Monday, April 14, 2008

Girl Fighting

This issue of girl's beating each other up, recording the instance and then posting the video on you tube has got to stop. If you haven't heard much about this, here's the latest from ABC News.

People are paying attention. With more than 80 thousand videos of girl fights now on you tube, there seems to be a movement, enough is enough. Some teens are now posting comments about the videos telling these girls they are doing something wrong. One teen said, "You give our generation a bad name." Some
of the postings speaking out against the teens are getting tens of thousands of viewings, a couple over a million.

Eight Florida teenagers stood before a judge Friday for their alleged roles in the beating of 16 year old Victoria Lindsay. All eight are being tried as adults and could face up to life in prison, but now they're also being tried by their peers on the very site where the video was posted. "It's just really sad that someone could be so cruel to someone so viciously cruel to someone, " said one teenager on you tube.

Dozens of teens and parents are creating video messages lashing out at the teens and others responsible for the growing violence on the Internet.
"This is why I'm scared of my generation."
"Have we really lost our values that much? !"
"You're going to beat on another girl over myspace. How freaking pathetic
are you? uh? seriously? and I'm speaking to all you girls out there."
"I think it's terrible and appalling."
"I don't want to see my generation go down like that."
"I think this is a result of the lack of parental control."


When 19 year old Linda Chavez watched the Florida beating on her local news in New Orleans, she was so disgusted she posted a two minute monologue. "I was just shocked I couldn't believe it, This was something that was planned that is what upset me the most. Kids shouldn't be doing these things, so I just had to say something. In 3 days Chavez's posting had more than a million views. "I still cant believe I've got over a million hits. Many of the responses that I have gotten is that I'm so glad, they're glad that I am young and I stand for what I believe in. As Victoria Lindsay continues to recover, 7 of her alleged attackers were bailed out of jail over the weekend, one even by the Dr. Phil Show.

Psychologist Dr. Susan Bartell said, "The kids who are putting these videos up on the sites are getting responses from everywhere in the world. People all over the world are able to see what they're doing and are validating what they're doing. And it's fueling them to fight more, it's fueling them to bring their fights to a higher level."
And some tired of the violence say they just hope it serves as a wake up call for society.

If you haven't seen this video and want to look at it, here you go. It's very disturbing. I talked to my kids' teenage babysitter today about girl fighting. She said she can't imagine anything like that happening here in Peoria, IL. That was a relief to hear. I hope the cases we have heard about on the news lately are isolated instances.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

7 comments:

Rixblix said...

Girls fighting is as common in our area as anywhere else. While the videos might not be posted on the internet, violence among girls exists. It existed when I was in high school in the 80's there just wasn't a means of broadcasting it.

Jennifer said...

I have a 13 year old daughter and I can't imagine her ever participating in something like that. I agree, it's shocking. But, I also agree with Rix, I think it's a lot more common than any of us adults suspect.

Jen Christensen said...

Seriously? That is not good. What local high schools should we be talking to about this problem? I would like to hear from some of these girls.

Ms. PH said...

I was not surprised at all about this video. The only difference about this situation and millions of others for the past 40 years is that this one was videotaped and put on the internet.

I attended high school in the late 1980s, graduating in 1989. In my high school, girl fights were just as common as boy fights and often more violent. Boys tend to shove and punch while girls pull hair, scratch, bite, spit, kick, and shove and punch etc. And girls often fight emotionally by shunning or gossiping, which can be more detrimental than physical fighting. Girl fights happened at least once a week in my high school.

And, for the record, I went to high school in a small town in Iowa that had a population of about 30,000 people.

Anonymous said...

Wow!! I can honestly say that when I was in High School from
'57 - '61...there was never a "girl fight". But, then again, the worst thing we ever did was chew gum or talk in class. My , how times HAVE changed.

Edgar said...

The only fights I still remember from my high school years were the girl fights. A friend of mine was even involved in one where the girl had the wrong person - which hardly mattered as she slammed her head into a concrete floor. I had a girl push me into my gym locker because she apparently thought I was mocking her during a game of badminton.

Those fights were brutal, but they didn't have access to the kind of technology (video cameras) or involve the kind of plotting of the case that's gotten so much attention now. Girls are so mean to each other. They always fight ugly. I've seen 1/2 of some of the fights my sister (a h.s. freshman) has on MySpace (I can only read her comments in the bulletins but it's enough...) and it's bad.

I don't think girls develop an appreciation of "girlfriends" until they're older, and that's sad...

Anonymous said...

oops... forgot to change the user on my last two comments... last comment was from me, not Edgar!

 
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