This was emailed to me this morning:
Governor Schwartzenegger’s Politics of Bullying
An Editorial by Warren J. Blumenfeld
During a speech a few weeks ago, Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger blasted Democrats in the California legislature for failing to ratify his state budget by calling them “girliemen,” an epithet that began on “Saturday Night Live” as a parody of Schwartzenegger’s style of hypermasculinity. Schwartzenegger has since embraced, unapologetically, this epithet as a credo of intimidation.
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me.” That was one of the lies many of us are taught growing up. We have, though, come to learn otherwise. Research has shown that name-calling in the schools and other forms of bullying behavior can leave lasting scares on young people resulting in high-risk and self-destructive behaviors. It has been shown to be, at least in part, a cause in the epidemic of suicides that take so many young people from us each year. In addition, we have found that the spate of school shootings at the close of the last decade was perpetrated by young, primarily white males in suburban communities who had, themselves, been the constant target of harassment by their peers who had determined them to be deficient in their so-called “masculinity” quotient.
As the Governor of this country’s most populous state, and as a film cult hero to tens of millions of young people, Schwartzenegger’s words and actions carry much power and weight. In this latest incident, he is communicating a message of coercion, one which calls a person’s gender performance or expression and sexuality into question, and one which insults all females and also all males who in anyway transgress the narrowly constructed confines of gender-based roles. Moreover, the explicit message Schwartzenegger is communicating is that it is acceptable to bully people into acting (voting) your way.
I was shocked to learn the results of an online poll taken by Iowa TV station, WHO Channel 13, which asked its viewers to vote on the following question: “Should Governor Schwartzenegger apologize?” An unbelievable 87 percent replied that he should not apologize, while only 12 percent stated that he should, and 1 percent replied they didn’t know. I would ask, then, what kind of message are we sending our young people when we fail to take Schwartzenegger to task? Are we not giving young people a double message by directly stating or, at least, implying that it is alright for the Governor to use insulting and demeaning language, but that young people cannot do the same?
If we are ever to interrupt the vicious cycle of bullying in our schools and in our society at large, one necessary step in the process is to make unacceptable bullying behaviors by adults, for one of the major areas they learn it is from us.
Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld
Assistant Professor
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Iowa State University
Ames, IA
(515) 232-8230
wblumen@iastate.edu