VICTIM-BLAMING IS UNACCEPTABLE.

A husband comes inside to find his wife ironing. "Get me a cup of coffee," he snaps.

"Just hang on a second," comes the reply, "I'm nearly finished ironing this shirt."

"I said I want a coffee!" he yells, before seizing her arm in the arm burn style and striking her across the face.

If you ask an apologist for domestic violence perpetrators, the wife has incurred it by not obeying her husband, based upon a misogynistic interpretation of a text. If you ask an advocate for domestic violence victims, the aggressor is the problem. Who is right? Well, the advocate for domestic violence victims, of course.

As you can see, the abuser is a bully. If you wouldn't condone domestic violence, why would you condone schoolyard bullying?

If you are a parent of a child who is being bullied, you must always take the attitude that the problem lies with the bully. If you say, "Oh, but your reaction causes the bully to do it," then you are engaging in victim blaming. The reaction to the bullying may cause a bully to take pleasure in it, but the problem lies with the bully. And let's not forget that just like not all DV perpetrators are drug-addled, tattooed men who sit on the couch in a sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of old shorts, many of them are suave and when around their friends can seem quite plausible people, not all school bullies are kids who cop abuse at home. Some may have a narcissistic parent (or two) and some are brought up to be arrogant, obnoxious people.

Just like guns don't kill people; people kill people and just like cars don't kill people; people kill people, victims don't cause bullying, bullies do! We all know that the parents of a victim can't go around to the bully's house and threaten to take action against them or their parents, but the onus is upon everybody to help stamp out bullying. The onus is on the parents of bullies, to make sure they don't give their child too inflated an ego and conversely, that they don't run their child into the ground. The onus is also on them to teach their kids what is and what isn't acceptable behaviour. The onus is on every parent to teach their child this. And, the onus is upon schools to protect the rights of all children to attend school without fear of being bullied. And, furthermore, the onus is to say that if a kid doesn't want to be like other kids, let them be who they are and the other kids are to leave them alone.