BULLY ?

IF PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO BRING YOU DOWN IT ONLY MEANS THAT YOU ARE ABOVE THEM.

Humans have bonded as societies for as long as we have existed. Societies can be very simple and have just a few members, or they can be more complex and encompass hundreds of millions of members.But while we continue moving forward in this machine age, we are not yet free of all predicaments.

 BULLYING

This section talks about the various cans of worms associated with bullying. 

Bullying is when people repeatedly and intentionally use words or actions against someone or a group of people to cause distress and risk to their wellbeing. These actions are usually done by people who have more influence or power over someone else, or who want to make someone else feel less powerful or helpless.
Bullying is not the same as conflict between people (like having a fight) or disliking someone, even though people might bully each other because of conflict or dislike.
The sort of repeated behaviour that can be considered bullying includes:

• Keeping someone out of a group (online or offline)
• Acting in an unpleasant way near or towards someone
• Giving nasty looks, making rude gestures, calling names, being rude and impolite, and constantly negative teasing.
• Spreading rumours or lies, or misrepresenting someone (i.e. using their Facebook account to post messages as if it were them)
• Mucking about that goes too far
• Harassing someone based on their race, sex, religion, gender or a disability
• Intentionally and repeatedly hurting someone physically 
• Intentionally stalking someone
• Taking advantage of any power over someone else like a Prefect or a Student Representative.

Bullying can happen anywhere. It can be in schools, at home, at work, in online social spaces, via text messaging or via email. It can be physical, verbal, emotional, and it also includes messages, public statements and behaviour online intended to cause distress or harm (also known as cyberbullying). But no matter what form bullying takes, the results can be the same: severe distress and pain for the person being bullied.

Face-to-face bullying (sometimes referred to as direct bullying) involves physical actions such as punching or kicking or direct verbal actions such as name-calling and insulting.
Covert bullying (sometimes referred to as indirect bullying) is less direct, but just as painful. It means bullying which isn’t easily seen by others and is conducted out of sight, such as excluding people from groups or spreading lies or rumours. Because it is less obvious, it is often unacknowledged by adults.
Cyberbullying occurs through the use of information or communication technologies such Instant Messaging or chat, text messages, email and social networking sites or forums. It has many similarities with offline bullying, but it can also be anonymous, it can reach a wide audience, and sent or uploaded material can be difficult to remove. Most people who cyberbully also bully off-line.

Bullying affects everyone in different ways. But there are common feelings that come up when you are being bullied.

• Feeling guilty like it is your fault
• Feeling hopeless and stuck like you can’t get out of the situation
• Feeling alone, like there is no one to help you
• Feeling like you don’t fit in with the cool group
• Feeling depressed and rejected by your friends and other groups of people
• Feeling unsafe and afraid
• Feeling confused and stressed out wondering what to do and why this is happening to you
• Feeling ashamed that this is happening to you

How bullying can affect other people:

Bullying can have a negative impact on everyone – it is not just a problem for victims and bullies. If you see or know of others been bullied you may feel angry, fearful, guilty, and sad.
You may feel as bad as those who are being bullied.
You may also feel worried that the bullying could happen to you.
When bullying isn’t stopped or challenged by anyone it can create an environment where bullying is accepted and where everyone feels powerless to stop it.

Know your rights

You have a right to feel safe and to be treated fairly and respectfully. Bullying is is a serious problem with serious mental and physical impacts. Bullying can violate many of your human rights including:

• your right to be free from mental, emotional and physical violence
• your right to education 
• your right to a safe work environment

Why do people bully others?

People bully for different reasons. Those who bully persistently are likely to do so in order to dominate others and improve their social status. They may have high self esteem, show little regret for their bullying behaviour and not see bullying as morally wrong.
Other people may bully out of anger or frustration, they may struggle socially and could have also been victims of bullying.

What can you do to stop bullies?

• If you know or see someone who is being bullied, you should seek help of someone reliable.Someone you can share your feelings with.
• If you are being bullied, you should talk to someone you know well and trust; they will give you much needed support and will often have suggestions you hadn't considered for helping with the situation.
• You might feel more comfortable taking a friend with you to talk to the bully or when seeking help. If you feel you might get too nervous to speak, write down what you'd like to say on paper or in an email.
• If you feel safe and confident, you should approach the person who is bullying you and tell them that their behaviour is unwanted and not acceptable.
• If you are being bullied while at school, it is a good idea to seek help from a friend, or to talk to a teacher or counsellor to see if they can help.
• If you are being bullied at work, you can visit this website: https:/childlineindia.org.in/

WOMEN

 WHAT'S A QUEEN WITHOUT HER KING? WELL, HISTORICALLY SPEAKING, MORE POWERFUL.

 Women continue climbing the rungs of power—building their ranks as heads of state, corporate leaders and media influencers—but their minority status means they still face harsh, limiting assessments based on their gender.

Empowerment is the process that creates power in individuals over their own lives, society, and in their communities. People are empowered when they are able to access the opportunities available to them without limitations and restrictions such as in education, profession and lifestyle. Feeling entitled to make your own decisions creates a sense of empowerment.

 Women's empowerment is the process in which women elaborate and recreate what it is that they can be, do, and accomplish in a circumstance that they previously were denied. Empowerment can be defined in many ways, however, when talking about women's empowerment, empowerment means accepting and allowing people (women) who are on the outside of the decision-making process into it. “This puts a strong emphasis on participation in political structures and formal decision-making and, in the economic sphere, on the ability to obtain an income that enables participation in economic decision-making."

In an attempt to move away from one kind of stereotype about women, we might be falling into another-where the woman's character resembles a man. She would do everything a man would do. Her femininity is not celebrated.

 Violence against women (VAW), also known as

gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)  are violent acts committed against women or girls. Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime, committed against women or girls specifically because they are female. VAW has a very long history, though the incidents and intensity of such violence has varied over time and even today varies between societies. Such violence is often seen as a mechanism for the subjugation of women, whether in society in general or in an interpersonal relationship. Such violence may arise from a sense of entitlement, superiority, misogyny or similar attitudes in the perpetrator, or because of his violent nature, especially against women.

Many of the barriers to women's empowerment and equity lie ingrained in cultural norms. Many women feel these pressures, while others have become accustomed to being treated inferior to men. Even if legislators, NGOs, etc. are aware of the benefits women's empowerment and participation can have, many are scared of disrupting the status of the women and continue to let societal norms get in the way of development.

The most striking finding of the latest Global Gender Gap report that was released in December 2018 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) was that it will still take 202 years for women around the world to witness full economic parity.

The women’s liberation movement was a loose  agreement of women and feminist thinking that emerged in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, and other developed countries during the late 1960s and persisted throughout the 1970s.

In South Africa in the 70s young women on university campuses weren’t allowed to wear trousers – denim jeans, hipster bell bottoms or slacks.

Women who graduated alongside men, often with far higher marks, were appointed in subordinate positions. The same degree for instance, garnered a managerial position for a man and a secretarial one for a woman.

In 2010 in the US women overtook men in professional roles in the workplace for the first time. That’s a far cry from 1967, when women made up only one third of all US workers.

So what brought about the mass movement of women into the workplace?

A generation of college-educated women rejected the prospect of following in the footsteps of their mothers, spending their lives as housewives.

But it was also due to a tiny powerful enabler – the birth control pill. The pill gave women the opportunity to delay having children and pursue the careers of their dreams. Women were now able to plan when they wanted children. The advent of the birth control pill coincided with the second wave of feminism and the fight for equal rights. It gave women a tool to level the playing field with men. They no longer had to be mothers first and professionals in the workplace second.

Women's emancipation– we have come a long way, but the struggle continues.

DON'T TELL ME SKY IS THE LIMIT WHEN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TO THE MOON.