The Ugliness of Bullying by Women

A publicist at Harper Collins sent me several books for consideration within inContext. One is Theresa Brown’sCRITICAL CARE (HarperOne, 2010). The book is a memoir of the author’s first year as an oncology nurse. She sought nursing as a second career, after years as a professor of English. The story itself is a great read, yet the thing that stands out for me is Brown’s description of bullying within nursing, which is in chapter nine.

Brown says that, “Bullying thrives only because people collude with it” (p. 138). She goes on to call the lack of reaction from a co-worker who witnesses the bullying of the author by a superior a “gross ugliness” (p. 138). When she discussed the situation with her superiors and human resources, she was advised that nothing would be done about the offending nurse’s behavior, and a senior nurse told Brown she could possibly avoid conflict by being “more submissive” (p. 139). In the discussion questions section at the end of the text, that are specifically addressed to nursing students and faculty, the book describes nurse-on-nurse bullying as “a recurring and serious problem.”

Elsewhere in the book, the author talks about the statement often tossed around nursing schools, that being that “nurses eat their young.” I have a friend whose sister just finished nursing school. She faced this kind of maltreatment throughout her training. I have several friends who are midwives who suffer bullying within the midwifery community, as well. We talk about the irony of the word “midwife” meaning “with woman” and how midwives seem to exemplify the opposite, or a total lack of support for one another.

Michael Thompson, a psychologist best known for his work with adolescent boys, claims that bullying with boys takes on a more physical nature while bullying between girls is passive-aggressive, and thus far more difficult to talk about and thereby eradicate. We’ve all likely experienced a phone call or interaction in a retail store possibly when the person who is supposed to be helping us solve our problem is actually resistant. His or her voice takes on a certain false quality, yet his or her words could never be construed as anything but the epitome of customer service friendly. In these situations, even if you asked for a more senior supervisor, it wouldn’t matter since the employee or customer service representative never said anything out of line. Rather, he or she said “everything right” yet definitely not with what you’d be able to say was a “right” or kind attitude.

The insidious thing about bullying within healthcare professions is that it seems the exact opposite of the qualities one needs to work in medicine. Compassion, understanding and supportiveness are characteristics we might think of when we think of nurses or midwives. I know that woman-on-woman bullying takes place in any employment situation and often occurs in volunteer organizations, as well. What amazed me about the senior nurse and human resources representatives is that they felt that backing down and not standing up to the bully was the answer. As fellow women, they advised another woman to be “more submissive.”

I agree with Brown that we need to not sit silently by while others are mistreated, whether it is at work or in our communities. Bullying and bystanders allowing it is the gross ugliness she describes. As women, rather than be divided, we must unite to support one another with understanding and compassion. Have readers encountered bullying, whether at work or within other groups? Have you found solutions or just moved on when faced with this negative behavior? Let us know if you have experience with bullying, especially if you have insights into how it can be solved.

First published http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/10/27/the-ugliness-of-bullying-by-women/

"Warriors Don't Cry" Book Review and Reflection

Last week, I wrote about Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN SELDOM MAKE HISTORY. This week, I want to share the story of Melba Patillo Beals, a woman who was forced to be well-behaved and yet definitely made history. Ms. Beals was born in Little Rock Arkansas. She was in junior high when the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In September of 1957, Ms. Beals was part of a group of black students who were chosen to integrate Little Rock High School. The group of nine students came to be known as the “Little Rock Nine.”

There was such resistance in Little Rock, Arkansas to the integration of the high school that the neighbors and extended relatives of those who were to be the first black students to integrate the school suffered. There were originally seventeen students who were to integrate the school and yet eight of them dropped out and remained at their segregated high school instead as their parents were threatened with losing their jobs. There was widespread violence. Governor Faubus was so against integration being forced upon the state that he called on the National Guard to block students from entering the school. President Eisenhower sent members of the 101st Airborne Division to serve as personal bodyguards to the black students as they proceeded to overrule the actions of the governor through the school year. Tensions in the town ran high and even reporters were subject to violence as they tried to cover the story.

In her memoir of this momentous, historic event, WARRIORS DON’T CRY (Simon Pulse, 2007), Ms. Beals draws her strength to persevere from her religion as instilled in her by her grandmother, India. All of the students suffered unimaginably horrible threats and actual physical violence. Ms. Beals was burned with acid that was tossed in her face. She stood up to immense odds to complete the school year and then left the area to finish high school in California. Today, she teaches journalism in California and is a public speaker.

I share this story on the heels of the Ulrich text since WARRIORS DON’T CRY is a great reminder of what an individual can do to make a difference, to make history. When individuals stand up for themselves, as Ms. Beals did by seeking access to education guaranteed by the Constitution, history is made. What makes this memoir unique is that it shares the story as Ms. Beals looks back on her experience with some of the other students during a reunion held on the fortieth anniversary. She tells her tale within the context of her later life and reflects upon her experiences and how they shaped her decisions and relationships.

This text would be an appropriate addition to any feminist reading list as a representation of a woman, especially a woman of color, making history. While Ms. Beals does not necessarily write from a feminist perspective, her life as it has been lived is an example of the quiet ways in which one might stand up for what is right. The most amazing part of it is that she was forced to be as “well-behaved” as possible in order to get into and continue as a student at Little Rock High School. Any trouble perceived as being from her would have given the school a reason to expel her. She had to be as stoic as the soldiers guarding her and her classmates. It is interesting that her “good behavior” is what allowed her to be a part of this historical event and also what helped her get through the horrors of it.

First published: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/10/20/warriors-dont-cry/

"Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History" Book Review and Reflection

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is the woman behind the phrase, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” This short sentence, which was the opening paragraph of a paper she wrote about sermons given at Puritan women’s funerals, is now the title of a book by Ulrich (WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN SELDOM MAKE HISTORY, Vintage Books, 2008). In the book, Ulrich examines women in history and throughout history who have contributed to women’s inclusion in historical accounts, even when they had to write them themselves.

When we think about researchers today looking back on history, finding archeological evidence of societies that seemed to revere women, at some point we have to realize that we’re injecting our own belief systems and knowledge upon a society we cannot ever really come to know. Ulrich examines the actual contributions of women from Christine de Pizan in the fourteen hundreds to modern historians in our own time. Just as her GOOD WIVES (Knopf, 1992) debunks myths about power balances in families in early U.S. history, WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN SELDOM MAKE HISTORY proves that women do, indeed, make history, and, as Ulrich emphasizes, sometimes they make history even when that is not their intention.

Ulrich ends her book focusing on where we go from here. This may sound somewhat formulaic: another feminist book with a “think about this, ladies” at the end. What she offers is not as trite as that. She discusses the events that led to what is known as “second-wave” feminism in the 1970s, especially in the United States. The groups that were interested in civil rights were often divided when it came to rights, regardless of their sex. Women’s groups were still divided between those who were heterosexual, homosexual and those who stemmed from different ethnic, racial and/or economic backgrounds. Even as some coherence came to portions of the women’s movement or strides were made by groups divided into factions, Ulrich reminds us to be cognizant of the nature of “waves.”

She says, “WAVES ARE INHERENTLY CYCLICAL. THEY MOVE IN. THEY MOVE OUT. THEY POUND THE SHORE THEN DISAPPEAR, OFTEN LEAVING CHANGES TOO SUBTLE TO BE OBSERVED. IF EARLIER WAVES OF FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS DISAPPEARED, SURELY THE SAME THING CAN HAPPEN AGAIN. A NEW GENERATION MIGHT FORGET WHERE THEIR FREEDOMS CAME FROM, DRIFTING BACK ONCE AGAIN INTO THE SANDBAR OF SILENCE.” 

Exploring the concept of the subtle changes rendered by waves, we see that where small gains are made so that over time the landscape changes, we also see that we should be aware of even small changes that might significantly reduce the landscape given enough time. While Ulrich may end on a familiar note, she asks us to be more aware of tides and times on a macro- versus micro-scale. Her tone is not merely “what you can do today” but rather more along the lines of asking us all to think before (and as) we act, to truly know history so that we know what we’re applying when we bring up the past or use a quote from a woman in antiquity.

For example, Ulrich shows that historical figures and quotes may be used for out-of-context purposes. Her own “well-behaved women” comment has been used to sell t-shirts for a non-profit that promotes a pro-woman agenda. It has also been featured on magnets featuring high heel shoes and cigarettes. Ulrich herself, in this text, reflects upon the ambiguous nature of the quote itself. It can be interpreted in many ways, thus its appeal and her warning about the use of such things with multiple meanings.

As we look to the history of women, Ulrich reminds us not to bury that which does not fit into the box we’ve created, but rather to embrace the richness of varied viewpoints. She reminds us that women were both accused and accuser in witch-hunts and supported both North and South in the Civil War in the United States. She says, “If history is to enlarge our understanding of human experience, it must include stories that must dismay as well as inspire.” In fact, those stories that dismay us may just be what we need to come to understand most if we’re going to be able to navigate a landscape being changed by the current waves of competing political agendas and a global economy.

First published: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/10/13/well-behaved-women-seldom-make-history/

The Sting of Domestic Violence Awareness

The Avon cosmetic company has a campaign to raise funds and awareness about domestic violence in the United States. My mother bought a bracelet in support of this campaign for both my daughter and me. She said it was because of my sister. I kind of shook my head, thinking, what kind of violence did she exactly suffer? I realized I was not entirely aware of my own sister’s experience of domestic violence. As humans, I believe we often compartmentalize our experiences of and reactions to domestic violence.

I began to think about my own experiences and awareness of domestic violence. It is a topic we think of as “happening to other people” and don’t realize the impact that it can have on us, especially when we wake up one day like I did today to realize that I believe I’ve actually become desensitized to it. What I mean is that while I believe in speaking up and supporting both victims and perpetrators (see my article on Stiffed), I also feel like my reaction is rather ho-hum. Because a partner has not physically or emotionally abused me, I sort of consider myself unaffected. And yet, when I think of my experience, through others, of domestic violence situations, I am alarmed at my lack of realization before this point.

Let me shed some light on some examples. When I lived in Worcester, Massachusetts, my next-door neighbor’s sister had been killed when she finally split from her abusive husband, and he stalked her and killed her in her driveway. As a child, my mother was in a life-threatening car accident as she rushed to the aid of a friend who suffered physical abuse at the hands of her husband. On a very personal note, before we married, my husband shared with me that he had been in a volatile relationship where there was mutual emotional and physical abuse between partners. While he knew that was not the relationship he had with me, nor what he wanted with me, he still felt it was important that we discuss the matter. Fortunately, he dealt with the emotions and healed from that kind of reaction. It takes a lot for me to write that here, and yet this “speak out” campaign makes me want to share real experiences so that people truly recognize the secretive and shameful feelings that are part and parcel of domestic abuse.

Where my own sister is concerned, her relationship in her first marriage was where she experienced abuse. Her husband’s father, in fact, was in jail for killing his second wife. As a teenager, my sister’s husband was home and witnessed his father returning to the house covered in blood after committing the murder. He had witnessed the violence between his mother and father, which was the reason they were no longer together.

My husband worked for a lawn care company early in his working life in his twenties. One of the company’s customers was a man who murdered his wife and tore out her lungs and placed them on a stake in the yard. This was in a “nice” neighborhood where people expect things like skinned knees from bike riding or twisted ankles from basketball in the driveway. Such a gruesome event was more alien than a visit from outer space.

If you think about it, how much domestic violence has been in your own life? How much has been tangential? Do you only know of friends of friends who have suffered this kind of thing, or from newspaper stories? (Even if that is the case, does it amaze you to think you read it, are horrified, and then go on to read the next page?) Or, have you, too, actually experienced, witnessed or supported someone who has dealt with this kind of issue? I like the Avon campaign idea about talking it over. I think the more aware we become of the presence of this kind of violence in our lives and in the lives of friends, co-workers and family, we can become better equipped to handle it, to treat both victim and perpetrator and to learn how to avoid these situations. As the Avon campaign thankfully recognizes, perpetrators are often victims themselves of child abuse or of living with violence in their childhood homes. It needs to become much less shameful to admit things and to be able to talk about them sensibly so that we work toward solutions.

We need for people like me to tell the story of my husband coming from a scary situation and growing into a man who figured out the basis for his behavior and addressed the problem before he perpetuated violence into our life and that of our children. For friends who know my husband as the peaceable, generous, loving, kind, devoted, supportive man and father that he is, I worry about the new image that might form in their minds of him when they read this article. I wonder about my colleagues at HerCircle and how they will come to picture my husband. I consider my children reading this and, because these articles post on Facebook, I worry, too, about my children’s friends having a totally different image of their friend’s father. However, rather than have that as “our little secret,” I think telling the story might do some good. I do not mean as a “morality tale,” or “story of reformation,” either. I hope that open, honest communication and dealing head-on with emotional issues serves to reduce and ultimately eliminate domestic violence of all kinds.

What do you think? Have you experienced domestic violence or witnessed it? Have you helped someone who suffers from domestic violence?

KATE ROBINSON IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH OR SPONSORED BY AVON. THE MENTION OF THE AVON CAMPAIGN IS THAT IT WAS THE CATALYST FOR THE THOUGHTS THAT BECAME THIS POST.

First published: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/10/06/the-sting-of-domestic-violence/

RiP Steve Jobs

Here's what I created today to express sadness over the death of Steve Jobs. It is sad that someone so young and full of life had to die. He definitely had an impact on my life as I used macs from when they first were introduced and I type this now from a Mac.