by NECHAMA BRODIE
Shouting. Swearing. Pushing. Punching. It’s not Fight Club, it’s an average week at a suburban high school. And the protagonists are predominantly teenage girls.
Last year, during a substitution class, a girl at Lisa’s school hit another girl over the head with a chair and knocked her out. “No one said anything [to the teacher] because we were scared of the other girl.” In another incident at a nearby all-girls government high school, one girl had a braid pulled out of her hair during an argument.
“Girls are particularly good at this kind of emotional warfare. We call it social bullying,” says Vanessa Hemp, a psychologist who works with teenagers. And social bullying — roughly defined as psychological, emotional or physical harassment — seems to be fuelled by social networking. Fights often start with name-calling on Facebook, or on message platforms such as Blackberry Messenger and MXit.
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