The Case of Phoebe Prince

Clearly, South Hadley High School student Phoebe Prince was bullied to death. Just as clearly, those who were responsible, both the bullies who tormented her and the authorities that ignored her plight, should be subject to appropriate opprobrium.

Now, as the story of Phoebe's last months and days is revealed in the press, other issues come to the fore. See articles by Donal Lynch in the Irish Independent, here and here, and Emily Bazelon's most recent essay in Slate. Link here.

It's one thing to be subjected to bullying. Another is not possessing the psychological resources necessary to deal with the situation. From reading about Phoebe Prince I am struck by her lack of what I would call psychological capital.

Some would call psychological capital self-esteem but this term has been brutalized beyond recognition. Others would call it self-confidence, a person's ability to stand firm in the assertion of her own value. It is created and supported by social relationships, by the sense of belonging to a group, by contributions to the good of the group, and by the feeling that one's membership is solid and inviolate.

You lose psychological capital when you are cast out of a group or treated like a pariah. But you also lose it by being too vulnerable and too exposed. A child who barely feels that she belongs will feel vulnerable to rejection and will lack the confidence to assert herself as a member of the group. The situation will be worse if she is new in town and does not know enough of the social codes to know what she should do to make herself fit in.

I daresay that a child does not have that much psychological capital to begin with. She will need to buttress her own developing resources by borrowing capital from her parents and family members. The better her relationships with them, the more capital they have, the more she will have.

As an outsider, a new arrival in South Hadley, a girl living only with her mother and sister, Phoebe was vulnerable. Her primary emotional support, her father, had stayed back in Ireland. Bullies sense out vulnerability and weakness. Once they find it they exploit it mercilessly.

Given the difficulties adjusting to a new culture, why was Phoebe Prince in South Hadley anyway? Why did her mother take two of her five children to America, leaving the older ones in Ireland with their father?

Here there are two conflicting reports. One suggests that Phoebe's mother, Anne O'Brien wanted her youngest children to see America. Anne's sister lived in South Hadley, so that was the logical place to go.

For my part I would dismiss that reason as a transparent attempt at dissimulation.

Others have suggested that Phoebe had been bullied in her high school in Ireland. If so, it would make some sense for her parents to believe that it was imperative to remove her from an unhealthy environment. The greater the distance, the better.

If that is true, then Phoebe's parents may simply have made a well-intentioned mistake. The worst part of the mistake was separating Phoebe from her father. From reading one of Phoebe's high school class assignments we get the impression that she was very close to her father. Link here. He was her rock and her refuge; he was her most important social contact. He would comfort her and protect her.

We do not know whether Phoebe's father could have protected her from the South Hadley bullies, but surely his presence would have given her the feeling that she was protected, thus, less vulnerable to the abuse that had become a painful part of her everyday routine. And this feeling of being protected must increase one's psychological capital.

In moving to South Hadley Phoebe lost her best conversations and found that life in an American high school involved manic texting and twittering.

In an essay where she extolled the value of her relationship with her father, she also described the shortcomings of "today's impersonal electronic society." In her words: "We no longer appreciate simple conversations now that we have twitter and facebook. Personally I can't believe that reading an email would have the same effect as speaking with someone face-to-face, making a moment."

If psychological capital is built by an accumulation of gestures that signify social connection, the "impersonal electronic society" would diminish psychological capital while creating a false sense of connection.

Feelings of solitude and anomie, not merely not belonging, but not even knowing how to belong, must be more powerful for a child who has been dropped into an alien community and alien culture.

Emily Bazelon offers a slightly different explanation for Phoebe's move to South Hadley. She says that Phoebe's parents had separated... which could mean that they were living separately, but which seems to mean that they had separated as a prelude to divorce.

Could it be that Phoebe's mother was so distraught over her separation that she wanted to have a fresh start for herself in South Hadley? Even if it cost her daughter her most important social tie, her conversations with her father.

Next we must ask whether the school contributed to Phoebe's loss of psychological capital by making her feel even more vulnerable and exposed, even more threatened with social oblivion.

I find something strangely disquieting about Phoebe's touching essay on her father and her iPod. It feels too personal, too intimate, emotionally too raw and vulnerable. Keep in mind that this essay was posted on her blog, for all to read, for all bullies to exploit.

A child who is developing psychological capital should become more thick skinned, not more exposed. Those educators who believe that their job is to provide a kind of rough therapy by helping children to get in touch with their feelings are doing them a serious disservice. Seeing the way it worked for Phoebe Prince confirms my judgment.

Perhaps this happens in all American high schools. If so, American high schools should get out of the therapy business and return to the three Rs.

While the school was encouraging Phoebe to expose her feelings, she was writing that what made her happiest about talking with he father was their discussions of politics. Would it not have been better if Phoebe was assigned essays on politics and history than on her intimate emotions?

Phoebe also posted a second essay on her blog. It is a book review of a book by psychotherapist Stephen Levenkron about girls who self-mutilate by cutting themselves.

Maybe I am just revealing my age, but has anyone asked whether it is appropriate for a child to read books about disturbing psychological conditions? Especially when she is likely to identify with the girls who tell there stories of depression, anomie, and self-abuse. Do we really want a high school girl to find herself among that group? Do we want her to discover a new way to deal with her anguish?

I hope that no one believes that such reading materials will be therapeutic, or that they will help a troubled girl get in touch with her feelings. Do we really want a girl who is lost and disconnected, subjected to psychological abuse, to hear some of her own darkest feelings echoed in the words of girls who self-mutilate. You build psychological capital by accentuating your good qualities, not indulging your darkest moods.

I am assuming, charitably, that her teacher did not assign this book. But I must assume that if it was the topic of a book review the teacher approved Phoebe's choice.

Think about it. If a child asks to review a book about self-mutilation would you not take that to be an alarm. In my view the minimally acceptable adult behavior would have been to refer the girl immediately for counseling.

From the evidence we have up to now, no one seemed to understand that a fifteen year old does not have the emotional capacity to deal with issues like self-mutilation. Nor, I would add, does a fifteen year old have the emotional capacity to deal with the aftershocks of hooking up.

Bullying and the Limits of Empathy

I have it on good authority that teenagers no longer talk to each other very much. They text. They text all the time; they text to people sitting in the same room; they text and text and text. It sounds to this older person like they are all suffering from textomania.

Texting is a form of communication. It might work well as an adjunct to face-to-face talking, but, once it becomes a sole means of connecting, the children who are doing it will naturally start losing any sense that they are connecting other human beings.

Once you learn that your fellow texters are not quite human, then it is easier to bully them. Given that bullying falls within the category of sociopathic behavior, it makes some sense to say that children who bully other children have no real empathy for their victims. So says Time Magazine, representing the wisdom of the psychological profession. Link here.

These reflections were provoked by the January suicide of South Hadley High School Student, Phoebe Prince. Link here.

When faced with adolescent bullying, what is the real issue? Are we being called upon to understand it, to discover its psychological origins, and to provide effective psychotherapy for both tormentors and victims? Or are we adults being called upon to stop it, to put an end to it?

The psychologists quoted in Time Magazine seem to be proposing a warm bath of empathy for all of those involved. They want everyone to do exercises in fellow-feeling, become more aware of their own feelings, and gaining a feel for the feelings of others. In other words, they are proposing psychotherapy.

Not psychotherapy for bullies-- because no one even pretends that therapy works on psychopathy-- but prophylactic exercises in empathy. They want us to teach young children how to feel empathy, so that they will not grow up to become bullies.

It's a nice idea. It makes you feel good. It is probably not going to work.

In fact, if you have a very refined sense of empathy, you might recoil at punishing bullies because you will feel badly for the pain you would be inflicting on them.

Empathy does not tell us what adults should have done when they discovered that Phoebe Prince was being bullied by a gang of 9 students. I can easily imagine that the counselors and teachers and school officials who heard Phoebe's story or witnessed the bullying, felt her pain. They are surely warm and caring people. And they may even have tried to understand it. They just did not know how to stop it. They did not even try.

For all its virtues, empathy says nothing about how to behave toward others. You can be filled with warm and fuzzy feelings toward others-- you can be genuinely feeling their pain-- and still act rudely. Through no fault of your own. All that time learning how to feel the right feelings was time that you did not learn the codes of proper behavior.

Of course, when you are unintentionally offensive, and the other person gets angry at you, you will not understand why they are feeling that way, and will tend to blame them.

As for teaching a child how to be polite and respectful toward other children, every parent resorts to some level of sanction. Hopefully, parents do not beat their children any more. But they certainly use mild forms of shaming: calling a time out, expressing disappointment at a child's behavior, and accusing the child of not acting his age.

These children would better learn respect through training in etiquette coupled with sanctions to punish bad behavior.

But, to do that, children need strict parents, not kindly, empathic therapists.

As everyone has noticed by now, one of the tragedies of the Phoebe Prince suicide is that the adults were not acting like adults. School officials may well have empathized, but they did not create an environment where bullying was forbidden and where the bullies knew that they were risking severe punishment.

Again, how do you put a stop to bullying?

Elizabeth Scheibel had one idea. As the local District Attorney Scheibel decided to indict the South Hadley 9 on criminal charges... assault and civil rights violations. I am not competent to judge the merit of the charges. And I am also not competent to tell you whether or not these students should be sued for the civil tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Link here.

These cases are difficult to prove, but that is not really the issue. Most importantly, in the absence of action by school officials, the case arrived in the legal system where the town had one adult who was willing to exercise her authority. Scheibel did not empathize; she stood up and said: enough is enough.

However the trials work out, now the South Hadley 9 have been publicly shamed. And not in the somewhat restrained way that parents shame their children. The indictments, representing community rejection of these children, punished their behavior with the strongest moral sanction, shame. They have been cast out of the community; they are now pariahs; their reputations have been seriously damaged.

As People Magazine reported recently, life has not been very good for the South Hadley 9 since their indictments. The community has turned against them. They have been harassed and tormented. One of them can no longer live at home. Another is terrified for his future. Some have received death threats. They are, dare I say, being bullied. Link here.

It should never have come to this. That it did come to this reflects the simple fact that, before Elizabeth Scheibel, no one in South Hadley took the problem of bullying seriously. No one seems to have recognized how wrong it was. And no one seemed to know how to make it stop.

Would the South Hadley9 have refrained from their bullying if they had been able to feel Phoebe's pain? And after all, they were trying to get Phoebe to feel their pain, the pain Ashley Longe had felt when her boyfriend left her for the new Irish girl. Their bullying showed an understanding of empathy; they were forcing Phoebe to empathize with them.

Or would they have been more likely to refrain if they had known that their behavior would subject them to criminal prosecution and ostracism? Would it have bee enough if they had known that bullying would get them expelled from school and that their school records would always include a note explaining why? Which one would have worked better to stop the bullying: a strong feeling for the feelings of others or a strong moral sense.

Girl on Girl Aggression

Consider this a follow-up to my post about "Women's Inhumanity to Women," and to the discussion I had with Susan Walsh in the comments.

Scientific American reports the latest research on the differences between male and female aggression. Clearly, men are more prone to physical acts of aggression, but women can also be aggressive... not physically, but mentally and emotionally. Link here. The researchers call it "relational aggression," but it is really mental and emotional abuse.

To be clear, the research suggests that these forms of aggressive behavior are not social constructs.

As you read this description, think about what Phoebe Prince underwent, and try to imagine how difficult it is to respond to attacks that do not leave physical marks. "... relational aggression includes spreading rumors, gossiping, glaring, eye-rolling, giving others the 'silent treatment,' sending nasty notes or text messages behind rivals' backs, excluding others from social gatherings, poking fun at the appearance of competitors, and other stealth tactics."

Next, the report explains the reason for the specific nature of female aggression: "The so-called gentler sex may opt for such tactics because they are socialized to not show hostility openly and also because their relative lack of physical strength makes violence seem a less promising strategy."

Women cannot inflict sufficient pain by using physical violence, so they resort to mental and verbal abuse. It hurts more and it is more difficult to identify and to counter.

Women's Inhumanity to Women

It isn't supposed to happen. Girls are supposed to be the gentler sex; they are not supposed to engage in cutthroat competition. Girls are naturally drawn to cooperation and peace. They do not fight; they do not go to war; they do not struggle for status and prestige.

Which is why many people argue that the world would be a better place if women were in charge. There would be no more fierce competition; there would be no more predatory lending; there would be no more wars; there would be no more abuse and harassment. Women cooperate; they are sensitive to the feelings of others; they nurture and care.

I wrote about this topic last week, because some people have been suggesting that if women had been in charge, the financial system would not have been brought to the brink of oblivion. Links here and here.

As the nation moves toward a less market-oriented, more caring and compassionate economy, one that is controlled by the Nanny state, the values that are associated with women have been taking the fore. The health care reform law is but another example of the apotheosis of the feminine as a cultural value.

As I was reminded by Susan Walsh yesterday, this is a caricature in the service of a feminist ideology. Link here. If men are the root of all evil, and especially, the agents of all abuse directed against women, then women, or, more accurately, feminists are supposed to band together to fight it off. Women's cooperative spirit, their higher level social skills, will make it that, in the absence of male influence, they will just naturally get along.

If women are all sweetness and light, someone should have told it to Phoebe Prince. And someone should certainly have told the authorities in South Hadley High School, people who had been informed of or who had witnessed the brutal psychological attacks against her, to take girl on girl violence very seriously.

So what if a bunch of girls were calling her names, were branding her as a slut or an Irish whore. She may have been the new girl in school, she may have been an immigrant lost in a strange new world, but she was canny enough to shag the captain of the football team.

I suspect that school authorities, in this notably progressive community, is so intent on stopping boy on girl violence and abuse, that they closed their eyes to the girl on girl variety.

Everyone looked the other way until that moment last January when 15 year old Phoebe Prince hung herself.

Hers is not the only case of girl on girl bullying, slander, harassment, and outright abuse. Remember Missouri teenager Megan Meier, victim of a vicious prank by Lori Drew, the mother of an erstwhile friend. Lori Drew created a fictional boy, used this persona to induce Megan Meier to fall in love with the boy, and then, unceremoniously, dumped her. So much for the softening power of estrogen.

Megan Meier could not handle the rejection. She hung herself. Lori Drew was charged but then acquitted.

Clearly you do not have to be very sensitive to see the level of cruelty involved in this cruel prank. Women being inhumane to girls is especially painful to witness, but, apparently, nothing about this drama set off any of Lori Drew's moral alarms.

Speaking of women on girl violence, what about Wanda Holloway. She tried to hire a hit man to murder her teenage daughter's rival for a position on the cheerleading squad. And she was happy to have the hit man murder the girl's mother too.

Doesn't it shock you to see parents, mothers in particular, take up arms for their teenage daughters in psychological wars? What happened to parents? What happened to parental authority? These mothers have abrogated any semblance of parental authority in order to live their daughters' lives, vicariously. Are they that afraid of their daughters?

I will not even bother you with reflections on the most obvious point: where are the men, the fathers, in all this. We know that Phoebe Prince's father had stayed behind in Ireland to see his house. But what about the other fathers of these other children?

As for the victims of this form of abuse, they are children. They have limited emotional resources. If they are Phoebe Prince, they do not have a circle of friends. When the school authorities, from the principal to teachers, turn away from what is happening, a child will believe that she has nowhere to turn and no one who can defend her. If her mother cannot get through to the authorities, then who can protect her.

Whether or not there is criminal or civil liability, the failure of parents and teachers to exercise authority is a large part of the Phoebe Prince story, and not just hers.

The other side of this story, analyzed well by Susan Walsh, concerns the influence of the hook up culture on the sexual marketplace.

You see, young Phoebe Prince was very pretty and very attractive to boys. Upon arriving at South Hadley High School she hooked up with the captain of the football team, one Sean Mulveyhill. The same Sean Mulveyhill had previously been attached to one Ashley Longe, and Ashley was not going to allow some Irish immigrant threaten her status. She was not going to be some passive wall flower. No, she rounded up a couple of her friends and declared psychological war against Phoebe Prince.

The same happened when Phoebe hooked up with a boy from another school. His wronged girl friend went to war against Phoebe.

From which we can easily conclude that Phoebe Prince brought a rather wild sexuality into the mix of some rather drab American high schools. And just as she was unprepared for the abuse that she attracted, the girls in the schools were unprepared to deal with her as competition.

The purpose of the abuse was simple. They wanted to neutralize a competitor, to demoralize and demonize her until no one would respect her. Call her slut, tramp, and whore. No boy would every go near her again. No boy would ever want to be seen in public with her.

Why didn't Ashley Longe just move on and find a new boyfriend? First, there is only one captain of the football team, one alpha male, and if you lose him, then you have nowhere to go but down. Second, as Walsh says, in the world of hook ups, committed relationships are rare, and anything that is rare has greater value.

Girl on girl violence feels like drama. It involves name calling, an accumulation of minor grade nastiness, and constant disruption of everyday routines. It does not just make your life permanent hell, it makes it permanent drama.

As some of the commenters on Walsh's site noted, it is not at all the same when men compete. Serious male competition is channeled into competitive sports. Competitive sports have rules, they have boundaries, and they involve sportsmanship. Serious energy goes into the match, but when the game is over, opponents are required to show respect for each other.

In a hook up culture there seem to be no rules. Courtship and dating practices no longer pertain, and couples are not paired off. Girls suffer most because they are normally the masters of the dating game. Worse than that, in a hook up culture, girls are not supposed to feel jealousy, they are not supposed to become rivals for the same man. If he is hers one night, he can still be yours the next night. It is the law of the harem.

Maybe, they are supposed to know the rules. But still, they feel jealousy. Human emotion has deep genetic roots. It does not just go away because you have decided that you are not supposed to feel it.