How Are Boys and Girls Different in Their Bullying?
Both boys and girls use verbal aggression (such as mocking, name-calling, teasing, mean telephone calls, verbal threats of aggression) and intimidation (such as graffiti, publicly challenging someone to do something, playing a dirty trick, taking possessions, coercion) (Garrity, Jens, Porter, Sager, and Short-Camilli, 1996). Nevertheless, there are some differences.
Boy Bullies:
* Boys may bully more than girls. However, some question this.
* Boys bully both boys and girls (Olweus, 1993).
* Boys use more direct behaviors (physical and verbal bullying) than girls do. They usually use more indirect bullying as their verbal skills increase (Mullin-Rindler, 2002).
* Boys may use more physical aggression than girls (Espelage, Bosworth, & Simon, 2000; Hyde, 1986; McDermott, 1966). However, more research is needed to verify this, and the research indicates that assumptions should not be made about the nature of their aggression (Espelage & Swearer, 2004).
* Boys are just as likely as girls to use social and emotional taunting.
Girl Bullies:
* Girls are aggressive, but may use more indirect behaviors to damage relationshipsand can be sneaky and nasty.
* Girls are becoming more physical in bullying than in the past
* Girls are more likely to bully other girls, but sometimes they bully boys (Olweus, 1993).
* Girls bully in groups more than boys do.
* Girls seek to inflict psychological pain on their victims, which hurts as much as, if not more than, physical attacks and has long-lasting effects.
* Girls behave well around adults but can be cruel and mean to peers.
* Girls target weaknesses in others.
* Girls frequently make comments regarding the sexual behavior of girls they don’t like (Byrne, 1994a, 1994b).
* Girls attack within tightly knit networks of friends, which intensifies the hurt.
Source - http://bullyfree.com
