If you've ever been there, you've never forgotten how it feels. It's being undersized or oversized or less than beautiful. It's knowing you are vulnerable and that someone is ready to take advantage of your weakness. It's the crowd you never wanted to join.

Jane Elizabeth, the Post-Gazette Education Writer, wrote an excellent article, Girl Bullies Don't Leave Black Eyes, Just Agony, on April 10, 2002. I have included parts of it here because it tells of how bullying is far more than physical and is certainly not limited to boys, but rather includes girls and can cause deep emotional wounds in the victim's lives.

...To most adults, the typical school bully is the beefy kid who knocks the books out of the hands of the bespectacled ninth-grader in the hallway, or the hulking football player who tosses the swim team member into the shower stall. But in the world of adolescent girls, the school bully wears glitter fingernail polish. She has the latest jewelry, jeans and shoes. She has her hair professionally done. She has tickets to sold-out rock concerts, a membership at a tanning salon and all the premium cable channels. She is skinny, pretty and seemingly perfect. She can make other girls' lives so miserable that, decades later, they'll break down in tears just talking about it, if they can talk about it at all. ...Girl-bullies, "use backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on targeted victims," says Rachel Simmons in her book, Odd Girl Out: The Culture of Hidden Aggression in Girls. She goes on to say that boys can show up with a black eye, while girls are usually "under the radar," carrying their scars inside, hidden even from their parents. The female bully will often get as many girls as she can rally, targeting one lone classmate, often for no particular reason. The girls will start rumors about the victim, pass notes in class or write embarrassing letters to boys and sign the victim's name. ...In the 21st century, they use technology as a weapon. Three-way calling is wildly popular among younger girls, who will put a third party on the line secretly and then get a victim to say embarrassing things about her. "Instant messaging" or IM, also is epidemic in the world of girls. The IM evil, is that the users can use fake names, steal someone else's name or pose as several different people while insulting and defaming an unfortunate victim. ...With boys, bullying incidents can be intense but they are usually short-lived and easily forgotten. Girls tend to use a kind of slow torture that is manipulative, calculating and sometimes even brilliant. This is sometimes called, "R.A. - relational aggression." It can for an indefinite period of time, sometimes never ending.

Here are some more facts and statistics on bullying that I have gathered. Too often bullying is swept into the back corner and accepted as merely a part of the growing up process.

Over two-thirds of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying, with a high percentage of students believing that adult help is infrequent and ineffective.

25% of teachers see nothing wrong with bullying or putdowns and consequently intervene in only 4% of bullying incidents. This can lead to children being reinforced in intimidating others. — Taken from the National Mental Health and Education Center-Andrea Cohn and Andrea Canter

Children in grades six through ten, nearly one in six, or 3.2 million, were victims of bullying each year and 3.7 million were bullies.

Nearly 60% of boys who researchers classified as bullies in grades six through nine were convicted of at least one crime by age 24; 40% of them had three or more convictions by 24.

Bullying "prevention" programs are relatively inexpensive, costing $4000 to train someone to administer an anti-bullying program in a larger school district, but $100,000 to put a child with emotional problems in special education for 12 years.

A 1998 Vanderbilt University study estimated that each high-risk juvenile prevented from adopting a life of crime could save the country between $1.7 and 2.3 million. — CNN Student News - Report: Bullies at Risk of Becoming Criminals - September 4, 2003