About Female Gangs in America

The editors have put together in one volume some of the classic and hard to find essays as well as important, previously unpublished work. Essays from Frederic Thrasher, the "Father" of gang research, and others show how female gang members have long been sexualized and trivialized by academics and journalists alike. But the early selections also show that female gangs have always been around, even as law enforcement dismissed or denied their presence.

The volume brings together the best writing by the most prominent contemporary US gang researchers, including Anne Campbell, Joan Moore, Carl Taylor, and David Curry. Chesney-Lind and Hagedorn have written five new essays reframing the selections and examining the impact of economic restructuring on female gangs.

 The research in these studies show that while most female gangs are fighting gangs, girls seldom use guns and almost never kill. While the female gang resembles in many respects its male counterpart, girls tend to come from more troubled backgrounds than the guys, and see the gang more as a refuge or family than male gang members. Unlike the boys, girls seldom continue their gang membership into adulthood.

Contents

Tables vii
Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Why This Book? 3

I. Historical Perspectives
Introduction: Present but Invisible 6
Sex in the Gang 10
By Frederic M. Thrasher
A Reporter at Large: "The Persian Queens" 27
By Robert Rice
Jailbait: The Story of Juvenile Delinquency 45
By William Bernard
The Chicana Gang: A Preliminary Description. 48
By John Quicker
Black Female Gangs in Philadelphia 57
By Waln K. Brown
Black Female Gang Behavior:
An Historical and Ethnographic Perspective 64
By Laura T. Fishman

II. Emerging Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Gang Membership
Introduction: Boys’ Theories and Girls’ Lives 85
Girls, Guys and Gangs:
The Changing Social Context of Female Delinquency. 90
By Peggy Giordano.
Self Definition by Rejection: The Case of Gang Girls. 100
By Ann Campbell
From Patriarchy to Gender:
Feminist Theory, Criminology, and the Challenge of Diversity 118
By James Messerschmidt
Responding to Female Gang Involvement 133
By G. David Curry

III. "Doing Gender" in Times of Economic and Social Change
Introduction: "Doing Gender" and Economic Restructuring 154
Gang Members’ Families 159
By Joan Moore
What Happens to Girls in the Gang? 177
By Joan Moore and John M. Hagedorn
Female Gangs: An Historical Perspective 187
By Carl S. Taylor
"Just Every Mother’s Angel": An Analysis of
Gender and Ethnic Variations in Youth Gang Membership. 210
By Karen Joe and Meda Chesney-Lind
Women, Men and Gangs:
The Social Construction of Gender in the Barrio 232
By Edwardo Luis Portillos

IV. Girls, Gangs and Violence
Introduction 245
Female Gang Members’ Social Representations of Aggression 248
By Anne Campbell
Fighting Female: The Social Construction of Female Gangs 256
By John M. Hagedorn and Mary L. Devitt
Violence among girls:
Does gang membership make a difference? 277
By Elizabeth Piper Deschenes and Finn-Aage Esbensen
Girls, Gangs and Violence:
Reinventing the Liberated Female Crook 295
By Meda Chesney-Lind
Notes 311
References 321

BACKCOVER

"A long overdue collection of scholarship on female gangs and female gang
members, this volume challenges many of the myths and stereotypes that have
characterized much of the literature and allows the reader to meet the
subjects "up close and personal." Must reading for everyone seeking to
have an informed and balanced perspective on the "other" gangs in America
and what can be done to help these young women meet their needs."
—C. Ronald Huff
Director, School of Public Policy and Management
The Ohio State University
"Chesney-Lind and Hagedorn provide us with a much needed view into the lives of
girls in gangs. All too often either ignored, seen as appendages of boys
and their gangs, and demonized by the media, girl gangs are one of the most
under-studied, misunderstood, and "unheard" populations. This book
provides us with a richness of description and an abundance of varied
analyses about the lives of girls and young women from marginalized
communities--too often poor communities of color. It does so through a
long needed treatment that is sensitive to the life experiences and
broader social, economic, racial, and political contexts within which
girls in gangs operate--for better and for worse. For anyone concerned
about young people in our society--both young women and young men--this
book is a ‘must.’"
—Natalie Sokoloff,
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
For decades, gang researchers have ignored and trivialized female gangs, but for the girls who join them, the experience is anything but trivial. This book goes a long way towards rectifying that neglect. By assembling the wide range of perceptions and analyses of female gangs, the editors make glaringly obvious the huge gaps in our knowledge. This book should provide a major stimulus for general readers as well as researchers to take another, and better-informed look at this serious social problem.
—Joan Moore
Former Pres., Society for the Study of Social Problems
Author, Homeboys: Gangs, Drugs and Prison in the Barrios of Los Angeles

INSIDE FLAP
Female Gangs in America begins by reprinting classic, and hard to find, essays that
chronicle the earliest research on girls, gender, and gangs. Included in
this section are essays by Thrasher, Rice, Brown, and
Quicker as well as a retrospective piece by Fishman on African American
girls in Chicago gangs of the sixties.

The theoretical issues exposed by a focus on the role of gender in gang
research are explored in essays by Giordano, Campbell, Messerschmidt and
Curry. These works explore the degree to which gangs are sites for "doing
gender" while also revisiting of the emancipation versus victimization
theories as they apply to young women's crime. Other important issues
explored in the collection include the role of economic marginalization
in girls membership in gangs as well as an understanding of the family life
of girls in gangs. Ethnic and geographic variations in girls experience of
gang membership are also reviewed in essays by Moore, Portillos, Joe and
Chesney-Lind.

A consideration of girls and violence is inescapable when girls’ membership
in gangs is considered in a series of important papers by Campbell,
Deschenes and Esbensen, and Hagedorn and Devitt. Finally, the media
construction of girl gang membership, as part of the larger backlash
against girls and women's issues, is explored in a concluding essay by
Chesney-Lind.

This book establishes a new high water mark for research on gender and
gangs, rejecting simplistic over-generalizations in favor of detailed and
thoughtful considerations of the ways in which girls' lives, girls'
troubles, and girls' gang membership are inextricably connected. The
focus on girls and gang membership also illuminates important similarities
and differences between the female and male gangs, thereby building a
richer understanding of the role of gender and gangs in the lives young
people on the racial, political and economic margins of this country.

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