Thursday, January 29, 2009

Taking a Stand

In my eighth grade year I was a Stepper. Being a stepper for the most part was fun but there was nothing but drama the whole year. The older girls got to where they thought that they could boss me around and single me out because I was the littlest girl on the team and could do the moves that they could not do. When we were learning our "cowboy dance" with our cowboy hats two of the girls decided that they would criticize me on every move I made.
"Point your toes! That's not right! That turn was awful! Your jumps need to be higher!"
After a while I started to ignore them and apparently they noticed because they decided to get a little more personal with their remarks.
"Corey you need to lose weight. You won't ever get it right. You can't do your turns right because you are too fat! The only reason you have been going out with Will for a year is because you are too ugly to get another guy."
There are more comments but I cannot put them on here because of the vulgarity of some of the words. I finally asked them nicely to please stop but they continued with their comments but took them to a new level. Finally I told one of the captains and she said that she would talk to the girls then later inform Mrs. Wilson. That did not stop the comments. The girls would call me names while I was walking down the hallway and they somehow got my cell phone number and was leaving nasty voice messages. I realized that I had to stop this myself. During one of the next few practices I had one of the captains in the stalls listening to what they were telling me. I finally just yelled at them.
"This has to stop now! I don't know what you get out of making fun of me and other girls. All you are doing is trying to make yourselves look better because you are jealous of me and others. This is going to stop now! If the comments continue I will get the law involved and my uncle is a lawyer."
When I finished I walked out of the bathroom. The captain went and told Mrs. Wilson what had happened and the girls were almost expelled. The girls did not come and apologize to me but they did stop. This situation was very difficult for me. To this day I am very insecure from that incident but I am glad I made a stand because matters would have just gotten worse. Abusing people verbally is very hurtful and WRONG!!

2 comments:

Chynna said...

Wow! I never even knew about that happening! Thats horrible but I am so glad you stood up for yourself. Great post!

~caitlin11 said...

Girls can be so mean!! I never realized they did that to you. I knew they were mean, but not like that. Good for you!! And by the way, they must be crazy becuase if you lose any weight, you'd disappear!! :)