Dangerous for Women?

In the debate about Primark's padded bras for tweens, the following anecdote was given:

I would have killed for a padded bra when I was in primary school, if only to give an extra boost to the wodges of toilet roll I had already begun to stuff into my crop-top. Like many girls, I was teased mercilessly for my flat chest by boys with undescended testicles who had already discovered that the best way to torture their female classmates was to mock us for not being sexy enough. A DIY Andrex bosom offered some protection; the handful of my schoolmates who had grown real breasts had no such luck, and were groped, harassed and dogged by cries of "slut" and "slag". For young women, sexual shame is learned in the playground, where we are schooled to suppress our authentic bodily appetites and mimic, instead, an adult ideal of erotic capital.

It was promptly mocked by the commentators below the article. Does such bullying and sexism exist? (Or did exist?)

A Daily Mail article on bullying had this to say:

In 1967 I was 5, and viciously beaten up on the way home form school by a 15 year old girl. I was later mugged by her brother. The parents were not informed as they were as bad, and more harm than good would have resulted. They were often there on the way home, being terrified I would panic and hide, if I saw them in time I would change my route.

At senior schooI I suffered 5 years of 'silent bullying' (sniggering behind my back, being left out, dirty looks etc). Trying to make other friends, my nose was broken by a jealous girl who didn't like her friend talking to anyone. During class, chewed gum was thrown into my hair, at breaking point I grabbed a pair of scissors, luckily I was held back by another pupil. I asked the teacher why she ignored this? she replied "what could I do".

I now have severe and enduring mental health problems and cannot work. I take enough medication to knock out a herd of elephants.

On a BBC teenage website, there's a first-person account of being bullied:

I had a dictionary in the back of my art book to explain what words mean and one day I saw that they'd gone to the S's and written my name under the word Slut. I cried for hours after that.
I really enjoy art and I went in to school one day and every page of my art book was covered in brown paint apparently to resemble pooh. It might sound like a stupid thing, but I felt so victimised and so alone.
I would get texts every day telling me I was a bitch and whore. "You think you're so great but you're a nasty little slag and everyone knows it," one text said.

Sounds pretty sexual to me.

On mumsnet, a discussion about 12-year-olds shaving their legs revealed some bullying stories:

I have a dd who is coming up 12. She is always bugging me to let allow her to shave her legs. The answer has been a resounding no.

Don't get me wrong- if he legs were particularly hairy to the point where is was effecting her self esteem, then yes , I'd agree it. In fact, only last week she said some boys had teased her about her 'monobrow' so having had a look at it, I agreed to pluck it for her.

 And this page at Frisky is a goldmine of boob horror stories:

“I was so excited when I left the doctor at age 9 or 10 because he told me that I was growing breast tissue. I couldn’t wait to tell my cousins, but they teased me mercilessly, asking me to bring my Kleenexes whenever they needed a tissue.”

“I had this really cute white, asymmetrical shoulder bathing suit my stylish grandmother bought me. I loved that suit because it had fringe and sequins. I probably liked it a little too much because I wore it for two or three summers in a row. The problem? I had developed small breasts. One day at camp I emerged from the pool and several boys started laughing at me. I didn’t get it and just ignored them. Then my female counselor told me that you should never wear a white bathing suit. You see, once my suit got wet, it became transparent and every saw my budding boobs, which were pretty much all nipple.”

In conclusion, I think that commentators who mocked the author for being teased as a child were simply lucky that they were not the objects of such abuse when they were young. In fact, they almost seem to be perpetrating the cycle, and continuing the bullying, this time for being bullied! Do they mock her because she was bullied? Do they mock her because they think she's lying or exaggerating? Or do they mock her because she's even bringing up the subject?

I do not argue that the US is a dangerous place, but I think that if you're not white middle class and male in the UK, life can be pretty fucking hard.