{"id":917,"date":"2013-06-10T00:43:26","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T06:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/?p=917"},"modified":"2013-06-05T09:44:05","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T15:44:05","slug":"teenager-uses-pigtail-power-to-defeat-her-school-bullies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/10\/teenager-uses-pigtail-power-to-defeat-her-school-bullies\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenager uses pigtail power to defeat her school bullies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

One of Maisie Kate Miller\u2019s classmates always had something belittling to say \u2013 about her body, her boyfriend, her fashion choices. But that last little dig, no big deal in itself, brought the 15-year-old at Marblehead High, north of Boston, to tears a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

On the stairs behind her, the other girl, a sports standout in the school, was riffing on Maisie\u2019s hairstyle: \u2018\u2018Who wears pigtails still? What is this, kindergarten?\u2019\u2019
\n\u2018\u2018I turned around and she said, \u2018Keep walking!\u2019 I was having a hard week anyway and by the time I got to biology I was crying,\u2019\u2019 Maisie said.<\/p>\n

Maisie\u2019s mother, Joanna Miller, texted her to just let it go: \u2018\u2018Don\u2019t give it any energy is what I told her.\u2019\u2019
\nWhat came to Maisie, though, was an idea for passive resistance, pigtail-style: instead of scurrying away or returning the girl\u2019s nastiness in kind, she\u2019d wear her hair like that all week and maybe get a couple of friends to do likewise. She poured out her heart \u2013 and her plan \u2013 on Facebook, then headed off to her after-school babysitting job.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018I\u2019m asking you all to understand that this hurt me beyond reason … if you could help my cause … and so many other girls who have had hurtful things said to them, wear pigtails tomorrow,\u2019\u2019 she posted.
\nWhen she checked in a few hours later, she was overwhelmed to find more than 500 notifications and hundreds of friend requests waiting: \u2018\u2018Some of them were people I\u2019ve looked up to and never met! I started shaking and couldn\u2019t stop.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Maisie typed out a second status update asking for restraint: \u2018\u2018I\u2019d like to remind people that this is a protest against bullying,\u2019\u2019 she wrote, so bullying the girl right back would be against the movement, which she dubbed \u2018\u2018Pigtails for Peace\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n

The next day, much of the school \u2013 girls, boys, a dog and at least one teacher \u2013 was pigtailed, and the bully absent. \u2018\u2018There were hundreds of them,\u2019\u2019 said Loren Weston, a counsellor and sponsor of an anti-bullying club.
\n \u2018\u2018People from every friend group and year did it,\u2019\u2019 said a student who didn\u2019t want to be named. \u2018\u2018The way she dresses \u2013 she\u2019s funky \u2013 and outspoken and positive, but she hadn\u2019t been feeling so good,\u2019\u2019 the girl said, and people were glad to have the chance to rally around her.<\/p>\n

In the days since, the student who mocked Maisie has not only backed off, but also sent a message of contrition through friends: \u2018\u2018She\u2019s been going through some stuff, too,\u2019\u2019 Maisie said, and hopes that down the line, they\u2019ll be able to talk about it. She\u2019s also got multiple messages along the lines of \u2018\u2018She\u2019d been bullying me, too, and now she isn\u2019t any more; thank you!\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Old-fashioned cruelty has always gone on, of course; I\u2019ll never forget the old German nun who routinely yelled at a boy in my class, who had trouble reading aloud, that he was \u2018\u2018so stupid\u2019\u2019, or the girl with albinism at summer camp who everyone said was a lesbian.<\/p>\n

A few school pranksters and \u2018\u2018Mean Girls\u2019\u2019 keep their skills up long after school; when a woman in my office mocked the giant crucifix passed down from my grandmother a decade ago (\u2018\u2018Even Madonna doesn\u2019t wear those any more,\u2019\u2019 she said), I wanted to cry.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important that it was Maisie who came up with her own way out of the problem and made it a kind of community project. What she did instinctively is quite a kindhearted version of the \u2018\u2018shaming\u2019\u2019 that was suggested as a way of internally policing a common social area \u2013 a school, or an internet group in which the humans involved actually see each other occasionally \u2013 by the late Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel prize for economics.<\/p>\n

Maisie is \u2018\u2018someone who sticks up for people,\u2019\u2019 said Weston, the counsellor who leads the anti-bullying group.<\/p>\n

? Facebook, mental health groups and the federal government have joined forces to urge Australians to take an online pledge to stamp out bullying, as part of a nationwide campaign launched on Friday. Facebook\u2019s \u2018\u2018Be Bold Stop Bullying\u2019\u2019 campaign aims to ignite conversation among youth, parents and educators about how to stand up to bullying and where to get help. The social media site has previously been criticised for providing a powerful platform for bullies to attack their victims. Mental health advocates hope this campaign will help spread the anti-bullying message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Maisie Kate Miller\u2019s classmates always had something belittling to say \u2013 about her body, her boyfriend, her fashion choices. But that last little dig, no big deal in itself, brought the 15-year-old at Marblehead High, north of Boston, to tears a couple of weeks ago. On the stairs behind her, the other girl, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}