The effects of bullying are in the news everywhere lately, from the teen girl, Megan Meier, who killed herself after being harassed on MySpace, to Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi and the spate of copycat suicides that followed him. As crushing as the reports of each new suicide can be, I’m also grateful that the mainstream media is finally paying attention to the issues that lay underneath bullying — like an article about Clementi that made last week’s cover of People magazine. Any conversation about bullying is an opportunity to make people think about their own use of intimidation and the abuse of power.
But I take issue with OK! magazine’s recent cover depicting Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jennifer Hudson under the tag line “Bullied For Their Weight: They’ll Never Call Me Fat Again!” Um, skinny, beautiful, rich women are the two victims you could come up with for a bullying story? And they stuck it to their bullies by going on a juice diet? Yeah, that’s the message we want to send: capitulate to the bullies and you won’t be given crap anymore! If some jerks is calling you a heifer, drop from size 16 to size 4. That’ll show ‘em. Keep reading »
