Bystanders’ Roles in Witnessing Bullying and Violent Crime

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=790590087621312&set=vb.567254213288235&type=3&theater

 

The link above shows a video taped study conducted by college students, showing people’s reactions to bullying.  The camera person hid while two students conducted a mock-bullying situation right in front of people.  They repeated their experiment in different locations on school campus, drawing varying reactions.  Out of all the bystanders, five advocated, 17 were passive or careless, and one person was hesitant but wanted to help. 

In the video from the previous blog entry, Jean Kilbourne said that objectification is the first step in justifying violence toward another person.  The same is done with black people, gay people, and other people who historically have been dehumanized.  Bullying victims are almost always dehumanized.  The unidentified students portrayed archetypical stereotyped roles in bullying scenarios.  The fake-bully, who looked like a “homeboy” type, was physically abusing the nerd-victim into writing his paper for him.  He literally treated him like he was a broken vending machine for homework assignments.  The bully demonstrated objectification of a human being.

Most of the people witnessing the twisted treatment ignored the abuse.  People who were walking, kept walking.  People sitting even stood up and walked away.  My addition to Jean Kilbourne’s point is it is possible for people to objectify themselves.  They were not helping.  They functioned like ants filing toward a colony.  Are ants living things?  Yes, but they are not human, therefore from the victim’s perspective (and probably the aggressor’s too) they have dehumanized themselves.  They might as well be marching robots.

If the victim is objectified long term; dehumanized from the rest of the self-dehumanizing population, the victim’s mental state may change in a way that he/she does not feel as responsible for his/her actions.  The person long deprived of feeling equal, may feel in future conflicts after snapping or transferring the violent behavior that, “You caused me to react that way,” “I had no other choice,” “I had to do this,” and quoting Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter, “You made me do this!”

Bullying and Bystander Maltreatment are precursors to school shootings, as I will demonstrate in my upcoming presentation on this subject.  Bullying is more obvious, but bystander maltreatment encourages the continuation of abuse.  People can either be complicit or cruel and heckling.  No one in the video was making rude comments or cheering the aggressor.  They were complicit, passively allowing it to happen.  Toward the end of the video the message reads, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”  The victim gets the impression that people do not care.  If the abuse starts in childhood, then the bystanders dehumanize themselves earlier, while the victim is stripped of dignity.  The result is that all parties eventually become objectified.  Because the dehumanization is in the long term, the ideas become deeply ingrained in the person.  The angry victim is like boiling water.  The water is blamed by society for boiling, rather than the source of the heat.  The water has no other choice than to boil.  The shooter can not see another choice than revenge.  If people objectify themselves, then they become plastic ducks in a shooting gallery.  It does not feel wrong to poke bullet holes in them, and they aren’t even real ducks, just plastic.

 

So why do people volunteer themselves to fade into the background scenery?  In the video, the third passive witness later said “I didn’t want to get into any trouble.”  The one person who was in-between on reacting said, “I was going to jump in and do something if you continued.”  I give that guy credit.  He stopped and watched, but he hesitated.  He wanted to take action, but did not know how to go about it.

 

That is the main problem facing bystanders when witnessing crimes.  “I didn’t want to get into any trouble,” sounds lame because he was not the criminal, but he may be legally penalized if he engaged in the public fight and was then accused of assault.  Other than that, people are afraid of “getting into trouble” with the bully, because they don’t want to fight.  Here is a list of potential reasons why bystanders “mind their own business.”

 

Passive Bystanders’ Reasons

      1.      They are afraid the bully will fight them.

      2.      They do not know the whole situation, so they don’t want to judge.
      3.      They have some place to go, and they do not have the time to stop. 
             (Newton’s Law:  An object in motion tends to stay in motion.)
      4.      There are more people around.  Maybe someone else will handle the situation. 
            (With more people, the responsibility is shared.)
      5.      Misunderstanding:
                a.       The reckless behavior is mutual.
                b.      The victim did something to anger the aggressor.
                c.       They are in a group project, and one member is not doing his share.
      6.      Maybe they will resolve everything on their own in a few minutes.

 

There was only one person who reacted but was hesitant.  In real life, there are more people like this.  I believe these are possible reasons for the behaviors of the on-the-fence, frozen advocates.

 

Hesitant Bystanders’ Reasons

1. I don’t want that bully to hurt me too.
2. I want to help, but I don’t know how.
3. I can’t speak.  My mouth is gaping and no words seem to come.  I’m shocked.
4. I am observing.  I do care.
5. Should I call the police?  Will they take me seriously?  What if they leave before the police arrive?
6. I want to stop the aggressor, but I don’t know how to fight; self-defense.
7. I am physically disadvantaged to the aggressor.  I’m smaller or weaker.
8. I don’t know exactly what is going on.  I want to make a proper judgment.
9. Someone you are with discourages you from helping.

How many of these apply to you?  Have you ever witnessed a crime and played the role of the hesitant or complicit bystander?  After reading this, I hope if you were complicit that you changed your attitudes toward your role as a crime witness.  If you were hesitant, or if you were complicit with a change of heart, here are some tips on being more assertive in bullying and other criminal situations.

Assertive Bystanders

1. Tell someone nearby about this.
2. Call the police or security.
3. Record the scene on your phone, and report it as evidence.
4. From a safe distance, yell at the aggressor to stop!
5. If someone discourages you, telling you to mind your own business, then tell them you are doing the right thing.
6. If the attacker approaches you, try to negotiate.  Keep your distance.
7. If the attacker tries to attack you, make a scene.  Now two people are screaming for help.  When the police arrive, it will be harder for the attacker to play innocent.

The last two are pretty gutsy.  If you are timid, stick with the first four.  Don’t do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, though that is why bystanders are mostly passive to begin with.  Helping out someone in need is a way to reconnect with a world of strangers surrounding us.  By doing something about bullying or any kind of victimization, you are bringing more peace into the environment by diffusing a something chaotic.  You could easily be victimized of a violent crime on another day.  We are equally human, not objects.

©2014 Caroline Friehs

References

FouseyTube (2013).  The Bullying Social Experiment – Please Watch.  [Courtesy of:  R.I.P. Amanda Todd – a Facebook Page.]  Runtime: 4:52.  Retrieved from:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=790590087621312&set=vb.567254213288235&type=3&theater

 

Objectification and Violence against Women

 

http://www.upworthy.com/5-minutes-of-what-the-media-actually-does-to-women-8

 

In the above link, Jean Kilbourne gives an inspiring presentation about how women are portrayed in the media.  She covers three major points.  1.  Women’s pictures are altered to achieve an unachievable ideal.  2.  Women are objectified, sometimes literally.  3.  The media shatters that object, appreciating only parts of the woman’s body.

 

1. Women’s pictures are altered.

Before pictures are printed in magazines, professionals edit out all the natural imperfections, such as wrinkles and double chins.  They create unnatural perfections, such as increased bust size, and distorted waistlines courtesy of the Photoshop diet.  The result is a beautiful caricature, a completely abstract image of the original model.  The women in the magazines resemble some of my dolls, but is Barbie really to blame?  Look at the Victorian and Edwardian eras in terms of fashion.  The hourglass figure predated Barbie.

If you want to look like those models, you can easily do a fashion photo shoot with a friend who likes photography.  You or your friend could edit the picture just like the professionals, and voila, you have your own Vogue caricature of yourself.  The same image will not be looking at you in the mirror everyday, but you know you can achieve the “perfect” look the same way the models do; computer cosmetics!  Then those models don’t seem so intimidating.  In real life, these models are not very different from you, which is more humanizing.  Now that you have achieved the same illusion, you are free to move on.

 

2. Women are objectified.

Ms. Kilbourne makes a valid point that the first step to justifying abuse is objectifying someone.  Women in the media are portrayed as inanimate objects.  The examples in the video included scissors, beer bottles, and even a video game system.  Regarding the latter, she is a toy to play with, not even a person anymore.

There is nothing wrong with breaking an object as long as it belongs to you.  Snapping a pencil in half is not extremely immoral, but you now rendered it useless.  Running over a human being is worse than hitting the neighbor’s cat with your car.  The former gets the life sentence, while the cat-killer gets a lighter judgment, because as any sociopath would say, “It’s just an animal.”  Animals are naturally dehumanized, because they are not humans.  It does make sense, because humans are considered more important than animals. 

Since a male perpetrator believes he is more important than his female partner, hurting her could be just as wrong as a teenager mutilating a Barbie doll.  If a woman is just an object, violence against women is easier to justify.  She can be consumed and thrown away like a bottle of Michelob Ultra.  Her legs are like scissors – rock breaks scissors.  Don’t laugh.  The rock thrown at the woman could be literal.  Women are smaller, and sometimes more fragile.  Snapping her in half, like a pencil, would only empower the male adversary, because he thinks, “She’s an object, and I am above her.”  Not giving him what he wants renders her useless like a broken pencil, and he thinks by breaking her validates that idea.  Might does not make right.  Might means you don’t listen, and that you have no room for personal growth.  Being a brute means you are unwilling to learn anything. 

As Ms. Kilbourne said, these pictures do not directly lead to violence.  A man does not look at these pictures and decide to beat his wife or girlfriend.  These images over time affect our culture and how we see women.  How often are men turned into objects in magazine pictures?  I would be open to hearing a yes.  I would like to hear some examples.  I do not doubt that these pictures are art.  They require imagination and took a lot of time and effort.  What we really need is to stop and think about the way we treat others.  We don’t literally think that a woman is a Budweiser bottle, but do we treat her like one?

 

3. Parts of the woman are emphasized.

In the media, whether it’s in magazines or movies, fractions of the woman receive more attention than the whole.  Now that the woman has been objectified, she can be shattered like a glass figurine.  Breasts, butts, groins, and legs are the favorites of the populace.  The rest of the person is forgotten.  The media limits beauty to these body parts.  Everyone seems to rejoice over how beautiful the female body is, but then they only talk about boobs, or some other favored fraction.  I can not count how many times I’ve heard boobs being referred to as “they.”  “They are beautiful.  They are great.”  Who is “they?”  I thought “they” referred to more than one person, not more than one body part on one person.  It is dissociating to refer to pectoral muscles as individuals while ignoring the whole person.  It is humanizing the human parts while dehumanizing the human being.

 

There are memes that say, “What is the useless skin outside of the vagina?  The woman!”  I understand this is only a joke, but are we really that useless?  Are we as useless as broken pencils?  If you agree, please go buy a “My Size Barbie” doll.  Don’t worry, she doesn’t even talk.  She would be perfect for you.  Oh, am I making fun of you?  That was just a joke!

It is ironic how heterosexual men bash gay people, but these same men don’t like women as a whole.  Men like that might as well just buy a rubber vagina sex toy.  They could save money to buy silicone implants to squeeze like stress balls.

So much focus is on the woman’s shell, while her personality, thoughts, beliefs, words, intellect, imagination, ambitions are seldom given a blurb of credit.  Males involved in domestic violence probably value her appearance over her personality.  He thinks he loves her appearance, but then he physically attacks it, which makes no sense.  Notice whenever battered wives are pictured; there are usually no injuries to her breasts or butt?  Take a moment and imagine the injuries of a battered wife or girlfriend.  I imagine black eyes, broken arms, a swollen lip, a bandage over her head, and genitalia injuries due to rape.  It seems the face is no longer considered the capital of human beauty.  Eyes were once windows to the soul.  Though, this man does not want to see her soul, just her boobs.  He would probably leave the breasts alone since they are so important to him.  Ha!  I just said, they!

My theory on why breasts are so important to men starts from his birth.  He suckled on his mother’s bosom, and he became orally fixated, in Freud’s Oral Stage.  Women also seem to be obsessed with breasts as well, but since they already have their own, the need is fulfilled.  The obsession with larger breasts is not just evolutionary.  From a baby’s perspective, his mother’s breasts are gigantic compared to his head.  In his adult age, he wants to recreate the proportions.

Understanding why men obsess over body parts instead of the whole woman could help us understand why the criminal ones commit crimes against women.  I do not hate men; I just hate rapists and criminals.  They can be either gender.

© 2014 Caroline Friehs

 

References:

Kilbourne, J (2013).  Killing US Softly 4.  Advertising’s Image of Women.  [Upworthy video]  Courtesy of Brandon Weber.  Retrieved from:  http://www.upworthy.com/5-minutes-of-what-the-media-actually-does-to-women-8

 

Picture meme courtesy of:  Quickmeme.com