Rebel bodies: girl bullies and their female victims during adolescent identity formation

Abstract

The need for a gender-specific reading of bullying is apparent from an examination and assessment of the literature, and the consequent recognition of the gap created in the literature by the practice of reading social phenomena as universal and gender neutral. Taking feminist and intersectional considerations of gender education as its starting point and based on the data collected through five focus groups conducted with female adult students in three schools in Verona, the article explores the articulation of female bullying at school. Interpreting the dynamics of bullying in the light of sex and social constructs related to gender identity offers new understandings of aggression between girls, which is otherwise treated as the same as that between boys.

In this paper, we consider the principal behavioral patterns that emerge in the study relating to corporality in its material and aesthetic dimensions. During adolescence, bodies rebel, becoming arenas and battlefields for the affirmation of girls’ identity.