14 DAY TRIAL // 15-year-old Maisie Kate Miller fought bullies at Marblehead High, north of Boston, in the U.S., on many occasions, but, when she told her story on Facebook, classmates rallied and came to her help.
“Mean girls” often made rude comments about her physical appearance, criticizing the way she looked and dressed. Recently, Maisie had a run-in on the hallway with one of her bullies, who made a hurtful remark about her hairstyle, Washington Post writes.
“Who wears pigtails still? What is this, kindergarten?,” the other teenager said.
Miller relayed the incident on Facebook, asking friends' help to put an end to the harassment. A few hours later, when she checked in, she watched with utter surprise as more than 500 people had joined, believing in her cause.
She put together a pigtail rally, and had everyone in school adopt the hairstyle for a day, helping her. Maisie found out many had a good opinion about her, although they had never spoken or met in person.
“The way she dresses — she’s funky — and outspoken and positive, but she hadn’t been feeling so good,” one junior in her high-school said.
Some admitted to have suffered the same treatment from the person targeted by the protest.
“She’d been bullying me, too, and now she isn’t any more; thank you!,” a classmate wrote as a response to her message, on Facebook.
The day of the pigtail showdown, not only girls, but some boys, some teachers and a dog went to school pigtailed and ready to take on any hurtful comments.
“There were hundreds of them — almost all of the sophomore class,” Loren Weston, counselor and sponsor of the school anti-bullying club, said.
The bully was nowhere to be found, most likely fearing retribution. Maisie had, however, advised restraint. This was to be a passive protest, and the bully was not to be engaged in any way, for that would be “against the movement.”
“I’d like to remind people that this is a protest against bullying,” she wrote, dubbing the anti-bullying march “Pigtails for Peace.”