This article goes along with the previous two that have been posted about assault. In Florida, a group of 6 female students beat up another female classmate and VIDEO TAPED it and put it on YouTube! Apparently they were upset about some comments the victim had made on her MySpace page and wanted to get her back for it!
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=829C46FEBE2A6E32FC67F29EE81F18A6?contentId=6250959&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1
This link is for the article only, and DOES NOT contain the horrific video evidence of the beating.
In class we learned that most violence against women is perpetrated by men. For me, I was shocked when I read this article. I think I am so shocked because it goes against the stereotype of the "expected" behaviors of women. I admit, that if I had read this article and the gender of all the parties involved (attackers and victim) had been male, I would still have been horrified by the story, but far less surprised than I was.
What are you thoughts on this story?
10 comments:
That type of behavior is just barbaric and uncalled for. I agree that I am often disturbed by stories like this one but when it’s females attacking other females it’s even worse in my opinion. I don’t agree with violence on any level. But unfortunately it’s very much a part of our culture these days and one can almost become desensitized to it over time. Maybe that helps explain how any human can plot such terrible violent attacks. I’m bothered when men act this way towards other men. But it’s a whole different feeling when women are acting in such horrific ways. It’s even more disgusting that the victim was not even fighting back and yet the attackers kept feeding blows to her head. It’s very disturbing to think that anyone is capable of beating a powerless victim. But to make matters even worse the ladies posted it on YouTube. That’s sick. They are actually deriving pleasure from the violence. Man or woman, it doesn’t matter, one should never take so much pride in violent acts that they post it on the internet for the world to watch. Violence does not need any more attention. I think it’s sick that people would even want to watch fights like that one for entertainment.
I also find this story and video disturbing, two points mainly that really bring this behavior in my opinion to a new level. One point, is that this was planned, it was thought out, not a spur of the moment, in the heat argument, things got out of control or alcohol fueled fight, but the girls planned this and lured the girl over to one of the houses of the girls involved. The second point that I also find disturbing is that they videotaped the attack(obviously also planned) with the purpose of putting it on Youtube.I find the violence to be a sad commentary on the thought process of the girls involved, if you had a chance to see the mother of the "ringleader" of the group,She did an interview on the Today show, in some ways she did not really blame her daughter, slightly justifying the incident in her interview with Matt Lauer, until he called her out on it.I guess we can see, not understand, how their behaviors do not bother them if a parent is not disgusted by the act of their own child in a situaton like this.
When I first watched this tape lat week, I was like completly sick to my stomach. It makes me so sad that this is how our youth are taught to solve problems. I feel like violence among kids has become something that we as a society have kind of been desensitized to. I think that there is still shock value to it, but there really isn't any repercussion for these children and I think they are taking it too lightly. For example, the girls were quoted as saying "I hope I am out of jail in time for cheerleading practice". Are kids not realizing that there are consequences to their actions. Same with the 3rd graders who tried to kill their teacher earlier this month because they were reprimanded for doing something. Have children not been taught that death is a permanent thing?!? One commonality between a lot of cases I have been seeing in the media lately with kids and violence have been linked to technology. With the ability for information to be posted by anyone and spread quickly, things can be dramatized by the snap of a finger.
part of what was shocking was yes, on a small level that these were all girls assaulting them and that they were so desensitized to their act. However, part of the outrage and shock of the case seems to rest in the fact that it was an ambush and that the girl was held captive while she was beaten by friends.
If anyone remembers, there was just as much attention on a much more local case of something just like this. I think it was in Elkhorn and a group of boys ambushed another boy. Like the girls in FL, it was videotaped and the focus was on the fact that it was an ambush, and that it was a group of teenage boys. I think this proves that although there are gender biases in the coverage of these stories, much of the time in cases this serious, it is more about the style of the assualt, in these cases, a planned ambush that is videotaped. Putting false attention on the gender of the offenders is ignoring the sick and psychotic way they planned it and confined her illegally as she was beaten.
It's pretty disgusting what people can do to each other.
Ok and on another note about this subject, it just really bothers me that parents are defending their kids that do this! For example, a thirteen year old in Florida just put a video on youtube of him betting another child, much smaller than him, until his face bled, while a group of teens stood around and watched. The mother of the child who beat up the other kid defended her son saying that the other child was a bully and her son was tired of it. SINCE WHEN IS VIOLENCE THE ANSWER?!?! Since when do parents teach their kids if a situation isn't going there way, instead of coming to talk to their parents, instead of getting school officials involved, beating them up or bringing a gun to school is the answer? I think that it is more than a breakdown in our society, I think it is a breakdown in our parent-children relationships and communication.
I agree with Nefan77, as I said before in my original comment, the parent that in a sense justified her daughter's involvement in the beating in Florida. And then we wonder where kids get the attitude and thought process that they do. It relates in a way to the parents who get mad at the teacher or especially the coach when their children are not successful, or don't play a lot, or get in trouble at school and they come marching up to school or call the coach to berate them for punishing the childs' behavior. In some ways it is the helicopter parent, but not to see that they succeed, but to defend and justify their bad behavior, which I believe reinforces behavior I talked about before.
I guess I just don't understand the underlying hostility and revenge that is going on. I have never wanted to hurt another human being in order to save my own social face. This is similar to another instance on Myspace that happened last semester. A girl and her MOTHER wanted to get revenge on another junior high girl. Apparently the two girls were enemies and the second girl had offended the first in some way. So the mother and daughter started a myspace page as the boy that the second girl had a crush on. The mother and daughter combo then sent the second girl multiple mesages saying how much "he" liked her. One day they stopped the nice messages and started telling her that "he" was not interested, that she was ugly, that he hated her, etc. Eventually the second girl committed suicide and after the police reviewed her computer and its contents they were able to charge the mother and daughter with murder.
I think this goes along with gender because I think men and women use these networking devices for different reasons. For example, I have a friend who informed me that his girlfriend reviewed every single one of his hundreds of facebook comments and looked up every single girl that had ever written to him. Is this a gendered issue? It seems as though more women are affected by the issues of networking, revenge, and jealousy. Could it be because of report and rapport talk. Men use these networks to communicate with other people. They say hello to whomever speaks with them and ends it there. However, women read more into these conversations and when there are messages posted for everyone to read they are able to read private communication and read too far into it. Is this dangerous to our youth? Clearly adolescents are reading too far into virtual relationships and need to focus on different types of interaction.
I watched the video clip of them hitting the girl and my heart started pounding. I feel awful for the victim because as you notice in the video, she never fights back. Not once did she try and swing back even though she was being punched and slapped in the face. She even tried to remove herself from the situation and leave, but the perpetrators blocked the door! This video just sickens me, I really hate violence and I feel there is never an excuse for it. Who cares if she did say something "mean" on their myspace page, it's not like she physically hurt them like they hurt her. I want to know what these girls were thinking when they decided to video tape the incident. Did they not think they would get caught?
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