Bullying And Harassment Essay

Definition:

The words bullying and harassment are often thrown out, yet a good majority of the time, the context that the vocabulary is used in is incorrect. Bullying and harassment are similar in context and idea, but have several key differences. Bullying is the act of actively and purposefully going out of one’s way to cause either physical or emotional harm to another individual. The victim of bullying is the ‘weaker’ of the two - referring to physicality or an imbalance of power that the victim does not see reason in fighting back in the vast majority of occurrences. It is a repetitive act that the bully continually strives for to make the bullied seem less desirable to others in some cases. Harassment however, is non-physical. So, there

For example, the author of Different Types of Bullying mentions, “The various sub-types of bullying include Cyber bullying, Disability bullying, Gay bullying, Legal bullying, Parental bullying, Prison bullying,, and School bullying.” which is all fairly self-explanatory. Such as bullying a person due to sexual preference or for something that is out of the victim’s control. On one hand, a person could debate over the impact that bullying has on a victim, but it is nonetheless harmful. The victims either fall into one or two separate categories - one of which is that the victim him or herself falls into the cycle of bullying to continue it. The other is a last mark lying on his or her psyche that could last for years upon years and affect important decisions such as a dislike of physical contact or an inability to open up emotionally. Both are horrible and detrimental to the individual - especially when the individual in question is an adolescent that is going through so many changes in his or her life that it could actually brain function in certain ways. Bullying is a serious threat that should not be ignored in any way shape or

Harassment is unique in that there is digital pile-on, online harassment, outing, victim blaming, and trolling (masquerading). Each one differs from the other and yet still causes the same results in the end. Digital pile-on is where an individual solicitates the involvement of others who may or may not know the person whereas outing is when an individual publishes the victim’s personal info such as phone number, address photos, etc. Victim blaming is when the victim(s) are taunted, shamed and called names. On the other hand trolling (masquerading) is the actions of the harasser that creates a fake profile that is used to send messages and/or photos to a victim. For example, an individual uses a picture of another person and actively uses that picture to ‘act’ or ‘masquerade’ as that person while chatting and messaging other people. It’s also been known to be called catfishing. Cyber harassment is arguably the most severe kind of harassment. On the webpage State Cyberstalking and Cyberharassment Laws it’s quoted that, “States have enacted “cyberstalking” or “cyberharassment” laws or have laws that explicitly include electronic forms of communication within more traditional stalking or harassment laws. This chart identifies state laws that include specific references to electronic communication.” Cyber harassment is severe enough that, as aforementioned, requires laws to prevent and stop individuals from harassing and stalking others online.