Pink Shirt Day and Addressing Bullying in our Organizations
Pink Shirt Day, an annual anti-bullying event on the last Wednesday of every February, was started in Nova Scotia by high school students. A new student was being bullied for wearing a pink shirt, so David Shepherd, Travis Price and their friends decided to protest this by handing out pink shirts to the boys at their school. This began what we know as Pink Shirt Day.
What strikes me every time I think about this story is the gentleness, power and wisdom behind their act of solidarity. The students took responsibility for shifting the culture of their school — a principle close to us in the work we do.
As an EDI firm, we know the impact that bullying can have not just not on an individual, but on the whole organization. Bullying is an issue in our schools, as well as our workplaces where it can take different forms, from overt to more subtle. It can be particularly difficult to face in our workplaces where bullying could be coming from the top down. We may worry about retribution or even losing our jobs if we speak out. And, who do we even speak to? Leadership? HR? Where do we start?
We become so complacent and hopeless about bullying and toxic behaviour, that we even go so far as to say, “That’s just how it is.” Or we expect ourselves and others to “get over it” (does this actually work for anyone?) and grow some “thick skin” (last we checked, these are calluses…not exactly a sign of wellness). But this only serves to normalize and perpetuate bullying — and develop a toxic organizational culture.
It may seem reasonable to turn to diversity and inclusion training. Indeed, training is helpful to our understanding of issues around discrimination, bullying, and unconscious bias. But raining alone is not enough to promote inclusion and culture change. Learning the theory is one thing — but how do we apply it? There tends to be a gap between training and application of the training.
Our answer to this is Active Bystander Training (ABT), which teaches practical application beyond inclusion and bias training. In ABT, we learn what to do when we witness discriminatory language and behaviour in the workplace or any other organization we are part of. Using specific examples and role-playing scenarios, we equip ourselves with strategies and tools to respond to bullying. We also learn alternative tactics like “calling in.” The latter is a more private and toned down approach for speaking to, let’s say, a superior at work.
Most importantly, ABT teaches us that there are ways for us to respond, like Shepherd and Price did.
Through the students’ example, we recognize some important factors that we learn in ABT:
Knowing your audience and how to respond appropriately to that audience. They addressed their specific situation in a way that would resonate with other students: by handing out T-shirts and normalizing boys wearing pink. This is also an indirect way to let the bullies know that their behaviour is unacceptable. Such an approach, as opposed to a confrontational one, is sometimes the safer and most effective strategy depending on the context. Even in ABT, we always stress that this is not hero training — it’s safety training.
Standing with the target or receiver, which is what they did by joining in, wearing pink, and encouraging others to join as well. Not only did they encourage others to wear pink, but they took the helpful step of providing the tool (i.e. the pink t-shirts) to get everyone started.
One person may be the target of bullying, but others will be impacted, too. Addressing bullying is a collective responsibility.
It is important not to let bullying, or any form of discrimination, go unchecked; otherwise it will not only affect the organization’s culture, but can actually create the perception that the organization is accepting of it. We may inadvertently be encouraging such behaviour when we brush it under the rug.
The students who started Pink Shirt Day knew one instance of bullying was harmful enough to demand action. Their refusal to be passive witnesses is something from which we can all take inspiration.
