Story Behind A Tormented Girl's Suicide

In late January, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince made headlines when she committed suicide after prolonged harassment from classmates at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts. Six months later, the town of South Hadley and the blogging community are enthralled with the case. Media sources ranging from the Boston Globe and NBC's Today Show to lesser known sources like The Republican have featured stories about this young teen's suicide.

Phoebe Prince moved from County Clare, Ireland, to South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 2009. Later that year, she began to attend South Hadley High School where she easily made friends and maintained strong academic performance. However, her involvement with an older boy sparks harassment from her peers.

The media portrays Phoebe's story as suicide resulting from stereotypical girl-on-girl bullying, but there is more to her story than mainstream media leads us to believe. In an investigation by Slate, Emily Bazelon challenges District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel's argument by analyzing information about Phoebe Prince and the actions of the six teenagers who are thought to have bullied her. Bazelon questions the validity of the six teens' sentences which range from stalking and harassment to statutory rape and most serious, civil rights violation involving bodily injury. She suggests that the sentences against the teens could be too severe because Phoebe's cutting, depression and distance from her father may have contributed to her decision to ultimately kill herself.

While reading about this girl's story, I began to question the motive of the teen bullies. As I continued to look through articles about the case, I came across a post written by the Boston Globe that focused on the teens as "The untouchable Mean Girls." These teens definitely fit the Lindsay Lohan Mean Girls definition; vengeance-seeking, name-calling, slut-shaming, mean girls whose football player boyfriends go along with everything they say. However this article's introduction caught my attention:

Like a lot of kids her age, Phoebe Prince was a swan, always beautiful and
sometimes awkward. Last fall, she moved from Ireland into western Massachusetts, a new town, a new country, a new culture. She was 15, when all that matters is being liked and wearing the right clothes and just fitting in.

The first thing that bothers me about this is the emphasis that the author puts on her appearance, comparing her to a swan. Secondly, the author suggests that a 15-year-old girl only needs to worry about the superficial. These two issues bring to mind society's obsession with appearance and how much popular culture has sexualized women and girls because the harassment that Phoebe faced was related to her brief relationship with a football player who immediately returned to another girl and consisted primarily of slut-shaming in the forms of internet bashing, name-calling and taunting.

In general, the media's reinforcement of hegemony often leads to internalized sexism, racism and homophobia. Because the media sexualizes women and girls while also shaming women who enjoy sex, women who are subject to internalized sexism often bash other women for being "slutty." In addition, the sexualization of women and girls has influenced teen girls' body image and self-esteem, leading to their emotional vulnerability and even attacks on other girls who are considered attractive.

I seriously wonder if these types of unfortunate events would happen as often if women and girls were not so sexualized... I am curious as to what everyone's opinions are on this subject?

Photo Credit: Brisbane Times

Slut-Shaming vs. Rape Jokes

As a prelude to this blog post, I should probably mention that through interning with the Feminist Majority Foundation, I've been reading a lot of feminist blogs, in order to write more educated blogs. Since my formal education has been primarily focused on International Political science and Anthropology, reading all these blogs is doing wonders for my knowledge of matters of importance to women.

I've always considered myself a feminist, ever since that boy in first grade told me I couldn't crush a milk can like he could, and suggested using violence to prove his supposed male superiority, but I've generally pursued feminism from my personal--and what I know now, rather uninformed--vantage point. I think describing all the things I've learned would involve reposting all the blogs I've read in the last few months, so I'll let it suffice to say that I've become aware of some of my handicaps in understanding, and will be more actively pursuing understanding a wider variety of vantage points/types of feminism.

There are a few new terms I've learned. first: "Slut-shaming;" that is, publicly or privately insulting a woman because she expressed her sexuality in a way that does not conform with patriarchal expectations for women. Slut shaming re-enforces the virgin/whore myth of female identity--women are either virgins and, like their virginity, are worth protecting; or, they are whores, and because their hymen has already been broken its okay to break their spirit or their bodies through psychological or physical violence. Slut-shaming is pretty much everywhere (even on twitter), but the two most prominent examples I can think of recently include attacks of Carrie Prejean for a masturbation tape, a disgustingly prominent response that Rhianna deserved to be beaten by Chris Brown, and the weird belief that somehow Miley Cyrus is the worst thing that happened to Hollywood

Another new term I learned was, "Rape jokes." I.E. creepy attempts to find humor in one of the most horrific violent acts against women.

I'd never heard a rape joke before--and while reading various blog posts about rape jokes and getting angrier, frustrated and confused trying to figure out in a distanced, intellectual manner how rape jokes can be accepted and how as a society we can stop rape jokes, an acquaintance of mine posted a rape joke as his facebook status.

To be shocked by reading about something that happened somewhere over the rainbow is one thing; to see a rape joke appear in my facebook feed was another thing entirely. (I'm still shaking with rage and probably won't get any sleep tonight due to the adrenaline.) The question that pounded in my skull was: How could anyone feel so confident and proud of a rape joke that they would post it for all their friends and distant acquaintances to see? How is society conditioning them to believe that such a comment is funny?

I quickly posted "Not funny. Repulsive," and debated whether I should immediately defriend him or if I ought to wait to see if there were any follow-up comments that would need to likewise be shot down. While debating, the posts I've read about slut-shaming came to mind, and the stark contrast between the two events infuriated me even more.

When a woman enjoys her sexuality without hurting anyone else, but someone finds out about it, the response is to insult her, shame her, bring her down and make sure she never does it again. But the response to rape, and "jokes" about rape, which trivialize and normalize violent, traumatic and sometimes life-threatening acts against women is--somehow--to laugh?

We need to change the way our society responds to these occurrences. Its time we start reacting to rape jokes for what they are--as affronts to the dignity of human beings and as the unveiling of a potential danger to society. Its time we start shaming rapists, people who make jokes about rape, people who strike those they claim to love, and those who commit the betrayal of posting private sexual experiences on the internet, INSTEAD of the people they vicitmize. (Do we even know the name of the person who posted Carrie Prejean's video online? Why isn't he being attacked instead of Carrie?)

In the end I decided it would set better precedent to defriend (and thereby ostracize) rather than wait for follow-up comments. The decision was partially influenced by the desire to shame, but also the sinking feeling that its probably safer to stay as far away from but also the sinking feeling that its probably safer to stay as far away from anyone who thinks rape is funny, because he is probably more likely to be a rapist.

How do you fight back against rape jokes and slut-shaming?

Photo Credit: malec slomas on flickr.com