Socially bullied like outcasted, exclusion, spreading rumours about me, being verbally abusive to me. I developed social anxiety and was lowkey depressed. I used to think why me, but I never realised it was bullying until i finished school and until a year later when i read a paper on types of bullying. It all made sense now and i finally had the courage to talk about it to my parents and take a step forward to healing.
same
same
I was bullied for 6 years in the elementary school. It got me to 2 suicide attempts. Luckily I started writing at the age of 12 and it saved my life.
Because of bullying I am now a completely different person compared to who I would have been if I wasn't bullied. I am a better person because of it. If it wasn't for bullying I would probably have never discover my love for writing. My life would have been completely different. I would be more trusting and less compassionate. Everything would have been different.
Sometimes I imagine meeting the parallel universe version of me that was never bullied. What is her job? What kind of music would she like? Is she happy now?
As a woman that is both neuro-atypical and as I hit puberty actually was attractive to my peers, female bullying really messed me up. Women made me feel like I was the problem, that I was a monster, and then later on that I was ugly and undesirable. As a result I had very few lasting female friendships. I used to always tell my mom, "Boys will fight you all at once and then things move on. Women will never confront you and make your life miserable forever." Female friendships felt like I always had to be on my guard and if at any point there was a chance to exploit prior/current weakness they would take the chance and lash out at me. Its to the point that even now I don't feel comfortable often around female peers.
Another thing people don't talk about is malicious compliments. Women will deliberately compliment other women on certain traits or actively coach them on behaviors that will screw them over socially. Once you turn around and ask them why they said it to you, often they will deny everything and leave you to become the villain. This was particularly harmful as I had autism and generally trusted that these women were helping me learn social secrets.
OH MY GOD THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME thank you for speaking up about your experience i relate a lot
Same here it never stops
About malicious compliments: in my experience they are actually two-sided and always end up with you being the butt of the joke, because there are two ways you can react:
1. you get a disingenuous compliment and react to it like you believe it. They will then ridicule you for believing it.
2. you get that disingenuous compliment and react abrasively because you know full well that it is just meant as an insult. They will then blame you for being unfriendly because _obviously_ that compliment was meant nice (it wasn’t, but they got plausible deniability).
You just can’t win.
@@p.s.224 You win by not caring. You lost the moment you cared about their opinion of you.
@@TomFranklinX thanks for your comment
Dang! Yes, I'm a woman and I've witnessed and/or experienced pretty much all of this kind of female bullying. The problem is, women these days are not as 'afraid of retaliation' and trying to peacefully talk to bully women would end up with me getting laughed at in my face, and I've encountered plenty of women who would outright admit proudly that they're NOT nice, and then proceed to bully me more. I don't know what to do about people like this so I just avoid them best I can.
YES... they're so proud of being "not nice" people and will tell everyone that's just how they are. ex-manager of mine >.
@@Mayushisgate "I'm proud to be a Karen", is a comment I'll never forget.
Our culture, especially through feminism, has held up this sort of bullying and pretended that is showing strength. So I am not surprised some are proud of it.
These kinds of bullies usually have specific targets, whilst at the same time they are over the top nice, or fake nice, to everyone else to ensure they themselves have a good support group. They are incredibly manipulative and will often act like everyone's best friend, whilst at the same time subtly trying to weaken and break any strong bonds between others, and play them off against each other, in a sort of divide and rule strategy. Their aim is to ensure that everyone (except for their target) likes them more than they like anyone else. So they will then be the de-facto leader, and there won't be much united opposition. They then concentrate on trying to isolate and turn everyone against their targets by feeding people fuel for their negative emotions and attempting get them to direct this negativity at the target.
This may take a couple of forms:
1) They feed the ego of others by telling them that they are superior to the target who is worthless in comparison to them.
2) They pick positive qualities that the target has and try to stir up jealousy and resentment against them.
3) They start false rumours that the target did something shameful, or something negative against members of the group, or has negative intentions towards them.
4) They try to emphasise how different the target is to the group and how similar they themselves are.
5) They love bomb everyone else, and exclude the target from as many activities as they can, whilst encouraging the rest of the group to do the same.
Some people don't see what is going on, because from their perspective, the bully actually seems really nice to them. They don't have the same manipulative mindset, so they take the bullies niceness at face value, because they can't imagine that it could just be an act performed for ulterior reasons. Some might notice something is wrong, but as long as the bully is nice to them personally, they don't care about anything else, and others might also notice but simply not want to step in because they don't want the bully to turn their focus on them as well. Moreover, some people may just not want to get involved in what they see as other people's arguments or problems when they have their own problems to deal with. One other significant concept that bullies take advantage of is the phenomenon of "group think," whereby people in a group influence others to conform to group norms and patterns of thought. So, if the bully can manipulate the group to align with their ideas, then these ideas can become the generally accepted views of the group. Once that happens the group is basically an extension of the bully, unless you can muster sufficient resources to move them in another direction.
So, often you will find that some of the most unpleasant bullies are quite popular and are thought of by most people as being incredibly nice. Personally, I've seen this a number of times myself, where the majority of people around me have been raving about how nice someone is, whilst in reality, that person was actually a manipulative troublemaker.
Whenever I meet someone like this, I generally distance myself from them and minimise contact where possible. They are usually looking for attention and drama and I don't want to waste my time on petty spats with such prople. However, if I witness them trying to manipulate or bully anyone, I will try to steer things in the opposite direction by appealing to people's general sense of fairness and decency to make it embarrassing for the bully to carry out any negative actions. These bullies are usually keenly aware of their reputations. So, they try to operate in the shadows rather than doing anything publicly incriminating. It's not always possible, and sometimes, the only option is a confrontation. You may be able to shut them down. However, you need to pick your battles, and if you're not careful about this, you will always be at war with someone.
There are also degrees of such behaviours, and some people exist on a spectrum of mild to severe bullying mentality. You might meet some people who seem truly 👹 whereas others might be okay most of the time, but will exhibit some bullying behaviours under certain specific conditions. So, it's not always black and white. There are a lot of shades of grey.
In general, most people are transactional in nature. So, they will look out for their own interests more than they value any sort of shared moral code. So, the way to beat a bully is to become a person of value who can contribute more value to any group than the bullies can. Generally, bullies are selfish. So the main thing that they offer is flattery and fake praise. This is surprisingly effective, because it makes people feel good, but if you're offering something genuinely more valuable than a bit of flattery, you'll usually find yourself ranked above any bullies in the social hierarchy of the groups you are in.
@@sebfox2194 Wow. This is my older sister to a T. Especially the 3)4) and 5).
In my other post I explained that I’m on the younger half of 10 siblings and she basically runs the family. My parent are very naive and very christian. All this flies under the radar. Looking back I can see where I’ve even participated unknowingly. It’s to the point where I would only go outside of my house to hangout with friends. I feel bad for anyone getting to know my family because they quickly find out that she’s the boss and usually in some humiliating way and we all just watch and don’t know what to do because we’ve all been put through that process ourselves and at a very young age where we don’t even know what’s happening.
Thank😄
@jordanalozier4515 Sorry to hear about that. It is difficult to stand up to a much older bully when you are young and don't fully understand what is going on. However, once you understand their behaviour, you will hopefully be able to predict and prevent what they are trying to do a bit more.
@@sebfox2194 Holy fuck you just described my colleague
That’s a lot of words, too bad I ain’t reading em
I’m literally only 53 seconds into the video but I HAVE TO pause it and comment because Dr. K, i need you to understand how much your female audience (myself included) appreciates the nuance and care and compassion that you hold space for when you cover these topics. A lot of feminist content creators say don’t listen to any men on women’s topics - and I always say, please don’t group Dr. K into that. Because your content is SO TRANSFORMATIVE and you have so many men in your audience so then hearing you talk about women as equals is SO IMPORTANT for society.
Dr. K, you’re doing the lords work. Please don’t ever change 💕🙏🏻
Beware of anyone making blanket statements like that. (Don't listen to any man/woman for wisdom in said topic, for instance). Not a good look. It shows tremendous bias and absolutism
@@phillystevesteak6982 dude i feel you REALLY missed the point of my comment. This is me thanking Dr. K for being more amazing than any other male content creator on here when it comes to women’s issues - not dunking on the equally talented and brilliant female content creators who give that advice. It’s generally helpful because there are a lot of bad actors out there. Dr. K is very unique and an exception. Most men don’t take the time to understand women the way he does.
@@lexa_power I didn't miss your point. I still stand by what I said. My philosophy: hear anyone out. Take what's useful (that resonates with you), leave the rest behind. There are bad faith actors on any end of the gender spectrum, so you're not safer sticking with women advocates that are women. Further, there are others like Dr. K with a sort of intuitive brilliance to understand the opposite gender. I really don't understand your clapback, to be honest. It's bizarre you turned this into a confrontation because I basically agree with you - but extrapolated what is (in my mind) additional wisdom about arbitrarilly limiting who you derive insight from.
@lexa_power I've always appreciated the nuances Dr.K seems to carry, too; the way he's able to analyze topics really shows how much he related to the average young person. I'm still trying to find someone online similar to him lol to find other sources of physiology
@@lexa_power You made at least 3 points.
First, you appreciate Dr K for going out of his way to have nuance, care, and compassion when he is saying about women.
Second, a lot of feminist content creators say don't listen to any men when they talk about women.
Third Dr K deserves to be listened to and has a large male audience and talks about women as equals.
Philly is talking about your second point, he believes it's overly general. Your response is that it's correct more than 50% of the time so it should be stated. Philly believes more than 50% accuracy is still not correct enough. Does this help?
I've found that the best solution for female workplace bullying is to stay busy and get really good at your job.
Yup. Become invaluable at your company, keep to yourself, and if they try to say something to HR like, "We don't feel comfortable with how he's avoiding socializing with us," politely reply that you're at work to *work,* not to socialize.
@@CeaserMadrazo that dosen't work either. My mom did this
They still bounded to take her down, ended up fired without a clear cause because everyone thought she was trying to sleep with her boss
@@CeaserMadrazo I feel that last sentence so much. Job interviews seem to measure social stuff and not much else, much to my ire.
Not good enough, you have to compete socially.
In principle this is a great idea but in practice it fails because most bosses aren't paying you to do the job, they're paying you to make them feel important.
"You can feel it happen, but it's so hard to blame them." This has been eye-opening. Whenever this happens, I've always felt that there was a sudden tone shift, a change in the air. But it's not something that you can specifically pin point, nor is it something that you can call out.
especially in school what are you gonna say you THINK they were talking about you?? say you THINK they purposefully bump into you in corridors? like its so hard to get like proof of female bullying
@@ForeverL0vingH3r that’s so truee
I'm glad to absorb this perspective. I've always suspected that female social aggression was subtle, but not this subtle. Thanks for putting it out there.
It has a nightmarish vibe to it tbh.
@@keymaster2502it is nightmarish indeed - feels like you can’t get out when you’re experiencing it
@keymaster2502 come now, girls talking about you behind your back is a nightmare? What do you think boys following you home and threatening to hurt themselves if you don’t give them another chance is like?
@@jaybee4288 sounds also nightmarish
@@jaybee4288 They're both nightmarish. People talking behind your back can sabotage your social life and ruin your confidence in the long run, it's not a situation that you should ignore. The same goes for people stalking you and threatening to hurt themselves. This is a terrible world we live in, but we can only move on and hope to make things better
This is esp nasty in the workplace. Workplaces treat social abuse (bullying) like it's just two people who can't get along. Doesn't matter how bad it is. Doesn't matter how flagrant. They don't want to touch it.
And if things are looked into, it's the word of the abusers against the victim. No one speaks out for the victim because they're all scared of being next and the victim is either fired or driven out.
And it's often the most manipulative sorts who get promoted. The ones who know how to sound good and look good to higher ups. Smile up shit down is what I call it. They have all the right friends.
And it can take years. Maybe even decades. Before they get found out. And they've destroyed lives and ruined careers and had fun doing it.
Anywhere where people get to be seen as good people just for working there? Watch out. They love jobs like that, and they love destroying people who have potential and ability. Nursing. Education. Social services. Elder care. Any job with a halo.
It's fun for them. They love every minute.
Oof yeah, I’ve seen some nursing professors and nurses on the floor that I wonder why they’re even in the profession as they are not the most inspiring people and love tormenting their students/other nurses.
It’s just narcissism. So they look for jobs where the image is most important, and the narration is automatically deemed “angelic.”
OMG you literally just described my experience last year 😭. There was a younger colleague from a parallel department, and I didn’t like how she talked to me nor anyone else, so I tried to distance myself, place boundaries. Big mistake - she lashed out multiple times, basically called me insane and many other things, and made my life a living hell at work. And my manager? She just told me we should be quiet about these things. And the HR said it’s just “cultural differences” (I’m European and she’s East Asian)… in the end I was the one who got terminated. And that girl kept on stalking me for a while.
I know I’m good at what I do, I have a top degree, I’m motivated, I’m empathetic. But they really messed things up for a while. I still have flashbacks. And it makes me feel like female bullying is following me around
@@Miss_Swede it’s more than likely that since you’re good at what you do that they feel threatened that you’re going to get their coveted raise. People need to become more aware about this unacceptable behavior and rise in numbers against the bully. IMO people like this should be blacklisted and given the worst jobs. Did they tell you why you were terminated? You may want to bring a lawyer into it if it was wrongful termination. If you have proof of her stalking or any other issue she brought you you can sue her for that and for emotional distress
@@sgnibble1 I totally agree, unacceptable behavior should have consequences. Unfortunately they weren’t legally obligated to provide a reason. I did try to complain about wrongful termination but couldn’t bring the case further since the company wouldn’t provide a reason (to cover their a**es). And I was in a foreign country so I don’t think I would’ve been able to do much more with that girl.
This happened to me at my job last year. The ring leader did all these things to me, turned the entire coworker base group (her friends and even some not her friends originally) and even the 2 HR women against me because she was jealous of me and thought her boyfriend liked me and was going to leave her for me. It was group shunning, excluding, gossiping, laughing and bad talking about me, whispering about me infront of me, undermining me in my work and job...she "thought I wouldn't last the year" under those circumstances she created. But I grew up in a toxic, manipulative, traumatic childhood so little did she know I can take a lot and it affected me very little. She got so fearful when nothing she did affected me. In fact when I was laughing and joking at work she nonstop watched me the whole day and got so angry and panic stricken and I stared her down so she knew that I knew. She stopped after that. I don't participate in these mind games with jealous, insecure, envious, selfish, childish little mean girls.
Nicely handled.
Can you please tell me how to handle this situation, when you feel leftout and lonely and when people deliberately leave you out of group things. How do you still get included and can make friends with them in that situation...Cuz when this happened to me I completely shut down my friends group, even the non bullies who have good relationship with bullies .... and now I feel lonely and can't make new friends cuz I don't go out a lot.
@@btscafeforlife5095Those people are not your friends. You can be friendly to them, and be the bigger person and stand your ground. But don't confuse yourself in thinking you should be their friend, because that's how they get you. You will end up wasting your time and energy trying to please and entertain them. It's better to find your value in yourself, keep yourself busy and stay kind and not fight fire with fire. The true friends will come along. You might even make friends online (if you need anyone to talk to, I could though no promises that I respond fast).
Trust me, I have the same experience as the OP.
@@btscafeforlife5095though I should add, if it's a work situation you might want to be included. I would do so from a safe distance and feel my way forward. Be kind and friendly and discuss work or the issues at hand, if you're invited to things say yes and show up, but don't exert yourself or do more than what's necessary. If you don't feel like showing up find an excuse they can't blame you for. You should never go above and beyond for people who will never do the same to you
@@btscafeforlife5095 Okay so like I've been bullied many times and the honest answer to dealing with exclusion, is to have multiple sources of socializing. Making new friends is scary but having few friends puts u in a vulnerable position socially. Start new hobbies, join a subculture, start talking to new people.
And, like OP demonstrated don't let their mind games impact u, it is simple but not easy, you have to start accepting everything they say and do at face value. You cannot care at all about this person, to you she is a stranger you have no attachment to, you don't care what she says, what she does, or even what she thinks, you cannot care about hurting her feelings. You don't need her approval, her friendship, or even her neutrality.
Focus on your goals, your connections, your actions, and your life.
Every weird judgemental look? Ignore it, it doesn't exist to you. She commented on your body? Take it as a compliment very aggressively. ("That top makes you look pregnant", 'oh my gosh pregnant ladies are SO cute! Thanks ☺')
It's also very important that you form strong or at least positive bonds with the girls that aren't the bully. Spend time independently, asking someone for help on something small makes them like you more, asking about them and relating to it, making a connection.
But I will say there is a reason this person thinks you're an easy target, maybe you're quiet and have self-esteem issues and have a hard time socializing. So am i, I just got better at holding my cards closer to my chest
this video literally describes how i got fired at my job. i was doing a great job etc and a group of girls wanted to get promoted, so they "betrayed" me and told management lies about me. they literally had everyone change their opnionon me and i end up getting let go because of a bunch of false claims. keep in mind these women were my "friends" i have not once did anything wrong.
That sounds incredibly unfair and frustrating
Omg that same thing happened to me at my job. I hate this stuff
I had this experience at Denise. I was helpful and nice. I got sabotage
same. It sucks 😕 😪
If everyone believes that ''bunch of false claims'', then maybe they bear some truth?
I am an adult woman and I was never popular in school but I also never got bullied.
I think one of the main reasons was because I always naturally inserted myself in a big group of friends (like Dr. K mentioned, seeking out another social group). Sure, I was closer to some people than others but as soon as one small sub group started with social drama/agression, I would just start hanging out with another sub-group. I think I always unconsciously realized you are safer if you blend in with the crowd. I was also always very confident in myself and the few times people would try to socially bully me I would just be the class clown and throw in a joke. It immediately undermined whatever they were trying to hit me with.
Another tactic I employed since young was what Dr. K said about "bringing in an audience". Whenever a bully would try something I would just gather a crowd and create a group conversation (specially if it's people the bully does not interact with often), that throws bullies off very often. Now they have to be accountable to other people and cut out their aggression really fast.
Weird to say this but, in a way, I am glad to be a woman: it's easier for me to detect social bullying and understand what are the social dynamics at play compared to physical strength. If I were a man and I had to deal with men bullying by having to be physically strong, active and intimidating, I would fail hard.
I’m the polar opposite hey. I’m a 27 year old man and if someone has a problem with me then either fight me like a man or stop being a little coward hiding behind manipulation and plausible deniability. I can’t understand social bullying well at all and even when I do it takes me ages to finally understand because I’m mostly direct and to the point.
My dad was a boxer who owned his own gym and was a coach aswell. He taught me boxing and was extremely hard on me since I could basically walk and I can’t thank him enough. Anytime someone ever tried bullying me they were too scared to ever try again after a straight right to the face and realising I’m going to really mess them up bad and sleep like a baby after the fact if they try it again.
Honestly can’t think of anything worse than manipulation and bullying vulnerable and most likely weak people, that are already in a bad place mentally and emotionally with nobody in their lives that care. Not to mention feeling threatened if this same person starts becoming a happier and healthy person they try their best to ruin it, pathetic disgusting little cowards who do that.
I'm a woman and I'm the opposite, it's much easier to just be strong, direct and intimidating, not let others see you in the role of a victim. I can't read social cues at all but ever since I got huge arms and learned to take punches while standing firm, nobody's disrespected me, even though I've never had a friend group.
@@outlawsyl i see this is my cue to get strong and buff arms. i can read social cues most the time but not always respond because it’s very mentally draining, and i think looking intimidating enough might be an easy way to deter some of that.
That’s amazing. As an autistic woman and that seems basically impossible and extremely tiring. I have been bullied to the point of having ptsd symptoms without realizing it was actually bulling. I thank Dr. K from bringing it up.
@@MonkeyLiggaScrumptiousNan I admire your directness. My default way of handling things has always been blending in and dealing with things in a mostly indirect way. This method is not always good in the long term, and being frontal and direct is something I actually work on. One of the disadvantages of blending in with the crowd is that nobody actually knows the real you. Not being afraid to offer my real opinions (even if it makes me blend less) is something I try to do more now as an adult.
Thank you very much for talking about this. I am a high school female student and what you are talking about is pretty prevalent. I look forward to see more women standing up for themselves and disarming the bullies using these prevention tips you shared
I heard somewhere that there was a study that found that women were just as aggressive as men but that they expressed that aggression passively, more through gossip and shaming than what you would normally visualize as aggressive behavior like physical bullying and direct insults. It’s more subtle I suppose but it’s also still super obvious if you look for it.
Related and relevant: Women will often start to cry in situations that would cause men to rage. The crying is often rooted in *frustration* at not being able to express and act upon genuine *anger* and adjacent feelings.
@@dinosaysrawr Socrates called it
Socrates called it
Do you know the name of that study? Please? It would mean the world for my personal life right now. My stepmother is doing this to me and my dad doesn’t believe me. She has destroyed my life. He doesn’t understand how women can be cruel without being violent. My mother was violent. My stepmother is evil in other more subtle ways. She is a complete sociopath.
@@dinosaysrawr yeah most women are raised to not act out their aggression so directly
This sounds like high school bullying. What about workplace bullying by women? I would love to hear more about this.
From experience basically the same tactics. They hone their skills in school and take them into adulthood.
usually the exact same but the work hierarchy and experience also become a tool to hold power over others, seen alot of men go into workplaces with mostly women and often get completely blind sided by the tactics they use since its simply not something they have come across before nor have learnt to expect, the fact it happens to so man y people and there are so many peeps who do it is honestly kind of disturbing
Workplace bullies are the same as high school bullies. Bullies grow old but they don't grow up.
same tactics. literally the same
Grown people still act like high schoolers years after they graduated
More. Please. I’m in med school and I’m being covertly bullied and I’ve always said that people who are bullied are different and there’s a reason why they are they need to learn how to fit in but I’m just not able. It’s consuming me. I have my exams coming up in 3 weeks and I can’t breathe. I can’t turn it off even when I’m home. It’s ruining new relationships and everything. It’s shattered my confidence. I just feel heavy and like I don’t even feel able to smile anymore or confidently make friends. Im 31. They’re all like 25ish. I want to drop out
Stay strong hun you are loved, don't let anyone take your happiness and confidence from you 🩷🩷
@Fact_z101 I have been through the same on almost all my placements. I know it's hard but you are not alone.
AS A PERSON WHO AS FUKCING SUFFERED THIS IN ACTUAL MEDICAL SCHOOL. please do yourselfa favor and fucking move out. Your education matters more than their bullshit. You do like Dr. K said need to invest in social skills and find supportive friends. God bless. I am the same age my love. Stay strong.
Prioritise yourself and your education, you've worked so hard for this❤ find new friends or even acquaintances or study partners, if not in person, online ones, there are lot of study groups and forums etc. Keep in touch w your family and other nice friends. Get a pet dog if you can. Make sure you always tell yourself they are insecure and do it to inflate their ego, don't take it personally do your thing. Sending best wishes❤
This hits hard as a victim of false accusations and excessive bullying
Truth
Word 💯
Oh yes
All in favor of radical action against bullies, vote here.
real asf
as a young kid this kind of bullying absolutely destroyed my mental health. i had undiagnosed adhd and was ostracized for acting out, by EVERYONE (my tiny school had only about 50 students in total). the hardest thing for me was the gaslighting from all angles. teachers didnt want to deal with me, so even female teachers who knew people were being nasty shrugged it off and told me i was imagining things. this type of behavior can be so detrimental, but its hard to address because we have tools for talking about classic overt bullying but not covert stuff like this. for that reason im really glad youre bringing this to light and making more people aware of the different ways mistreatment can manifest.
Omg thank you for calling out the teachers I'm still a student my self but I can tell what's right and wrong so I know the teacher knew people were being nasty to the autistic kids and didn't care like they would often make noises to trigger them to scream or something and then teacher didn't say anything and this happened almost every day until the school year ended
Same pfp, cool!
You are my soulmate. This is exactly what my life has been like. And to date some part of me blames myself because I had adhd. I feel like it was always my fault and I always deserved it. Not once have I ever been in a comfortable environment. I have been so severely bullied I haven't had a friend in 5 years. And to date, in even in Uni I'm still bullied even though I don't talk to people at all unless I'm spoken to. It has deeply, viscerally wrecked my sense of self completely. Worst is, I still think it was all always my fault.
I really hope we heal because the level of gaslighting I've endured has absolutely altered my sense of reality. To the point where when another person is in trouble, I shudder in fear of getting blamed even if I wasn't present. I feel like it's my fault. I have to forward movies when someone is being confronted or bullied because I feel like I'm living it and it's absolutely unbearable to me.
This is actually helpful. I told my therapist about bullying happening by one of my friends to one of my other friends and they didn’t give me any shit to work with as advice. She just agreed with what I said. This is actually helpful thank you so much because it’s becoming really complicated and I didn’t even realize it was bullying until i noticed as I watched this video what it was. You have no idea how much this has helped me understand this situation, and how they are trying to isolate them, and how I didn’t even notice that they were trying to keep one of my other friends from making new friends. Thank you genuinely.
My boss (in a feminist project!!) is a female bully. I had never suffered from female bullies in my life so I was super overwhelmed. Last year she had me in tears because I just couldn’t deal with her subtle hostility, this year I’m playing her like a fiddle :D I grew up with a narcissistic father and know how to passive aggressively fight oppression. But it’s sad, I’m a girls girl usually and would love the world to be a fluffy place but this woman just crossed a line with a lot of my coworkers and me and the power disparity doesn’t help either. Shes getting my best powerplay at practise!
What do you do? Please help me. Lol.
Was just talking about this. Female Bullying and Abuse is more normalized.
no it's not. people just love to nitpick women and every little mean comment is viewed as heavy bullying. and also let's not forget that we live in a patriarcal society where men's rage and mean comments are more acceptable and like +90% of aggressive crimes are commited by men....
I disagree
Completely agree. I've had girlfriends, female friends and sisters. All would bully and be bullied by women. It was normalised and totally forbidden to talk about society, unless you encouraged it.
Yeah
@@thisisntallowed9560doesn’t matter what you think.
Everything you talked about resonated with me so much. I was literally made to believe that it was my fault that they didn’t invite me places or straight up ignore me. The backhanded compliments the looking at each other and laugh when I would say something or make fun of me for saying something with an accent when it’s completely normal. It literally ruined my life for 2 years. I stopped going to school because I hated it so much and I HATE the fact that how they treated me actually affected me. I’m not friends with one of them anymore but the other one I still talk to because I have no one else, but then after saying that, I don’t like her, in fact I hate her so I don’t know why I keep messaging her everyday. I’m in denial or something, even my mum and sister hates her, they saw how much she tore me down and treated me like shit and they don’t understand why I keep talking to her. I’m just scared to let her go because if I do then I’ll have no one to talk to, she’s okay sometimes but deep down I know that it’s wrong that I still talk to her.
She would also tell me the guys I would be talking to or close with were ugly and made me think they were not it, and then when I’d break it off with them SHE would start talking to them. Broke me when I found out she got with this guy I used to be super close with but fell out with him because of her. Idk why I felt the need to write all that but it’s kinda comforting unloading stuff on the internet where no one actually knows who I am lmao
@@Bunbun10100 that's not even a friend, that's like an enemy that is out to get you. Ive been there, done that. I clinged onto that friend of mine cause i felt like i had nobody else, not realizing she's pretty much the reason I'm always turmoil. Im 31 now, I never saw her again since i entered college, but recently this year I did bump into her, she still acted the same petty way towards me.
Free yourself from that person, they are perpetually bitter, just let go, embrace the loneliness and solitude that comes after that, just know that you are making space for better things and people to come into your life.
When my ex GF was aggressive, she said something like: I need to express my emotions. But I was hurt. I wanted her to express her emotions in a healthy way.
Some days before I broke up I wasn't happy when she came to me, I was afraid about upcoming drama. And I felt relief, when she left my apartment.
That was my alarm sign, that something was wrong.
We had a talk and as she said, she doesn't want to change anything, my decision was clear.
We had some good times too, but after the break up everything was just better!
And I don't hate women, I love them, but I love and respect myself too.
Thank you for this important video. We need it!
And my female friends were like: are you complaining about eyes rolling? And: you are not entitled to intimacy, she can say no whenever she wants. That's true, but it was her way to fuck me up, after I opened up about being vulnerable being rejected.
I hate how people have to reiterate that they ‘don’t hate women’ whenever they criticise any single woman. Everyone should feel free and supported when they come out about evil things that people have done to them without fear of people demonising them for it.
Saw it a lot with the amber heard case as well. Even though she was proven to be an abuser, women would dogpile on dudes who criticised her online, calling them incels, sexists etc.
Anyways, hope you’re doing better dude
Something I said to shut down a bully is "omg you have such a low opinion of me" and "we seem to have opposite personalities I think this is why we're not really getting along".
I'm imagining this, but if it's a group of people they'd just laugh at you and continue to find you weird.
Maybe 1 on 1 but against a group of bullies there's almost nothing you can say that will actually do anything. You are the clown. Whatever you say, you are saying with a big red nose and make up on in their eyes.
@@EyesDontCry Yeah it always depend on the context. It's really hard.
It doesn't work everytime, but something I try to do is understand their psychology, motivations and fears and target that. I also show unwavering confidence like it doesn't affect me. And it doesn't.
@@thisisntallowed9560 i called the bully's father lol
@@bayas1302LOL what did he say tho??
I’m wondering if this would work on my mum, the gaslighting and plausible deniability is strong with her. Right now she’s telling me that I must have dreamed some of the stuff she has done/said 🙄 How do you not let that get to you and show confidence/not get triggered?
Hi! Thank you for the video! This is a very personal topic for me, and you captured the subtlety and insidiousness of this behavior very well. I was bullied in school, and it was really hard to get out of that situation (I even ended up changing schools). At the moment, it doesn't seem like much, and if you bring it up, people think you're exaggerating and making a scandal. But once you look back and see all the microaggressions piling up, and how they end up destroying you psychologically, it’s horrifying!
So I'm very thankful, Dr. K, for giving me concrete tools to use if it ever happens again, so I can see things as they are and defend myself effectively! Thank you!!
Thank you for addressing this! Female here 🙋♀ It's so hard to document because you'd have to delve into credibility factors for everyone involved, and no "community" is equipped to hold people accountable for lies and the social damages they cause. Women have 100% wrecked my life in a way that can't even shake a stick at the violence that men have perpetrated in it.
Thank you for sharing. How did you learn to handle it?
When i hear or read someone say that false allegations can't screw someone's life because there are no arrests being made, it makes my blood boil. It's so easy to to screw someone's life by making their entourage leave them, or make them lose their job, etc. -_-
@@ryanutterback "Learn" what? Handle what? After 20 years of unimaginable horror I now live out in the wilderness, off grid, isolated from humans. 54 years old and a whole lot of wasted life later. I first hand LEARNED that the human race is self-absorbed & hideous, I believe it's going downhill fast because of massive psyops driving us all to the brink. I just thank God every day for what I have now, no matter how much I missed or how much it's always raining here! Dark and soggy out here, but much better than living where everything is burning up or getting swept away in floods! My greatest heartache is that I never had the chance to give the many loving gifts I had to offer humanity. Breaks my heart every single day, knowing how much need there is out there. Can't do a thing as long as backed into a corner, will be here until I am HEARD about what happened, am discredited into oblivion, and not interested in touching that place inside where the outrage and trauma is stored. If it just generates more, it can't be touched. Without a life that's interactive and involved, it remains.
The gray zone and isolation are where I was from 3rd grade to 12th grade (whereupon someone kindly wrote me a letter apolgizing saying it was just a joke to see if they could do it), with 8 months off in 11th grade to be an exchange student overseas.
I wouldn't say it wrecked my life, but it did skew it off into a very different direction, and set me up for other types of trouble down the road. The invitation to our 50th anniversary class reunion took me a bit to process, as they say, but nobody seems to remember it now. ..
Dr. K very nicely outlines the plausible deniabilty of it all, the lack of defined activity to document, and some of the things that can be done to combat it if you're in a very lucky place when it happens. Very sorry for the lies and social damage that was caused in your life. It wasn't right, and if there were a replay, it would have been so nice to be the cool new friend for each other, to let us step out of the circle of control they were weaving around the group for their own self-protection.
@@MNkno it wasn't just social damage. it led to very physical damages for a very long time, and currently I still am socially defunct. When the unaccountable tyranny of psychiatry is called onto the scene and you're from a non-family background, expect to expect nothing from humanity but total condemnation. it's not for their self-protection, it is out of sheer racism. there really is no need for such nonsense, long run it's robbing everyone. psychiatry was used as the weapon to create a permanent, unfixable rift, psychiatry admits no errors, functions with impunity, iron hand of domestic terrorism. it's much like Nazi Germany before WW2. Invisible, insipid, based around eugenics, and nobody wants to admit it's right in their face. People LIED. A LOT OF PEOPLE LIED. Like a WAGON TRAIN OF LIES. Today, 20 years later, PEOPLE STILL LIE, people I meet, don't even know, they LIE TO BACK UP THESE STRANGERS WHO DID THIS, because the REALITY of what happened and STILL IS HAPPENING is just too huge for ANY of these soft, sheltered people to admit. Classism, Racism, Sexism, and Female Cattiness, The Movie. Nobody is watching, they don't want to.
this is so true, I have a female bully at my school and she is impossible to fight, the teachers are scared of her parents, she likes to use her asthma to make herself invulnerable to getting punished as she would just cry and act as if she has an asthma attack which spooks the teachers as they fear her parents would get mad at the school. It hecking annoying she manipulates men and women to do her biding and somehow has sexually and physically assaulted both men and women while also getting away with it all. It is a whole nother can of very rotten worms. I deal with the male bully by getting jacked up but this, I can't fight this.
The same with BLM movement and how over exaggeration of BLM ruins the black ethnicity group social experience. women's rights movement ruins feminine experience and any female related involvement when it comes to social interaction. Tl;Dr exaggeration ruins female social interaction
learn the art of subtle mockery, talk like you sympathize with her but make her question whether you're sincere or making fun.
What's with them using asthma as an excuse? My bully did the same, particularly when she got called out or felt she didn't get enough attention(in the competition for men's attention she created herself, may I add.. and I'm gay). But once the little tantrum was over, it the asthma attack was suddenly over. Lol.
@@rongike I did actually and also I am the type of person who helps everyone and my way of fighting back eventually boiled down to not helping her at all while helping others in fronnt of her. that really pissed her off.
@@fatjesusonbike1276 yea it's like an unbalanced ultimate ability, the universe devs should fix that.
I'm a woman, and the ones bullying me in my entire life were WOMEN.
@@EllaNonimato same here
I'm a man and I've been bullied by both. The bullying by men often was instigated by a women though, they can be masters at pitting men against other men.
i cant deny that hearing some of this stuff is almost funny because it sounds like war tactics, talking about retaliation and recruiting and combat..
They are war tactics.
@@MrR4ndom115 I guess it kinda is, in the 21st century. Many countries are actively doing information warfare on social media by employing a lot of these bullying tactics. 😅
@MrR4ndom115 yes, the recruiting people to their gang/or cause is pathetically juvenile. I have heard it often said that bullies are really just cowards. I think bullies are very immature people in their development towards being an adult. This kind of behaviour that they display is definately immature. People that are grounded/confident in who they are don't act in these destructive ways. It's very telling who is mature as an adult and who is shamefully immature and acts out in this bullying inappropriate behaviours. It's simply not a pleasant experience to see bully behaviour in men or especially women. There is something repulsive about it when you witness it.
It is psychological warfare even above the acceptable NATO standarts my friend. For this type of combat, you need the kind of tacticts that a diplomat would employ (or an intelligence officer or a military attache). What you need to know is manipulative tactics and a long term strategy to outmanouver your opponent(or incapacitate) by using interpersonal relations. They will target your core doctrine (in this case, your sense of self); which is way more dangereous than simply destroying a military base. Military bases can be built again or replaced; but doctrine? That takes years to build up again. So be safe out there and become aware and also practice, practice, practice. Cheers. 🥂 (oh, and if you want to retaliate to this kind of bully, make sure to not leave ANY evidence behind. It could be used against you without any mercy whatsoever. )
That's not too far off because the book that mean girls was based off of (Queen Bees and Wannabees) said something like that high school girls have better politics and hierarchy system than most political leaders and governments
I got a story I think touches on all the points made in this video from back in the days when I worked at a summer camp. I was asked midway through the summer to take the job as the nurse's assistant at a camp for girls (about 120 kids). My first day on the job I arrive at the infirmary to find three girls ages of about 12 sitting on the bench on the deck outside the door. I sat down nearby and began listening to their conversation, which was rather animate. They were talking about another girl who was a occupant of their cabin who they were roundly condemning as being 'immature'. From their tone it was clear that they weren't just talking behind this girls back, clearly it had gone beyond backstabbing. And these girls also were very much aware that an adult was listening to their talk, and they clearly didn't care because they fully expected no consequences for their words. I just waited for a pause and then I said, without a tone, no loaded message, no sarcasm, 'it's really good that you girls are there to be role models for her'. The blank deer-in-the-headlights looks on their faces was priceless - I'd stopped them completely in their tracks. And I, without much thinking involved, embodied the attitude of if the standard is maturity, one that your young 'friend' isn't meeting, lets see what you've got. Just thought I share this. P.S. Didn't witness any bullying again that summer.
Yay! Happy ending! Thank you for using your authority in that way.
This is also called: Passive aggressive behavior tactics, thank you for highlighting this issue.👏🏽
As a woman, I grew up with countless instances of indirect aggression. Mostly from women, but also from men. I fell into the trap of reacting very emotionally, and this has frankly scarred me for life. It just made me believe that people in general were really bad, and that I had to be really bad if I ever got into any social group and had a good standing. I wish I could have watched this video 30 years ago, and understood how to protect myself. I wish everyone would watch this video today. Thank you, more of this!
im a girl. i have a girl in my class who’s one of these bullies.
to people who she deems to be of higher status, she’s perfectly mellow; but to anyone else, she’s the epitome of a demon from hell (over-exaggeration lol). one day during first period, she asked a boy in my class if he had a charger she could use for her chromebook. he blatantly ignored her, instead choosing to focus on the work assigned to us; I didn’t like her at the time, but I chose to swallow my pride and offer my charger to her.
she didn’t say thank you, she just took it, and so I shrugged it off. afterwards however, she picked up my charger and was about to leave, so I asked for it back. instead of thanking me and handing it to me like a normal civilian, she decided to be obnoxious and shot me a criminal side eye, then threw the charger at me.
during second period, she got mad at me cud i was literally js standing there helping a peer and she wanted to get past, so boom, another side eye.
during PE, my 6th period, i was discussing something with the coach while she was standing by him. I wasn’t even in the way, but when she left, she purposefully shoved me and said in the most shrilling, obnoxious voice, “EXCUSE MEEEE GET OUT OF THE WAY”. i ignored her but gave her a nasty side eye that told her to cut her bleep bloop cud i was tired of dealing with it
i continued to be nice to her, and eventually she stopped harassing me and instead started getting giddy anytime i showed up. still continued to ignore her afterwards. i strongly dislike people like this
Ahh sorry to hear that. I wish I could say it gets better when you're older but nope, some people stay like that for the rest of their lives. As an adult though, you get more choices in choosing your friends and circles because you have more choice to choose your setting in terms of personal life, so you have more choices on who you can hang out with outside of work/other activities and not bother being friends with those girls (work and other places are different story)
@@kyt-nh1ef it’s a sad thing but definitely true. best thing you can do is avoid those people, cud 9 times out of 10, they’ll js end up dragging you down with them if they don’t have the heart to change
thank you for sharing your perspective 💛🙏
She was mean to you because you witnessed her getting ignored by that boy. It made her feel insecure and she didn't know how to handle that feeling, and she couldn't deal with the idea that someone else saw it.
@@HolaMindy, she's been insecure since middle school. whether or not i saw her being ignored wouldn't matter cud she'd always choose to be rude nonetheless, trust me i've seen it with other people too. nobody in my classes is fond of her, aside from her friends, cud of that
though i appreciate your insight!!!
I think I'm autistic but the way my mind interprets your story is she liked that boy and wanted to get his attention so she came up with the ploy to ask him for a charger, probably left it at home on purpose. Then she gets ignored by him and she's embarrassed as f*ck. You witness the whole thing and in her mind you're pitying her by offering the charger. Her computer might not even need charging. So, frustrated, angry and embarrassed she just takes your charger 😅 I mean, it's highly unlikely that my made up back story is correct and I'm not saying she's a good person but there's often more to the story than meets the eye. In fact, usually there's layers upon layers that people don't talk about
The negative experiences I had in school were so difficult not just because I was bullied but because the bullying was subtle to the point where I would blame myself for being "too sensitive" because the people around me (even those who knew I was being mistreated) would not help me, making me believe that I was the issue. It took YEARS for me to stop blaming myself and realize that I was actually bullied and it wasn't just silly teasing.
Well I had my own strategy when I dealt with that when I was a teenager. It’s probably not as effective as Dr. K’s advice but here it is: I never showed the bullies that what they did or the rumors they spread affected me. I was a lone iceberg that wasn’t affected or bothered by anything or anyone. And I never emoted at school. I trained myself to do that at home when I was alone. Is this healthy? Most likely not. But at least by not giving my power away, no one was able to take it from me. And when the rumors got back to me I was the one who rolled my eyes and walked away.
Also when the biggest bully in your life is your mom, the teen girls are kinda nothing burgers anyway.
Good idea. I just hope wherever you are now. It's not the same
I did something similar to that, on top of being physically aggressive. They stopped being catty real quick and some suddenly became very nice 😂 not something that works as much in adulthood.
I feel like most people generally hesitate messing with you, if you show them you aren't afraid of the negative consequences for retaliating, though.
They took power away from You by forcing change in Your behaviour and fear of showing emotion. They won and You don't want to recognize it.
@@Dolritto Nope you are wrong maybe coz she act like she doesn't care so its good and I prefer she could have said that into their face ....
like I would have done that I would tell them that I know ur bullying but I'm not mad I'm mad bcoz I can't believe how pathetic they can be LOL
🤧ig
I’m a tomboy. I’ve always felt so much more comfortable around guys. I appreciate straight forward, honesty. Yes, dudes are also capable of these manipulative tack ticks, but they’re easier to avoid/shutdown, because they’re usually solo actors.
My last female friend group bullied me for 3 years, ostracized me from an entire community I helped to make, and made me question what it meant to be a friend anymore. When I finally reached out to my parents, my dad told me to cut them off, and that they weren’t actually my friends. While I’m sad about losing my fan community, my life is so much happier again.
Sadly, I’m slow to trust other women now. I also don’t tolerate this behavior and will shut it down right away.
Same, it's even worse when they call you a "pick me girl" or whatever from that when the reality is you had more positive social interactions with men than women on average. And you can still be a feminist and critical of men while doing so.
@@Windmill5 Honestly, I would recommend you to ditch up feminism entirely. It had done less than nothing for over a decade at this point and is a big contributor to this stupid gender war.
Meh. The older you get , the more you realize the "one of the guys-type girls" can also be pretty awful. They become "pick me" women.
I think it's good to have a mixed gender friend group and perhaps you've just not found the right ones yet. Look at this comment section for example. There are lots of women here with similar experiences . These numbers mean the probability of you finding a good female friend is still decent.
@@MaybeitsclusterB I have 2 female friends now, because they’re mature and don’t play mind games. Otherwise the rest are dudes. I see actual “pick me” women as those seeking male attention, not real friendship. I’m a tomboy, I have always gotten along better with guys due to similar interests and down to earth temperament.
I only dated 3 men, not my friends, and I married the 3rd one. Now he’s friends with my guy friends. Lol. (I remained celibate until I married him at 31, so I have a proven track record of being able to “just be friends” with guys)
@@MaybeitsclusterBpick me girls are the type of girls that would literally ruin male friendships by flirting with everyone else in the group, just for the fun of it
This video allowed me to have the breakthrough ive been waiting for FOR YEAAARRS. THANK YOU
I just listened to the example at the beginning and it got my blood boiling. Very accurate, Dr. K.
16:22 Reminds me of the quote I heard about video games and life. "The thing that video games taught me about life is that when you are facing obstacles or opponents, it means that you are heading in the right direction that the game wants you to go in."
Wow, dude, I'm 44 and have been laid-back all my life. You have me seeing things that happened in hi-school to me or just witnessed by me so differently.
I was bullied by girls basically all through school. When i made friends with other people they would be attacked as well, often worse initially (only if they were girls).
The teachers encouraged them, i would often get detention despite not retaliating in any way.
At home I was told never to take any action back.
For added context i was around 6ft at the end of primary school, not skinny.
I switched schools midway through and it didn't stop in the new school.
Hearing girls laugh / giggle triggers my fight / flight response.
So sad to hear your story. You are strong. But you can switch School while I can't do it thanks to my f parents. Bully will always be bully. I would say stick with quiet ppl. Move seats to smartest and quiet students help me get a better grade. At least one positive side about school days.
@@neuAsa-c1t no offense but
"I switched schools midway through and it didn't stop in the new school."
so i don't think your point really applied for that particular argument
at one point I was bullied by like four different people at once, who were mostly girls. they were finding old photos of me in primary school, finding embarassing videos of me and when one of their friends defended me in an online chat, they started attacking her. literally, I'm talking about regular shaming and laughing at her eMo FaShIoN TaStE and hair.
Big hug to everyone else who experienced this type of bullying both out in society (school, work, etc) and from inside the home.
Thanks! Big hug back!
I'm at university with two girls that often turn their noses up at me and don't say hi when I say hi to them, etc. I spoke with one of them privately and asked if she had a problem with me or if I'd said anything to offend her and I explained that I noticed how she treated me differently from others. She said that she wasn't sure if I was open to being social so she hesitated to talk to me. I'm iffy about that response considering I had spoke to her a few times just for her to ignore me, but regardless, she apologized for making me feel isolated and that I had never done anything wrong. (I knew this, but wanted to take a compassionate and concerned approach to the conversation.) Since our talk, she says hello to me first, smiles at me, and sometimes goes out of her way to make conversation. There's been such a noticeable change. I'm hoping that it was a genuine misunderstanding between us and that she actually isn't a mean girl, but time will tell. The key point is that I told her that we don't have to be friends but we should be kind to each other.
i hope we have more videos on this topic bc it’s very real and hurts a lot of ppl
@SteadyState_8 Tbh, this pissed me off about this video tbh! He kept making disclaimers (which fair enough, he has to, I dont blame him specifically), but he would never need to do that if the genders were reversed.
@SteadyState_8 I agree and in a way I think there is some problems too, I don't think he is geting cancelled for daring to say women aren't perfect. im sure he isn't geting cancelled because of one thing not because of the disclaimers but because it's only a minority of women and men who can't handle a fair and respectful criticism, and can't grasp that not everything is all women. You can also kinda see that in the comment section of this video not many people are hating of him, didn't find one but even if so you can also see that it's a minority of the portion that says that. Its just my opinion so yeah don't take it seriously unless you want to
More of it and Dr.K will be labeled new heir of Andre tate.
@@kushalramakanth7922 he would bc we as a society always need to defend men regardes, saying that ofc women does this as well and etc, so be for real and enjoy the video
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS VIDEO! I've been watching your channel for years now, and you've already helped me with so much. After working a lot on myself, one of my biggest problems actually has become female bullying. I'm a woman too, but I'm so sick and tired of pretending that all women are like angels, that we are always the victims, the poor poor women, etc., when I see constant bullying in the real world by women, especially in the workplace. Most men don't notice it, or they notice it when it's too late, but I swear I've seen the dirtiest tactics from women when it comes to gaining leverage: spreading lies, manipulation, gaslighting, etc.
I think most men see women as a harmonious group, but the truth is that there are brutal hierarchies in all-female groups. Whenever you step outside the line, it doesn't even matter if you're outshining in a positive or negative way-like being really good at what you're doing, or really bad; being too good looking or too overweight; talking too little or too much; wearing something that stands out; being overly educated, or just disagreeing on something small-you get bullied so hard.
And it sounds stupid, but whatever you do, you HAVE to be average.
Actually, most of the bad comments about my appearance have come from other women and not men. Whenever I knew something or did something really well at my job, men would praise me, while the 'alpha' woman would start hating me even more. Also, what I've noticed-and maybe it's my prejudice-but in meetings with mostly men, the best idea usually gets taken. That’s not the case in hierarchical women groups. The most popular or most controlling 'alpha' women will always take the lead, and whatever you say is seen as a personal attack. It's so brutal, I swear.
I've seen so many people get fired because one 'alpha' woman didn’t like another. They’ll spread lies like, "Yeah, she threw a stapler at someone," and get someone fired for something that never happened. Or they’ll tell you the wrong meeting room on purpose, so you’re late. Or they'll push you around, make nasty comments about your appearance, etc. And there’s nothing you can do about it! I’m so sick of this behavior, but I see it so often, and nobody talks about it! And the worst part is, if you speak out, the 'alpha' women will make sure you’re the next victim, and suddenly your job is on the line.
And yes, calling 'that' woman an alpha women is totally stupid. I know. But I have no clue how to describe this one person. It's this one narcissistic women who's just manipulative and makes your life hell if you step outside of her area and she has to control every single little thing about your life, otherwise she will get mad. I hope you guys know what I mean.
Very strongly agree. I think that masking these issues as men vs. women is a huge problem. There are bad apples in both groups, and I think claiming that either group is *all* bad apples or *no* bad apples doesn't help anyone, especially since it prevents people exhibiting unacceptable behavior (like bullying, abuse, violence) to be held accountable for their actions. We should all be working together to call out and correct unacceptable behavior regardless of the gender without fear.
I see your point. But I've faced many men that feel so insecure facing an independent powerful woman. Unfortunately the bitter truth is women are always jealous and destructive towards each other while being good with men and also men are like being destructive and jealous towards women and being good to eachother. We should be more kind supportive towards each other....
very well put, so tired of fighting against this shit in work or learning settings
Girl I know EXACTLY the kind of person you are talking about, I am so sorry that you had the misfortune to be in proximity with people like her.
That comment about women wanting everybody to be average hit so hard. I'm so sick of dimming my light so other people can shine. I don't need to be a star, but I want to be able to live up to my potential and I feel like people have such an issue whenever I try to exhibit growth. It's disgusting, really.
I’m so glad for this video because I’ve never been treated worse in my life than at the hands of other women. No man ever hurt me like other women did.
Dr. K, THANK YOU for talking about this as it’s neither talked about nor taken seriously enough. I was bullied by my female friends twice in middle school 20 years ago and I couldn’t find any help or support for YEARS. It traumatized me and broke my self-confidence, though the lack of support and dismissal afterwards is almost worse. I even wrote a research paper in school and described what you said earlier on the different forms of bullying after I read Margaret Atwood’s book “Cat’s Eye” where the protagonist was being bullied by her 3 friends, just like what happened to me.
I have some important points to bring up:
1. A lot of the advice you gave wouldn’t have helped me at the time. The problem was that I moved a lot as a kid, so I always had to make new friends (which I was good at). But that meant that my social circle was limited and I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I also tried to confront and ask the first group that bullied me why they were excluding me - I tried to talk to the nicest-seeming girl, but she just said “hm there are about 100 things you’ve done wrong but I can’t tell you one”. Also, it’s really hard as a lone preteen to use humor to deflect when they’re running away from you or laughing at you for no reason - your brain is just frozen.
2. The insidious nature of the bullying made it so hard to get support during it. I tried to reach out for help from the adults around me (parents, teachers, counselors) and nobody took it seriously. It was really hard to explain what was going on, and the fear (of what was going on, and of how they would retaliate) also paralyzed me, so I never got them to take the time to listen.
3. I feel you focus a bit too much on sexual and physical sides of things, and that annoys me because there are other topics and problems when it comes to girls... I understood later in life that the two groups that bullied me did so hugely because of just plain JEALOUSY. Both times it was because I was better in school, but the second time was also because of my international exposure. These made me feel ashamed of good things I may have.
4. Yes there is often a ring leader who steers the group. One time I confronted a girl in the second group to ask why she was always siding with the ring leader, and she said it’s because she was scared to be against them as they were “very good at arguing.” The other time it was 2 girls that had been friends the longest, so they had the power in the group.
5. “Mean Girls” was triggering af for me - it came out around that time and everyone thought it was funny for some reason, which further confused and isolated me. It added to the feeling that people seemed to think this is all a normal part of growing up as a girl.
6. When I tried to talk with some of these girls as adults, the ring leader didn’t seem to remember many details - because that time wasn’t special to her, it didn’t get stored as a traumatic memory. She had saved a diary (like a Burn Book) that documented their hate towards me, and only then did she realize how mean they had been. But then in the end she wasn’t able to handle discussing it because she blocked me lol.
7. It has been so hard to even get help and validation later on…because it’s so hard to see indirect aggression and exclusion on the outside, and because it’s not talked about and researched enough. Multiple times when I tried to tell a therapist my story and talk about why I’m struggling today, they just skipped over the story and tried to diagnose me with e.g. social anxiety disorder. It’s insulting. Trauma-informed therapy is key here.
8. The gray zone, all the confusion, secrecy and exclusion is soooo damaging. As I found out while researching for my paper, internal wounds from indirect aggression are much worse and longer lasting than external wounds from direct aggression. Nobody believes you or takes you seriously, and you end up always questioning yourself, your feelings and judgment, and believing that you’re wrong and unlovable. It impacts all of your life.
There’s so much more I could say but this is already very long haha. But the last thing to mention is that the most important thing for a victim in this situation is ALLIES like you said, since the victim is so disempowered by bullies that won’t listen to their target. And yes, there also has to be some kind of consequence to this kind of behavior, otherwise perpetrators will continue to get away with it and more people will have their lives turned upside down by bullying. Whenever I see someone getting bullied today, I get so angry at the injustice and try to stand up for that person. I hope we can all stand up for the victim, talk about and do more research into this kind of bullying, and ultimately create a kinder society. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!
Omg I've been dealing with indirect aggression all my life and just now realized it! I was so confused on why I couldn't get over it but multiple times I've thought that if people just told me they hated me it would be better. This push and pull of people who are your "friends" SUCKS.
Oh no, my mum was the WORST female bully, it all makes sense now.
Me too! She always made me feel so inadequate but now I realize she’s the problem not me and don’t put up with her BS. She loves giving the silent treatment and expects us to mind read.
Same here. She's just a professional gaslighter.
SAME
You and me both. So much so that I don't even trust my own reality most of the time. I've been gaslit into a state of permanent cognitive dissonance.
i was mostly bullied in middle school and while i always called it bullying, it was never the physical type of bullying others would imagine, it was exactly this. my self esteem dropped drastically, so low. but i suddenly got this moment one day where i realized i had to change. i watched so many videos online on how to increase self esteem, be better at socializing, and how to interact with people. even videos analyzing the human body language. and slowly by the time high school rolled aorund i was way better. im so glad i was able to heal myself. i wouldnt say im fully healed, but it is better
I have a son in 3rd grade. Boys lean towards physical competition naturally but az we all know that is heavily discouraged in school outside of sports because it leads to violence and injury. This is probably the lesser of two evils so I won't comment on the merit of that, but I have noticed that one side effect of the strong no tolerance policy to physical bullying is that boys are now inflicting more indirect aggression on each other. Generally, boys are slower to mature social-emotionally, and they aren’t socialized to learn these sort of group dynamics from a young age. So it can actually be very damaging to a young boy when he becomes a victim of this insidious form of ostracization.
I'm a neurodivergent woman who was bullied like this in school by the people I thought were my closest friends. That violation of trust is the part that causes lasting trauma and it has taken me a long time to process; so in no way am I trying to co-opt a lady topic and try to swerve it back to the fellas as is so common on here. I just wanted to make sure any young men watching felt seen, and that parents of boys dont brush this off as a "girl thing" because some of youngest suicides are from boys who are picked on in this way even though "they weren't even touched!"
@@aawillma cheers for that, im male but this doesn’t relate to me individually other than same gender. I felt the need to show appreciation because boys and men’s struggles very often don’t even get a mention. The rare occasions they do it seems to spark more hate and backlash then anything else just for merely acknowledging men are struggling with xyz, which no doubt can make boys and men in bad places emotionally/mentally feel the entire world is against them often leading to like you said, them taking life as they knew it back where it came from earlier than intended.
Although men don’t really get into fights any more, I’ve seen 3 fights so far, and all of them were for “fun”. I wouldn’t say that that is as rampant as for girls, instead I’d say it’s more rejection and loneliness for men, might be wrong though, I’ve never gotten bullied.
I'm too autistic for this sh*t.
Same girl, same 😂
I relate so much 😅
the scariest is it happens even until way adulthood.. 30s 40s.. T_T
I'm not diagnosed, but fr fr
gotta love some instructions though..
Thank you so much for this video. I was a victim of female bullying at 11 by 14 girls for nearly a year and a half and it destroyed me completely at the time. I consider myself mostly if not fully recovered from that experience, but it left permanent scars and changes to my way of thinking. I struggled with accepting that what I had gone through had been bullying because of its secrecy, because I didn't have visible evidence of any harm. Everyone must know that this form of abuse can be just as bad as male bullying.
this happens SO often. From schools to workplaces
I went to an all-girl's school for 6 months. The female bullying was RAMPANT and filled with hazing. Not to say "all female-only schools" are like this. The other female-only school in our area was very much NOT filled with the bullying culture that the one I went to was. But I made the mistake of choosing the school where bullying was not only expected, but encouraged by the culture, by alumni, by teachers, by seniors given the "responsibility" of taking new girls into the school and culture. It was a culture of fear and gossip and rumors were rampant. It was terrible. Miss Porter's School. News Stories about it blew up about 10 years ago now for this very issue, the hazing and bullying. No idea how it went from there and the only reason I even know about it was because one of my teachers from my time there was found to be a predator and I was asked by my mother if anything had happened there with me (thankfully it hadn't)
Yeah, generally speaking single-sex schools are documented to have milder bullying compared to co-ed, cross-culturally. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and when it does, it's still bad.
School itself is hellish enough. Other people make it much worse.
Social circles are weird.
About standing up with the victim - I realized that I've been doing this without even thinking for the past several years at least. Like, when at work one woman starts to belittle or otherwise attack another woman - all other women are in silent approval, but I would always step up and say something to defend them. Not attacking the bully - I know it wouldn't work. But I would say something like "hey, I'm the same way" (as the victim) or "we're all in it together, relax", or even take the heat from the victim to myself, because I know that I can handle the bullying relatively easily. And it usually diffuses the situation
It's a powerful way to disarm those kinds of situations. The empathic approach, even
Dilution. Smart
I usually just fight back 😂....but I am starting to like this new approach
This video being so triggering for me with my “bestfriend” because even though I’ve come to realize how she competed with me constantly (after the fact), and it stemming from her deep rooted insecurities, she was bullying me the entire time. Isolating me from my friends, etc. I’m near the end phase of my quarter life crisis and separating myself from my past life (I just graduated college), just when I thought I’ve done the healing and forgiveness within myself from the people apart of my past, and still being thankful for the experiences they’ve given me, I continue to make sense of their behaviors. To realize how blind I was and thinking I’ve seen everything for what it was, and still being shown their resentful behaviors is so heartbreaking. I’ve come to terms with their narcissistic behaviors and patterns, but now labeling it as bullying (by definition) just takes it to a whole nother level of betrayal. I hope I find a friend like me one day, and until then I’m enjoying my own presence.
This resonates so much, we have measures in place for male aggresive behaviour like physical violence but there is none for mental violence, the aggresiveness that woman use the most. As a young boy i was exposed to this early and alot and it made me insecure and unsympathetic towards woman rights like feminism, not understanding why it was needed or it was just triggering to see the unfairness in society's bias towards woman being pure and innocent while they usually are the instigators of aggression, escalation and getting away with it. Its strange that the general concensus is that woman need to be protected, they are the prize, they are most fragile but they can also have the greatest nasty traits. A good example is how most woman are 'boss' of the household by mental abuse to their male partners.
It’s hard to have a conversation about this topic because of how unpopular it is. A lot of people dislike being told that they too can be a bad person by doing bad things. It comforts many to believe they can’t actually hurt someone or that whoever they hurt deserved it.
Unfortunately a good amount of people genuinely believe that men are the only people capable of harm, and this misunderstanding has caused countless broken men to lay out perpetuating the cycle. It has also caused loss of life seeing half the population praised as being innocent and pure and your half as evil and dangerous.
This is confusing to me because I experienced boys inflicting mental violence from an early age.
@@LGrian and there are millions of resources for people who are victims of male violence, including mental violence. Societally we call those people abusers, we ostracize them, and push them out.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a female only thing, but statistically women do this much more than men. However the resources available to people who are victims of female abuse are nearly zero. Seriously, go ask lesbian couples about this. I guarantee most have a story to tell. As a society we forgive these people and downplay their actions. People will laugh at you and call you “sensitive” if you try and call it out.
Don’t get the wrong idea, nobody is saying women are the only perpetrators of this sort of thing, and your experiences are valid, however that isn’t what this comment is about. This comment is here for those who are unheard.
The whole section about prevention was fascinating, but I was left wondering; how do we socially hold these bullies accountable for their bad behaviour if all the tactics to disarm them include "no blaming them"?
you can punish them by isolating them in return or something but in general these people don't understand the concept of accountability.
Well these tactics make their actions ineffective. So basically you're sending the signal that whatever they're doing is worthless and you're weak lol.
Agreed. I don't want to befriend the psychopath. I just want her to stop sabotaging my other relationships.
@@rongike This type's biggest fear is being in your position. They're terrified of being ostracized and losing social power.
you can't punish someone for not hanging out with you, or not being your friend. What do you do when someone who claims to be your friend, doesn't treat you like a friend? you just stop being friends with them. That's it. But if you're not gonna do that... you can't force people to be your friend. In some situations you might force people to be cordial or polite towards you, but you can't force them to be kind to you. Someone who is sabotaging your social life through the means of exclusion, never has any obligation to include you so they can exclude you as much as they like. The damage that exclusion does to you is completely internal, but the source of the exclusion is external. so the emotions that you feel when you're being excluded can be blamed on you and your inner insecurities or self-esteem issues. but all of that is coming from what's happening externally. and the bully knows that. they know that when they exclude you they are causing you some type of internal emotional hurt, and they also know that all of the emotional hurt that you're experiencing can be blamed on your own internal problems and conflicts, that you have with yourself. so they don't have to take responsibility for what they do to you. They just say well "you're just an insecure person" or "you're just an entitled person, so i actually didn't do anything wrong." Or "The reason that you feel excluded is not because you're actually being excluded, it's because you have some emotional pain and hurt that is happening for any reason other than someone actually emotionally hurting you" you dont want them to be able to say that. so basically you have to show that your otherwise emotionally sound, and not entitled and completely confident and also somehow sneakily oblige them to include you. You have to be creative at that point and kind of make it seem like they really are doing something wrong by not including you or they're really the asshole for not including you. something that can't be brushed away or dismissed with "Oh I forgot" you have to get creative at that point, then there you go, but you have to have a good reputation of being like a emotionally strong and kind of just a chill person in general and not an entitled asshole, because one of you is gonna be made to look like an asshole at the end of it. Be SUPER SUPER chill. like way too chill. way too nonchalant. So remember, you have to be extremely chill and they cannot be punished unless they are somehow obligated to include you which they are not inherently. so unless you can maneuver and fabricate some type of obligation that is legitimate in the eyes of the group, then they won't be punished. so you have to come up with something you have to be creative. Im sorry if this is gibberish im half asleep
I got bullied by friends of a girl I asked out in the high school for whole year. She immediately said no to me and then told her friends about me. They made fun of me for a whole year about how I could even think about asking out their friend. I had no option other than ignoring them or acting like I didn't hear them saying sh*t about me. That scared me so much and it took me 4 years to ask out a girl again (she said no, too)😂
@@manny514 damn dawg
That you can laugh about the second refusal makes you a self possessed titan. Keep that chin up 💪.
Thanks for speaking to this. I was bullied in school, and your words definitely resonated. But I also left a work environment a year ago that had a ton of bullying behavior. I worked at an inpatient unit for Behavioral Health, so the majority of staff were nurses, aids, and therapists. About 90% of our staff were women. And the politics were brutal. There was so much indirect/subtle bullying, especially from our unit director. It felt maddening. And we were the ones trying to provide psychological care.
This topic also speaks to the different ways men and women are taught to joke. Women are typically encouraged motivate each other by lifting each other up, rather than trashtalk. So, if a joke's being made at your expense, the lighthearted inflection is used in order to get away with the actual mean comment the joke's meant to insinuate. It's a generalization and some women can have healthy banter with each other. But it can be an indication of bullying especially when paired with other behaviors.
I went to dental hygiene school. The teachers were mean girls. No matter how much the students complained to the college, nothing was done.
It’s insane how pervasive this behavior is in society. Makes me so sad to hear that it’s even like this among people who are in a profession where they’re supposed to HELP struggling people 😭😤
I can not thank you enough for taking the time to make this video! 🙏🏾I feel like I’ve been dealing with this since puberty and it’s really destroyed me. One of the biggest things I’ve always struggled to understand is passive-aggressiveness and why people communicate in such a covert manner. It would seem as though it destroys the point of communication almost entirely? I’m 24 turning 25 in December; what has been one of the biggest disappointments of my adulthood so far is the realization that many women still behave like this even up until their 30s,40s and beyond. Truly an epidemic that needs proper addressing.
This is so freeing. I was ostracized but also the heart of a toxic friend group from elementary to mid high school and it still affects how I feel to this day. I felt so alone in a a group of five other girls even tho we spoke everyday and hugged all the time. When I confronted them I was treated poorly for the next year. I was kind of their toy. Then I made other friend groups and suddenly I was treated more kindly. We had a huge falling out after high school as the group was afraid of drifting apart and became defensive about my relationship with my now husband as they thought I wasn’t spending enough emotional efforts on the group (we texted every day and met once a week). I feel so free knowing why they suddenly stoped picking on me. I was an awkward but cute little girl, and I may not have been the best at making friends, but I never did anything to deserve the level of ignoring, snide comments and at one point in elementary hard core throwing out my shoes and hitting me bullying. I felt very suicidal as a ten year old, I had been convinced I was not fun to be around, down right ugly and a non righteous person (Christian stuff). Looking back at old photos, I was really cute.
the worst part about that is, if you are a male victim, you don't even have vocabulary to describe what is happening. You just know something terrible happened to you, but you can't explain what.
Most women don't know either.
Manipulation tactics should be taught in schools honestly. Dealt with some abusive women before and it’s nice to have the knowledge on what’s going on rather than the confusion that i used to have
The difference between women and man who has been bullyed at this way isn´t that women knows what is happening and the man doesn´t, its that you as a women know this form of bullying more closely, but Im a victim right now and I just discovered like a week ago...
@@Blakossi dont like to put a label on specific bullying tactics based on how bad they are bc bullying as a whole is just not okay 😭
but at the same time, preventing and spotting any psychological bullying tactics should be spoken about more often in social settings. like at where we are at this day and age, i have like this hunch that everyone is at least aware or acknowledges that physically hurting someone is not okay or considered socially acceptable 💀
also while its still not yk good, something about being manipulated, gaslit, lovebombed, etc. into staying; thinking im insane for being suspicious of the people i supposed to trust; and being emotionally distressed constantly bc of them ,,, like i think id rather get beaten up and/or get stabbed, and actually know that the situation im in is bad than be in an emotionally toxic environment under the belief that its "normal" 💀💀💀
@@zimphobic352 yeah the worst part of psychological abuse is that usually the victim of it is lead to believe they are in the wrong. It’s real nasty stuff and i’d go as far as to say that it’s much more dangerous than physical abuse. I believe many people taken by the s-cide epidemic are victims of psychological abuse
Plausible deniability can also look like passing it off as a joke, “banter”, just harmless sarcasm, or just having some fun.
It can be further extended that the receiving person is just too sensitive, making a mountain out of a molehill, can’t take a joke.
Actually emotionally developed folks would almost never turn to such choices because well, they actually care how you feel. If you told them you felt hurt, they would take it seriously. If anything, things would not likely evolve into these hurtful situations to begin with because they already have in mind your wellbeing.
Anyone who passes it off, brushes it aside, hand waves it away, minimises more likely than not are not the type of folks with whom we can truly build enduring, enriching relationships with.
IMO we ought to believe in our hurt feelings and thoughts in these moments. IMO a really underrated life skill that practices and cultures that undermine the validity of emotions, that push a narrative of that indiscriminately examining, re-examining every thought as if it was wrong and pathological from its inception as the right, valid path, leave folks shortchanged and confused.
"many a truth has been said in jest..."
This was such a great video. My attention span has reduced to seconds because of shorts mostly, and it's been ages since i watched a guy just sitting and talking for half an hour, but this topic was so relevant and your advice is so practical, not to mention you spoke so respectfully about a difficult topic to address... well, i watched the whole thing, and I'm going to try this out in my life.
I've self- isolated for about ten years to avoid difficult social situations, because school sucked, and I'm trying to get back into a life and trying to learn how to actually deal with these situations... I'm glad i watched your video. It'll really help. ❤
God this hits hard. I've been bullied for 8 years straight. 5 years by a girl that I got attached to since she was my "only friend" and I totally believed it was my fault especially when all her other friends and my former friends started blaming me. Then 3 years of getting bullied by two girls but at the time I actually managed to stand up for myself and distance myself from them which stopped the bullying. However, I ended up with depressive thoughts during the time I got bullied. I never went to therapy for it as how do you start explaining as a 10-13 year old that you're having these thoughts to your parents? I never told the teachers since they believed we were "best friends". Tbh, I think I have anxiety disorder because of the bullying.
This is so similar to me. And exactly, how do you explain something as complicated as this to adults when you’re that age?
Many of these tactics, I've seen and experienced... It's great that you are talking about this type of emotional abuse, since it's something that is continually swept under the rug.
Oh my god this. One of the worst experiences with this in my adult life was doing a youtube table top campaign with a group that had 3 guys that did these exact tactics to me all the time, the other two women at the table saw it happening and would even talk with me in private about how not fair it was but when everyone was together they clammed up and wouldn't talk. For a year (the length of the campaign) I was constantly ostrasiesed and alienated. By the end I was oscilating between anxiety and depression and honestly believed I was just bad at this hobby that before coming here had brought me so much joy and I'd made so many friends through. I am so grateful that one of my friends from outside of the youtubers community pushed me to go do a dragon age ttrpg campaign afterward when I was convinved that I was the worst and always the problem. I played in that campaign for 4 years and had such an amazing time with terriffic people that welcomed me as I was who weren't either trying to change or silence me. I've been a part of their friend group now for 5 almost 6 years meanwhile the youtuber and his group I've lost almost all contact with.
Thanks so much for talking about this Dr K. As a woman, I can tell you it is absolutely spot on. When I was at school I tended to have more male friends because of the nastiness of most of the girls in my friend group, and I just wasn't interested in participating in that behaviour. That also made me more of a target because I found it easier to socialise with / talk to boys.
I have noticed though, that a lot of men have moved toward these sorts of methods since overt aggression has become less socially acceptable.
My daughter is currently struggling with a similar situation in her friend group at school. She hasn't been invited to the last 3 parties ( one, literally a week before her own birthday). I dealt with this by telling her she should invite ALL the girls in her group to her own party. Interestingly, the 3 girls who had excluded her declined the invitation. BUT most of the other girls came, and they all had an amazing time. I was very relieved by the outcome, because her self esteem had been really knocked around, and this gave her a bit of a boost. I can't help but think the mothers of some of these girls play a big part in this. It's such a shame.
Definitely agree. Mean moms love to coach their mean daughters.
Spectacular video. 10 out of 10. Can you do a video on workplace bullying? It's quite similar to this, in that it is indirect bullying, but usually what happens is one person makes up stories about their victim to others around them, usually to management, and if they're particularly good at crafting their stories management doesn't echo these concerns to the victim nor fact checks them. Instead the victim inevitably gets laid off with zero warning. Often times the only tell tell sign is isolation happens at the end of this process, sometimes in the middle, sometimes the last week or two before they're let go.
I read a book on the topic and the most common target of workplace bullies is competent senior workers. My guess is anyone that can stand in the way of the bully getting promoted becomes a target.
I was bullied at work on a graduate scheme by an older senior woman in a mostly male environment. I stood up to her and showed other people her behaviour.
Other people I know who were bullied worked in mostly female environments.
@@MsPeabody1231 When it comes to gender it seems to be more common when ones gender is the minority, so e.g. female software engineers are more likely to be bullied by male software engineers, due to it being a male dominated field. In the other direction, male nurses are more likely to be bullied by female nurses. You can also see this in the macroeconomic data from the BLS and similar government sources. Tech jobs right now the majority of the layoffs are women, despite women making up a small fraction of the workforce. From the book I read on the topic there isn't an overall gender divide, in that all around women are not more likely than men to bully their coworkers. The strongest factor by and large is more competent senior employees are more likely to get targeted than junior ones.
This is just my read on the topic, but I think some of it is unintentional. People will make friend groups at work and often times the bully is choosing who they want to work with. If someone is not in their friend group they're more likely to find ways to get them fired. Men are more likely to have men in their friend group and women are more likely to have women in their friend group. This might be why in male dominated fields women are more likely to be bullied, and vice versa.
This is true for groups of women outside of workplaces as well. Anyone who threatens the Queen Bee's sense of superiority is a target, whether because you're better at something than the QB or just don't fawn over her excessively enough. She needs to win or you're gonna get it. If you don't buy into the hierarchy of a group and submit to her, she'll go after you.
You don’t know how badly I needed this video. This is happening to me at work. I’m a nurse, and I’ve been here a long time. This office has always had a lot of cliques but now we have more men. Those men I work with including the bigger boss don’t think there’s a problem. They can’t see it.
So helpful. Thank you so much!!
This opened up a whole bunch of memories for me. First on the playground this group of girls excluded me in second grade. I said okay then went over to the swings by myself. They stood in a circle and made it very obvious they were laughing at me being by myself. When I was a kid I retaliated with aggression and became known as the bully after that. Then both the boys and girls made fun of me all throughout elementary school. I finally made some friends in junior high but the same exclusionary bullying happened again.
As an adult I still feel very behind socially. I went on a TH-camr’s channel trying to get help about a year and a half ago without realizing the whole intention of his channel was to bully people. It made me realize I’m probably just going to have to deal with bullying for my whole life. At least some people are nice and remote work exists now. I don’t really care at all about other people’s thoughts or opinions anymore and I’ll cut someone off the moment I sense passive aggressive behavior. I’m sometimes lonely, but it’s better to live a lonely life than one where people just constantly prove why you started avoiding people in the first place.
@@lavendercait I feel you. When these things happen, they plague your mind with questions like "why me?" " I am the faulty one" and it ruins your self esteem forever.
I am the "don't care what others think" kinda person. But bullying kind ofade me extremely sensitive to any kind of judgement, or being seen by people at all. It's so hard to just "get over it", because it's not in my thoughts, the hurt is ingrained in my body.
Same, but except that I don't think of it as being lonely. I have stuff to do so there's usually more important stuff that overrides any priority I place on trying to not be alone.
I feel you.
This :/
I feel ya about preferring to be alone and leaving someone when i pick up on red flags. The main thing that irks me is how others criticize that. I think it’s a marker of being a True adult to be able to take responsibility for your chosen company, and yet i see so many people either romanticize that forever soulmate idea, use their loneliness as an excuse for shitty behaviour, and so on. I’ve had to make the tough decision to cut people off because they were choosing to stay with assholes - and they knew they were assholes and kept complaining about them. If i didn’t leave them cuz of their poor choices of friendships, i sure as fuck left them cuz i didn’t wanna deal with the constant complaining.
Thank you thank you thank you. This is my sister and my mom against me, gaslithinging me because I’m so “dramatic”, “problematic”, all the retaliation you talked about. You game so many tools and new understanding.
Thank you so much for making this episode! I have absolutely witnessed this in my friend group. The isolating, the "subtle" meanness, the passive aggressiveness, the way she has turned others away from me. All of it. It sucks, and I think that friend group is over. I'm just tired of fighting it, tbh! And I've taken the "ignore it and play dumb" approach, while looking at her slyly if she says anything untoward. (Like you said, to indicate that you're not reactive, but you do know what's going on.)
I would add this, too - note how the female bully treats you when no one else is around, vs. when others are around.
Or even - note how she treats you when your friend group is present, vs. when semi-strangers are present. She'll likely be more hostile if the main friend group isn't around.
my mother, my sister, and a lot of women i've met. and the women who aren't bullies i have problems relating to because im anxious theyll bully me too and i end up running away before getting close because i cant trust them. every time i have trusted a woman, she has betrayed me. i personally work very hard to be a girl's girl, but the girls around me don't seem too concerned with that.
Not blaming you, but in general why even use effort to be a girl's girl? Just do your best to draw your crowd, I think doing anything else is ultimately harming oneself more than it is doing good to the world
I hope you can step into being a "Your you", work a little less hard and see who stays and what new ppl come by and stay. This sounds very exhausting. It also sounds, like anxiety makes is hard to advocate for yourself and work through conflict. So if you choose to "work hard", then maybe building the resilience to be uncomfortable for others, might be most helpful to you.
Trust is not something that is "there". Trust is the result when you are with people and run into problems, then make the experience that you DO manage to bring in the needed skills between each other to work out out!
Ofcourse the base requirement is that we're speaking about regular relationship struggles and not abuse! I hope you can find a peer or group of comfort, given time!
The fact that you can't even be close to your mother & sister says More than you want to say. I'm not saying 'oh best buddies and friends with your parents & siblings. I am saying, that unless something is critically wrong in the relationship, or some real past abuse, you should atleast feel comfortable talking to your mother & sister about literally being ALONE, even if they can't directly help.
I think trying to stand by toxic people, whether they are girls or guys, is definitely not being a “girl’s girl”. Keep healthy relationships around, and if they are with men, so be it. You will come across healthy and well adjusted women too
@@DePhoegonIsleI interpreted that as the mother and sister are bullies. Also family relationships can be really complicated, so just because someone felt they couldn't talk about something with a family member doesn't always mean there's something critically wrong. My mother and I have our issues, but even without them I would have a hard time talking to her about someone being passive aggressive because she often still sees me as the ND little girl who often needed her to explain social faux pas. Even though she constantly asks for my input and interpretations nowadays, if she doesn't see an interaction she often doubts my ability to read between the lines.
As an autistic woman a lot of this behavior is so baffling to me. I'm glad your providing this social breakdown.