Texan99 over at Grim's mentioned that she is reading some hand-wringing about children now stuck at home with abusive parents, but no mention of the liberation children are experiencing not "being raped or knifed in the girls' room or out behind the gym."
We downplay actual violence and cruelty at schools because some kinds of violence and taunting just seem to be part of growing up, and dealing with those a developmental task. I am speaking from history, of myself, my brothers, and my sons at school, so 1960-2014. There may be important differences now.
I had some fights at school, and was assaulted a couple of times. I know the difference. I knew it then, too. Both of my times the school tried to treat it as just a fight, just boys fighting. Thinking about brothers, sons, and friends, my data is incomplete, but I think is much the same. There were fights, particularly in the context of sports. Intimidation was for the hallways, and actual assaults were in more hidden areas. I suspect females being assaulted have similar distinctions, between insult, unfairness, uncomfortableness, intimidation, up to assault.
The new interview with Fiona Apple talks about the cruelty of girls at school, which I was mostly oblivious to until well into highschool. I've heard a fair bit about it since then.
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I really enjoyed the fighting in middle school. My first year in high school, I was told that this guy was 'looking for me' and 'intended to kill me.' Being me, I went looking for him. I found him. I was fifteen and scrawny; he was a guy who'd been to juvenile a couple of times, held back, and was still in high school at twenty. He was huge, and he was involved in selling drugs, and he made some very clear threats while at the same time clearly being impressed that I'd sought him out. We parted peacefully and never spoke again.
I've carried a knife every day of my life since then. I just suddenly knew that I wasn't going to let some accident of age or strength cause some guy like that to have the power to destroy me or my life. Legal or not, I was going to make sure I could defend myself against people like that.
It's worked all right, but if you caught a student carrying a knife to school today, they'd probably run them into prison.
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