Joyce Davis, founder and director of Pearl Girlz, LLC, tells
about the first time she was the victim of bullying. She was nine.
It was her first day in a new school, and she was the only black kid in
the class. Just before lunch, when a
group of girls were preening before mirrors in the bathroom, one of the girls
pulled Joyce’s pony tail. As she said, “Ooh, your hair is so weird,” all the
girls started to laugh, and Joyce felt the tears coming. But somehow, she marshaled the strength to
hold them back, and instead of crying said, “Yeah, it does whatever I want it
to. I can pull it, I can straighten it, I can curl it.”
“That’s cool. Can I play with your hair?” one of the other girls asked.
“Sure,” Joyce replied.
“Can I play with yours?” In that moment, the tension was diffused, and this gaggle of taunting girls turned into a bunch of Barbies fussing with each other’s hair.
Years later, as a middle school language arts teacher and Master of Arts candidate, Joyce became a serious student of bullying. She learned that what was once perceived as benign catty behavior was in fact harmful aggression – subtle but very real intent to destroy another girl’s relationship with one or several of her friends. While boys fight with their fists, girls devastate each other with the roll of an eye, a whispered remark, divulging of secrets, starting of rumors.
“Girls know how to manipulate the value placed on a relationship in order to truly damage. To really, really hurt you, I need to damage your relationship with me or with someone else,” Joyce explains. “One day two girls might be friends. Then someone else comes along and whispers, and all of a sudden, the relationship is damaged. ‘What happened? You were talking to me yesterday, but you won’t talk to me today.’”
Throw social media into the mix – the potential for rumors, gossip, and hateful speech to be anonymous and go viral – and the potential for harm escalates exponentially. Who can forget Rebecca Sedwick, the 12-year-old Florida girl who jumped to her death in 2013 after having been mercilessly taunted on Facebook.
But just as girls can be mean, they also have the capacity to be loyal and caring, to turn ugly competition into supportive cooperation. These realizations, together with an appreciation for the importance of self-esteem and socially appropriate behavior, became the seeds of Pearl Girlz.
Pearl Girlz is an educational organization dedicated to the elimination of girl bullying. Through workshops designed for educators and for middle and high school girls, Pearl Girlz draws back the curtain on how words and body language do harm. The workshops teach the girls how to silence bullying when they encounter it and how to find their own inner strength and beauty so they will not need to engage in the destructive behavior themselves.
A series of three workshops for middle and high school girls, titled ”VIR[i] Around the Mean Girls,” begins with a session analyzing the types of aggression girls exhibit. As Joyce discussed the difference between male and female aggression at a recent session at an inner-city high school in Miami, the girls knew just what she was talking about.
“ Boys fight and then they’re done. Girls hold a grudge,” volunteered one.
“ Girls know how to get inside your head, and they seek revenge,” said another.
“ Girls will call you names. They’ll curse at you and flirt with your boyfriend,” offered a third.
“They won’t invite you to their party, and then they’ll talk about it in front of you."
Examples flew across the room: Girls gossip and spread rumors about you. They’ll walk past you or roll their eyes at you or shout over you or give you a dirty look so other girls will see you as cast out.
It quickly became clear that girls instinctively understand that validation comes from feeling secure in important friendships. By bullying girls separate the victim from her friends. In the process they inflate their own power and diminish the victim’s.
If bullying is so destructive, the next step is to do away with it. For that Joyce introduced the Toolbox of Options, a list of 15 effective responses to bullying that the girls would practice at the next session. To protect themselves from bullying, the girls are encouraged to find a safe place – such as someone’s house, church, the mall -- where they can relax; tell a trusted adult; stand up for themselves without yelling or hurling insults; seek out friends, family and neighbors who make them feel comfortable and accepted. To diffuse bullying, they are encouraged to walk away; find something nice to say about the person who is the subject of gossip; tell the perpetrator that what she is doing or saying is beneath both of them.
At this second session, the participants are presented with typical bullying scenarios and have the opportunity to role play, selecting from the Toolbox of Options the best strategy in each case. In this session, the girls learn how to be assertive without being aggressive and how to diffuse bullying when they see others perpetrating it. During these exercises – indeed throughout all three sessions -- the girls are encouraged to be pearls, that is, to demonstrate self-respect, respect for others, and appropriate social behavior.
The pearl serves as a metaphor for the girls as they deal with unsavory behavior, Joyce explains A pearl grows inside an oyster in reaction to irritating or threatening stimuli. Each time the oyster feels attacked, it encases the irritant in a layer of a substance called nacre. Layer by layer, as the oyster repels irritants, it builds a beautiful gem. Similarly, the girls build their inner beauty as they learn ways to fend off bullying in dignified ways.
Bullying emanates from inner hurt, anger, jealousy or feelings of inadequacy. Consequently, making girls feel good about themselves is central to eliminating it, and building a strong sense of self is the focus of the third session in the series. Entitled “Loving the Skin You’re In,” it builds self-esteem by helping the girls to get in touch with their inner beauty – their personality, their character, their talents, ambitions and motivation. The girls learn 10 characteristics of healthy self-esteem and five strategies for building a strong sense of self. Using a full-length mirror, they verbalize the qualities and characteristics that define their inner beauty. They write on the mirror: because I’m a great cook, because I’m a caring person, because I help my grandmother.
Because building a strong sense of self is so critical, this theme pervades all three sessions. From the outset of the first workshop, participants are encouraged to identify their passions and recognize their uniqueness. To reinforce the girls’ inner strength, each session ends with a reading of “Still I Rise” and “Phenomenal Woman,” two poems by Maya Angelou.
“When we read ‘Phenomenal Woman,’ we’re like ‘that’s me,’” Joyce says, “because we’re thinking and acting all through that poem like this is the woman who we’re gonna be in the future. Not the woman who throws champagne glasses across the table. Not the woman who posts naked pictures on the Internet.” Rather, the woman whose intelligence and self-confidence makes others take notice.
Beginning with that day in the girls’ room when Joyce was nine, personal and professional experiences formed the seeds of Pearl Girlz. But it was 2009 before Joyce gave her first workshop. Pearl Girlz was incorporated in 2011. Through this very grassroots organization, Joyce has presented her work at the National Girls Bullying Conference in Las Vegas and has led student workshops in Nevada, Maryland and Florida.
No hard data on outcomes yet exists, but workshop participants’ comments make clear that they get the message. “Don’t let people push you down,” one girl wrote on her evaluation. “Instead of being a mean girl, be a smart girl.”
Another wrote, “It helps a lot to learn not to bully someone and don’t always have revenge.”
A third wrote, “It helps [to] understand that when people be mean to you, you can find a way to do something without being judicial or using your fist. And how you can help other people out when their being bullied.”
The Pearl Girlz budget, averaging $20,000 a year, comes solely from workshop tuition, $25 per student per 90-minute session. Joyce operates with no formal office and no staff. Future plans include establishing Pearl Girlz as a 501 (c) (3) and expanding the reach of her work. While she looks forward to the day when her workshops will be taking place every day in schools across the country, she still keeps her day job.
“That’s cool. Can I play with your hair?” one of the other girls asked.
“Sure,” Joyce replied.
“Can I play with yours?” In that moment, the tension was diffused, and this gaggle of taunting girls turned into a bunch of Barbies fussing with each other’s hair.
Years later, as a middle school language arts teacher and Master of Arts candidate, Joyce became a serious student of bullying. She learned that what was once perceived as benign catty behavior was in fact harmful aggression – subtle but very real intent to destroy another girl’s relationship with one or several of her friends. While boys fight with their fists, girls devastate each other with the roll of an eye, a whispered remark, divulging of secrets, starting of rumors.
“Girls know how to manipulate the value placed on a relationship in order to truly damage. To really, really hurt you, I need to damage your relationship with me or with someone else,” Joyce explains. “One day two girls might be friends. Then someone else comes along and whispers, and all of a sudden, the relationship is damaged. ‘What happened? You were talking to me yesterday, but you won’t talk to me today.’”
Throw social media into the mix – the potential for rumors, gossip, and hateful speech to be anonymous and go viral – and the potential for harm escalates exponentially. Who can forget Rebecca Sedwick, the 12-year-old Florida girl who jumped to her death in 2013 after having been mercilessly taunted on Facebook.
But just as girls can be mean, they also have the capacity to be loyal and caring, to turn ugly competition into supportive cooperation. These realizations, together with an appreciation for the importance of self-esteem and socially appropriate behavior, became the seeds of Pearl Girlz.
Pearl Girlz is an educational organization dedicated to the elimination of girl bullying. Through workshops designed for educators and for middle and high school girls, Pearl Girlz draws back the curtain on how words and body language do harm. The workshops teach the girls how to silence bullying when they encounter it and how to find their own inner strength and beauty so they will not need to engage in the destructive behavior themselves.
A series of three workshops for middle and high school girls, titled ”VIR[i] Around the Mean Girls,” begins with a session analyzing the types of aggression girls exhibit. As Joyce discussed the difference between male and female aggression at a recent session at an inner-city high school in Miami, the girls knew just what she was talking about.
“ Boys fight and then they’re done. Girls hold a grudge,” volunteered one.
“ Girls know how to get inside your head, and they seek revenge,” said another.
“ Girls will call you names. They’ll curse at you and flirt with your boyfriend,” offered a third.
“They won’t invite you to their party, and then they’ll talk about it in front of you."
Examples flew across the room: Girls gossip and spread rumors about you. They’ll walk past you or roll their eyes at you or shout over you or give you a dirty look so other girls will see you as cast out.
It quickly became clear that girls instinctively understand that validation comes from feeling secure in important friendships. By bullying girls separate the victim from her friends. In the process they inflate their own power and diminish the victim’s.
If bullying is so destructive, the next step is to do away with it. For that Joyce introduced the Toolbox of Options, a list of 15 effective responses to bullying that the girls would practice at the next session. To protect themselves from bullying, the girls are encouraged to find a safe place – such as someone’s house, church, the mall -- where they can relax; tell a trusted adult; stand up for themselves without yelling or hurling insults; seek out friends, family and neighbors who make them feel comfortable and accepted. To diffuse bullying, they are encouraged to walk away; find something nice to say about the person who is the subject of gossip; tell the perpetrator that what she is doing or saying is beneath both of them.
At this second session, the participants are presented with typical bullying scenarios and have the opportunity to role play, selecting from the Toolbox of Options the best strategy in each case. In this session, the girls learn how to be assertive without being aggressive and how to diffuse bullying when they see others perpetrating it. During these exercises – indeed throughout all three sessions -- the girls are encouraged to be pearls, that is, to demonstrate self-respect, respect for others, and appropriate social behavior.
The pearl serves as a metaphor for the girls as they deal with unsavory behavior, Joyce explains A pearl grows inside an oyster in reaction to irritating or threatening stimuli. Each time the oyster feels attacked, it encases the irritant in a layer of a substance called nacre. Layer by layer, as the oyster repels irritants, it builds a beautiful gem. Similarly, the girls build their inner beauty as they learn ways to fend off bullying in dignified ways.
Bullying emanates from inner hurt, anger, jealousy or feelings of inadequacy. Consequently, making girls feel good about themselves is central to eliminating it, and building a strong sense of self is the focus of the third session in the series. Entitled “Loving the Skin You’re In,” it builds self-esteem by helping the girls to get in touch with their inner beauty – their personality, their character, their talents, ambitions and motivation. The girls learn 10 characteristics of healthy self-esteem and five strategies for building a strong sense of self. Using a full-length mirror, they verbalize the qualities and characteristics that define their inner beauty. They write on the mirror: because I’m a great cook, because I’m a caring person, because I help my grandmother.
Because building a strong sense of self is so critical, this theme pervades all three sessions. From the outset of the first workshop, participants are encouraged to identify their passions and recognize their uniqueness. To reinforce the girls’ inner strength, each session ends with a reading of “Still I Rise” and “Phenomenal Woman,” two poems by Maya Angelou.
“When we read ‘Phenomenal Woman,’ we’re like ‘that’s me,’” Joyce says, “because we’re thinking and acting all through that poem like this is the woman who we’re gonna be in the future. Not the woman who throws champagne glasses across the table. Not the woman who posts naked pictures on the Internet.” Rather, the woman whose intelligence and self-confidence makes others take notice.
Beginning with that day in the girls’ room when Joyce was nine, personal and professional experiences formed the seeds of Pearl Girlz. But it was 2009 before Joyce gave her first workshop. Pearl Girlz was incorporated in 2011. Through this very grassroots organization, Joyce has presented her work at the National Girls Bullying Conference in Las Vegas and has led student workshops in Nevada, Maryland and Florida.
No hard data on outcomes yet exists, but workshop participants’ comments make clear that they get the message. “Don’t let people push you down,” one girl wrote on her evaluation. “Instead of being a mean girl, be a smart girl.”
Another wrote, “It helps a lot to learn not to bully someone and don’t always have revenge.”
A third wrote, “It helps [to] understand that when people be mean to you, you can find a way to do something without being judicial or using your fist. And how you can help other people out when their being bullied.”
The Pearl Girlz budget, averaging $20,000 a year, comes solely from workshop tuition, $25 per student per 90-minute session. Joyce operates with no formal office and no staff. Future plans include establishing Pearl Girlz as a 501 (c) (3) and expanding the reach of her work. While she looks forward to the day when her workshops will be taking place every day in schools across the country, she still keeps her day job.
Pearl Girlz, LLC
500 NE 2nd Street
Dania Beach, FL 33004
Phone: 219-670-1066
Email: joycel.davis@pearlgirlz.com
www.pearlgirlz.com
[i]
VIR, pronounced “veer” is an acronym for the three types of female aggression:
verbal, indirect, and relational. Verbal
aggression refers to language such as name calling and cursing directly at a
target person. Indirect aggression
refers to gossip, spreading rumors, using social media and other ways of
harming someone without attacking her directly.
Relational aggression refers to the destruction of important
relationships, often the goal of female aggression.
