When I did the original research for 'Odd Girl Out,' I asked every bullied girl I interviewed to tell me what she needed most from her family. The answer truly surprised me. It wasn't having the best solutions, calling the school, or trying to act like everything was okay. It was empathy.
Interpretation
Empathy is essential for supporting those who are bullied.
The quote emphasizes the importance of empathy over practical solutions for individuals who are experiencing bullying. Rachel Simmons discovered that what bullied girls desired most from their families was not necessarily actions to fix the situation, but rather an understanding and emotional support that validates their feelings.
In practice
In a school counseling session discussing the effects of bullying.
You don't learn how to say 'hey, I have a problem,' but you also don't learn how to hear it. There's a total breakdown of how females talk to one another. It's very disconcerting for leadership because it means you don't talk to each other; you talk about each other.
All around me, I see girls forced to become rat racers in the College Application Industrial Complex, the subculture where students must craft themselves into the perfect specimens for college admission and often lose their authenticity, love of learning, and sense of self in the process.
Failing well is a skill. Letting girls do it gives them critical practice coping with a negative experience. It also gives them the opportunity to develop a kind of confidence and resilience that can only be forged in times of challenge.
It seems that soccer tournaments create those relationships: people gathered together in pubs and living rooms, a whole country suddenly caring about the same event. A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern societies.
The face is not a secondary billboard for our internal feelings. It is an equal partner in the emotional process.
There is a reason that many African Americans have a healthy mistrust for law enforcement. We don't always feel protected or served by that particular institution.
Invest in great relationships, they will pay a lifetime of dividends.
You don't tell people who disagree with you they'd be better off somewhere else. And you don't reduce them to stereotypes; you address them as fully formed people worthy of respect. You try to persuade them.
Most women I know are priestesses and healers... We are, all of us, sisters of a mysterious order.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.