School bullies and victims; gender?

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Just curious because in films and books I got the impression that victims of bullying and bullies are more often portrayed to be of the same gender than of opposite genders (but I may be wrong, it's an observation not a statistic or anything). In reality I was rarely bullied by girls at school but quite a bit by boys. My sister and my mother had similar experiences.
Therefore I was wondering if this is the exception, the norm or if it is actually independent of gender.

I'm a woman and was bullied by both genders. I had more girl bullies, but the things the guys did were usually much worse than what the girls did.

bullying sounds severe,
but whatever, day one in elementary, i was set one year ahead soooo its my own fault, i was just standing in the schoolyard not knowing what to do (i suppose) when there was an incident, a girl or more, threw another on the ground
and when the headmaster inquired all the girls pointed at me for doing that, the headmaster took me inside, for my sake probably, knowing it wasn't me. first physical ed was given by bully-teacher who just refused to explain the exercise everybody knew, i think it was political, everything was political.
next year new boys arrived, it took not long for them to put me on the radar, soon one day i was followed home by a group lead by them, when the oldest insulted my father i just hit that one and actually they never bothered me like that no more, later on we'd talk and joke in class but outside that, he wouldn't be anywhere near me
i re-remember a chewing gum in the hair incident, probably there's some other minor hassles i don't remember, the chewing gum i couldn't hide (from the parents) so that was unpleasant

all that wasn't the worst, i dreaded especially schooltrips and outings, when other schoolgroups would be mingled in, and sundayschool's dayout, why oh why? with stereotypical girls-things as only option, i didn't know these things at all

still up into highschool i'd hear the other (school)groups hissing and jelling and insulting; 'crybaby*' when going home

*that was from physical ed. where i usually ended up crying

My bullies themselves had a commendable sense of honor and taught me it'd be a disgusting, cowardly thing if I tried to get some satisfaction by bullying girls—I should have the balls to try to bully them back so they'd beat the living s**t out of me. Of course, it wasn't dishonorable for girls to bully me, and they often did, showing their courage and prowess.

You too, huh?

I love how it was 'cowardly' to stand up to a female bully but having 6-8 kids beat up on someone practically defenseless was A-OK (and the bullies NEVER took me on one on one). Female bullies were rarely violent (and the one time a girl was I think she immediately regretted it once she saw the blood gushing out of my arm) but loved to play psychological torture. The male bullies on the other hand did both although the beatings were the easiest thing to deal with. One male bully in particular was an expert (sociopath) actor who knew how to make it look like HE was the victim.

To use a more adult analogy, he is the type of person to break into your house in the middle of the night, beat the crap out of you with a weapon like a baseball bat, then wait for you to push him off and then call the police. The police would show up, you would be covered in bruises and blood and they would haul you away to jail while listening to his story about how he bravely fought you off to defend himself. While you are sitting in jail he would proceed to find your cash and valuables and rather than steal them he would just vandalize and destroy them for no reason. That's pretty much my school experience in a nutshell.

I'm female and I've mostly had bad experiences with other females. But not always. I did have boys picking on me as a teenager on my way home from school.

But at school I was always more afraid of other girls than I was with boys. Whenever boys picked on me, it was usually in a stupid way which just annoyed me. But girls were hard work. They were so difficult to impress, and they were more emotional than boys, and got nasty or evil when it came to judgment or jealousy. In fact, I was more afraid of teenage girls giving me verbal abuse than I was of teenage boys tripping me up.

Even now I don't like the way teenage girls stare at you with an unreadable expression on their face. At least teenage boys give me a more approachable look or don't look at all.

I’ve been bullied by both guys and girls. The bullying was a mixture of physical and psychological, although the way in which I was targeted often varied. Generally speaking, the guys who bullied me often used physical attacks and empty threats, whereas the girls tended to isolate me and make up various chants.

Physical

Girls: Got pushed into a wall, and also had my hair pulled. Someone threw a protractor at me.

Guys: Often used my claustrophobia to their advantage, by pushing and shoving me into small hard to escape places. Aka; between two doors, in a corner, squished into a wall, etc.

This also falls under psychological, because it directly played on a preexisting fear of mine and reinforced it.

Another time, this one guy kicked me repeatedly for an entire school year every day, constantly non-stop throughout each lesson.

Unfortunately, the teacher refused to let me move seats, and told me to just deal with it. As a result, I got quite used to having bruises down my legs from all the kicking, and it was painfully sore every time I walked.

One time I was at a playground, and a bunch of guys held me down against my will. Two of them stood on my hands with all their force whilst wearing trainers. I wanted to scream for help, but another gagged me so I couldn’t do anything except make muffled sounds of panicked protest.

This other guy was holding my back down, so I found myself unable to get up. It was also hard to breathe because of the gag and also because someone was forcibly elbowing me in the back so my body was well and truly being squashed to the ground.

Used to get beat up with sticks. Had someone throw an apple at the back of my head once. I’ve been thrown off playground equipment before.

Also, there was this other time where a bunch of guys started bullying my friend because of where she lived, and they started bullying me due to the fact that I knew her. But they weren’t really much of a threat, this one guy was in the younger years and was much shorter (the top of his head was the same height as my belly button) and weaker than me. Quite skinny too, I probably could’ve just picked him up and moved him.

He tried to start a fight, punching me in the stomach, but his punches were weak so I didn’t really feel anything. In the end I asked “Um, are you going to stop, or should I just leave?”, after about three punches to the stomach I decided to shrug and walk off.

Psychological

Girls: Homophobic chants. “You can’t be friends with us because you have freckles”. “I’m sorry, but I cannot associate with a lesbian”. Various gay slurs. “If I were you, I’d kill myself”. “You’re such a waste of a human being”. Pretending that I don’t exist and treating me as if I were invisible. “You can’t even do an elegant shuffle-ball-change correctly? Is there anything you’re actually good for?”

Throwing paint at my face. Pretending to be my friend, then stabbing me in the back. Just manipulative passive aggressiveness in general.

Plenty of insults about how I’m bad at badminton, gymnastics, basketball, netball, and rounders. I know, trust me. Also being excluded in PE, except in field hockey because I was good at that so everyone wanted me on their team during field hockey.

“No one will love you if you don’t change your appearance, if you don’t wear fake tan/ foundation/mascara/ whatever and you should also change your hair, just change everything about yourself”.

and

“Maybe you should go back to the zoo with that hair of yours”.

Guys: I had one guy spit at me in disgust. Sexist remarks and the occasional homophobic comment.

“You look ugly, no one will like you like that”

*Straightens hair for picture day* “Now you look like a sl*t”.

“Your art is something you’ll never be, pretty”.

“So, you’re gay? What a waste”. “No, you’re not gay, just broken, but I can fix you”.

One time there was this guy who cheated on his science test, he copied my answers so we ended up scoring the same mark. He then proceeded to tell all his mates that I copied him, this guy was fairly popular so everyone believed them. People started calling me stupid and mocking me. He joined in.

Then he jokingly apologised for it and asked me out. I was just sat there thinking “What? Seriously? Are you kidding with me right now?”.

So, I decided to give that guy a piece of my mind. “Really? Are you seriously asking me out right now? Perhaps you should work on your communication skills, because that’s not how you get a girl to like you, so keep that in mind in the future. I don’t even like you that way, but if I did then I’d still say no because you’re acting like a selfish as*hole. Good bye”.

Maybe it was a little too harsh the way I spoke to him, but I don’t take kindly to people mocking my intelligence and accusing me of cheating when I didn’t.

Then there was this guy who used to chase me around making fake razor blade noises. He was odd. Some people thought it was “cute” because it was supposedly obvious that he was acting this way because he had a crush on me.

He also used to move my chair when I was sitting on it, pushing me off and then sitting on the chair. Then my supposed friends would start talking to him normally, and not say anything about the fact I just got pushed off.

I was bullied by both girls and boys. A couple of the boys apologized eventually, but only one girl apologized.

Girls tended to make up rumors about me and try to get everyone to gang up on me and turn against me. Girls always had to make snide remarks about my appearance and some of the odd things I did. Even when I stopped doing something that they didn't like, they never let it go. Girls would make stuff up about me and try to start fights with me.

Boys tended to make fun of my name and my voice. They would make fun of me to impress the girls they wanted to go out with.

In junior high most other girls were just cold and indifferent to me. It was the boys who would bully me, call me names, throw things at me, and just made my life miserable.

I find it very puzzling when other adults say that when a boy acts like he hates you, it's really because he likes you. It gives the message that being bullied by a boy is okay and is very, very stupid, like blaming the victim for rape.

I'm a guy who was bullied by both boys & girls.

This is a bit off-topic but do people just have some natural instinct to be cruel to others for something they can't even help being or having?

I think they do... aren't people naturally afraid/cautious/annoyed about those who are too different from them?

It’s easy to understand in terms of natural selection: every group has an incentive to weed out weak members.



Well, my peers did usually fight me one on one. It was easy enough for them. Some where clearly stronger than me; others didn’t look that way, but in practice it was as if their muscles were much more efficient than mine. It probably helped a lot that I never dared to attack them with any determination, because the potential consequences of hurting them terrified me, while they didn’t show such fear and seemed to believe firmly that if I got hurt, it was entirely my own damn fault.

Younger kids, however, did attack me in groups, as it was tacitly understood that they were exempt from the moral duty to face me one on one, since it’d be cowardly on my part to demand it. I was sure I’d get in big trouble the moment I touched one of them and they cried or screamed, so both I and they knew they could pretty much do what they wanted to me. In fact, a few did get into the habit of messing with me one on one. I remember one in particular who would routinely start talking to me, insult me and then spit in my face and run away.



Oddly enough, I don’t remember much psychological bullying, especially from girls. Perhaps I was just too clueless to notice it, of course. However, two girls challenged me to a physical fight at different times, one on one. Needless to say, I didn’t dare to beat them seriously, and they probably liked the tough image they got that way, in addition to making me look even more like an absolute p****.



I wish I could say the same. To me, they were “easy” insofar as I just had to stand there and endure them, but they did hurt. The few times I tried to fight back, I only managed to make them laugh at my weakness. The general consensus was that I barely tickled them.



Sociopath? I always thought that was the norm



Well, I’d expect him to vandalize the place in addition to stealing my valuables, and to be wholeheartedly congratulated by everyone for giving me my just deserts

This. The most horrific bullying I’ve had has been at the hands of males. The most deep seated hatred for me being different has definitely caused male bullies to be a lot nastier.

Mostly males. I've avoided most females out of insecurity and shyness, so if they were mean and disliked my shyness, they would have done so behind my back. A lot of chaps made me feel like dirt, since being shy and awkward made them feel superior. Plus I'm not the aggressive type, so by my demeanour, they knew they would get away with it. Although I went through a lot of pre-planned nastiness to destroy my self-confidence (which worked), I don't hold it against them. I've been through far worse things in my life than their bullying, so I've let it slide.