No Safe Space

I wasn’t always strong and confident in myself. All of grade school and junior high, I was bullied. It got so bad that my mom almost pulled me out of the public-school system and homeschooled me. I instead ended up switching to a different high school when that time came around, but a lot of damage had already been done. The bullying happened mainly during school. Mean words from mean girls, and occasionally physical abuse. I never said or did anything back, just took it. Sports were my safe space, or so I thought. Because of my height, I excelled at volleyball and track. I thought that in these settings, the girls wouldn’t be mean to me because I was a teammate that helped them win. I was wrong.

To give a little background information on the scenario I’m about to describe – I have celiac disease and I’m very allergic to gluten. A crumb and I get sick for weeks, if it touches my skin or I breathe it in I get sick for weeks. During the school day this affected me greatly during lunch period in grade school. Multiple times, the group of the popular girls would come up to me, shove me, say a few mean words making fun of me for packing a lunch every day instead of eating the school’s lunch like everyone else, and then throw my food away. I used to eat my lunch in a bathroom stall to avoid this from happening. Once I got to junior high, one day my science teacher saw me eating in the bathroom and prompted me to explain the situation to her. For the rest of junior high, I ate my lunch every day in the science teacher’s supply closet to avoid an opportunity for them to bully me. The bullying happened at recess too, so I would skip that and instead read a book or do homework in the bathroom/science teacher’s closet. During school, I did not feel safe or welcome at all. Sports were my escape from bullying. Until one day, there weren’t.

Gluten is in more than just food. I have to use gluten free make up, shampoo, conditioner, perfume, etc. Since perfume has gluten, when girls on the volleyball team would spray it in the locker room after games, I would get sick. I had to miss school and games because of the reaction my skin had as well as the reaction my stomach had. The volleyball coach addressed this to the girls, and asked them to wait to spray their perfume until I was finished changing and could leave the locker room. I fully believe up to this point, they had no idea they were making me sick with the perfume. After some of the girls were made aware of this however, things took a turn for the worst. After the next practice they walked up to me, sprayed their perfume in my face, and walked away laughing. It seems like a minor thing to happen, perfume seems harmless, but I am very allergic to gluten. My face swelled shut and I couldn’t open my eyes after this happened, and I had to miss our regional game. This was the moment I realized that no space was safe. Not even sports were safe anymore. After this year, I transferred schools and things got a lot better for me.

This bullying was a result of an imbalance of power. The popular girls, based on their status, had the most power. Me being a girl who was not very popular at school, having little to no self-confidence, made me an easy target. This power imbalance is a result of these girls feeling more privileged than me, believing that they’re better than me simply because they are who they are and I am who I am. They needed no further reasoning than that, just as the men needed no further reasoning to question and bully DiCario as a reporter simply because she was a woman (2016/2019, 369). This situation existed on the basis of the mentality that their lives are worth more than mine. That because I was not as attractive as them, because I was weak, shy, and nerdy, I deserved to be treated less than them. That is how this situation was created, and honestly, I feel like I am at fault for why this situation was maintained. I never stood up for myself. I never said or did anything to stop them. Instead, I hid. Instead, I came home crying. If I had stood up for myself, the cycle would not have persisted as long as it did, and I would not have been left as damaged as I am. My role in this situation was the target, and because of the way I let them treat me, I had little to no power over anything.

References:

DiCaro, J. (2019). Women in the sports media face unrelenting sexism in challenges to their expertise and opinions. In S. Schultz, J. O'Reilly, and S.K. Cahn (Eds.), Women and sport in the United States: A documentary reader (pp.367-371). Lebanon, NH: Dartmouth College Press. Previously published from Women's Media Center, (2016, April 30). http://www.womensmediacenter.com/speech-project/women-in-sports-media-face-unrelenting-sexism-in-challenges-to-their-expertise-and-opinions