If you have a young daughter, what do you think of this story

[question everything]

from Newsweek?

Bad Girls Go Wild

A rise in girl-on-girl violence is making headlines nationwide and prompting scientists to ask why.
By Julie Scelfo
Newsweek

(snip)

Schoolyards, where boy bullies once reigned supreme, are increasingly arenas for skirmishes between girls. "There are actually more physical girl fights now than between boys," says Bill Bond, a former school principal in Paducah, Ky., who travels the country studying safety issues for the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "I was just on a Cheyenne reservation yesterday and the principal said he had had one fight this year between boys and six between girls." Jennifer Clayton, 14, was beaten up in May by three other girls as she walked home from her school in Guelph, Ont. "I could hear them saying, 'Punch her in the face'," she told the local newspaper.

(snip)

Part of this spike in violence is related to evolving sex roles. Historically, boys have received messages from the culture that connect masculinity with physical aggression, while girls received opposite messages, encouraging passivity and restraint. Now girls are barraged with images of "sheroes"—think Sydney Bristow on ABC's "Alias" or Uma Thurman's the Bride in "Kill Bill: Vol. 2"—giving them a wider range of role models and tacit permission to alter their behavior. Accordingly, says Spivak, some girls have "shifted from internalizing anger to striking out."

The women's movement, which explicitly encourages women to assert themselves like men, has unintentionally opened the door to girls' violent behavior. "I was at a JV lacrosse game, watching my granddaughter. We cheered like hell because she was being aggressive on the field," says Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor of history, human development and gender studies at Cornell. "I don't want to blame women's liberation for violence among girls," cautions Brumberg, but "traditional femininity and passivity are no longer valued in young females." James Garbarino, professor of human development at Cornell, puts it more bluntly. "We rely on boys to get out there and block a football, go in the Army and defend the country, carry guns and be cops. One of the side effects is that some boys take too far." Now that girls have the same opportunities, he says, they can encounter the same blurry boundaries.

Research suggests that the best predictor of violent behavior, however—for girls and for boys—is not hours logged playing videogames or competitive pressure, but firsthand exposure to violent behavior. And social scientists warn that the number of children who see guns, fights and other kinds of physical abuse on a day-to-day basis is on the rise. "Violence in girls, like violence in boys, is really rooted in the individual and the individual's situation. I don't think you can blame the culture entirely for this phenomenon," says Brumberg.

After Ella Speight's 17-year-old daughter was attacked by a 16-year-old classmate last month, she spent hours in the hospital, tending to her child. Speight says she isn't angry: she prays for the assailant and even embraced the girl's mother when they met in court. "My heart hurts for her family," says Speight. "I know her mother didn't send her out to do that." Sugar and spice and everything nice: maybe Speight's forgiving nature represents an ideal that even boys can aim for.



URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8101517/site/newsweek/

[getmeouttahere]

1. The one part I don't like about this....

is when they try to blame it on the women's movement. Come on people, isn't it bad enough that BushCo is trying to take us back to the 50's...the 1850's??? I think it's a reflection of our violent society and girls are using their advanced status (not necessarily equal) and the power that comes with it to act out.

[Warpy]

3. There were fights between girls when I went to school in the 50s

and the womens' movement didn't get started until 1967 or so, not full swing. This is an incredibly stupid article. People want answers, and stupid people always find the wrong answers.

The truth is that schools have NEVER dealt with the issue of bullying, either with boys or with girls. They've never taken a strong enough stand against all physical violence, including dumping books and simple shoving. The fact that the bigger the school, the worse the violence should be no surprise. The fact that the violence seems to be escalating is no surprise, either. This culture is a pressure cooker, and that has invaded schools, too. NCLB isn't helping.

Dimwits like the author of this article like to blame a womens' movement these girls don't have any clue about, since it's not taught in schools any more than the Vietnam War is! The jerk is spewing this dumbfuckery to dodge his own role in this stuff, as well as the roles of all his counterparts in all the schools in this country. They don't want to make waves, they don't want to anger parents, so they blame something totally nonsensical and look the other way.

Jerks.

[amazona]

8. warpy is correct

I witnessed and was involved in plenty of fights with other girls as a child. The difference was, back then nobody was going to compile a report and document girls beating up each other. It simply wasn't taken seriously. Now every time some girl smacks somebody, it is written up. Back then, smacking somebody was part of how girls communicated. Watch movies from the 50s, 60s, 70s -- hitting was just part of how girls/women were expected to express themselves. It wasn't considered a crime. When I did get in trouble for assault, I was actually surprised.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[Cleita]

10. Yeah, I went to school in the fifties and there were

fights. They weren't out in the open though. Usually they happened in the gym or some other hidden place like it so parents and teachers wouldn't know about it.

Also, there were gang girls with knives who thought attacking the girls from the Catholic school was fun. When we left school we hid until the bus came to avoid them. The joys of going to school in a bad neighborhood.

[Ilsa]

2. Their level of internal anger and frustration might have something

to do with it. The only time I ever came close to getting into a fight in a bar was a month or so after having my house broken into and being raped by a stranger (years ago). The level of anger that rapist passed on to me was high enough energy to fuel electricity for all of Texas for a week.

I wonder if it is just exposure in tv/movies/videos. I wonder if it couldn't be something more personal than that.

[Eric J in MN]

4. increasing numbers of people in poverty=increasing violence

for some reason.

It's not feminism.

[Groggy]

5. girls fighting is nothing new....

its just some lame excuse to blame the "womens movement" for our country's social ills. Why.....if women would just be quiet and go home where they are supposed to be...everything would be just dandy!! :sarcasm:

[katsy]

6. I think more taxpayer $$$ is going into the toilet...

with this type of "research".

If we're going to fund a study, let's examine the effect of poverty and 60 hour work weeks on the family in general and not single out "girls".

This sounds like neocon/fundie/lunatic dribble. Traditional femininity and PASSIVITY? WTF!!@##$%^&*()_+

I have a young twins - boy & girl - and let me tell you, before she could speak she was knocking her brother on his bottom.

One more thing... I can blame culture for this phenomenon. Specifically, the culture of poverty and slavery. Ooops I mean the culture of "life" whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.

[H2O Man]

9. Interesting points.

And very well said. I think that human beings have the potential for violence, and that our culture is appealing to -- and too often rewarding -- violence.

[katsy]

11. You're right...

we do reward violence.

I'm also wondering if this report will justify tasering young girls in some circles.

[LeftyMom]

7. Ten years ago my younger sister got thrown out of school for fighting

that was in jr high (she wasn't suspended, she was encouraged to go on home study until high school, that way they still got $$$ for her attendance and didn't have to actually educate her,) she was suspended again for fighting again her freshman year (twice I think.) Then her classmates learned that she wouldn't tolerate harassment or derogatory comments (the school system had't done anything about the problem, fighting wasn't the first resort by a long shot) and she got along fine.

She's a nice, well adjusted young adult and if you met her on the street you'd have no idea she spent a fair portion of her school career beating up assholes who couldn't be made to treat her with respect any other way.

Girls fighting in school is nothing new.

[Ripley]

12. Bullshit...it is not the the fault of the Women's Movement!!!

I have never read any feminist literature that specifically encouraged girls to fight and use violence as a means to bully other girls. Yes, self-defense is encouraged, but NOT assault.

I get so tired of the women's movement being blamed for everything that happens bad in our society.

[jandrok]

13. My 9-year old daughter was bullied this past school year.

The teachers and the school counselor mostly passed it off, and we had to force them to sit down with us and discuss the issue. My daughter was very upset, to the point of having behavioural issues and other physical problems. I have a bright, bubbly, beautiful daughter who was changing into a sad, depressed, angry daughter right in front of my eyes. There were red flags all over the place.

The girl doing the bullying has a history of doing so before, and my daughter wasn't the only one being picked on.

Thing is, girl bullying is often more subtle than male bullying. It's very seldom physical, although that seems to be changing, to the point of the article. Most of the stuff with my daughter was psychological in nature. Exclusion, rumors, insults, those were the types of things employed in this case.

As parents, we were frustrated that the teacher, counselor, and principal didn't take the issue very seriously. They did a poor job of monitoring the situation, even though we had brought it up with them on several occasions. It took a sit down meeting where we threatened a lawyer before they finally took us seriuosly.

[Tsiyu]

14. Pu-leeeze

Sure, blame the Women's movement. All the activists weren't fighting for equal pay for equal work, or for the option to decide what to do with their own bodies. They were really fighting for the right to throw down in the schoolyard!

Women have fought in wars since there were women. Lizzie Borden was not a child of the ERA movement...

HUMAN BEINGS are capable of acting out in violent ways. WOMEN ARE HUMAN BEINGS! Gee, what a fucking tough concept this is for some people ( guess they still think of women as some unformed rib?)

Perhaps the problem is that Violence Prevention programs do not address the needs and concerns and motivations of young female human beings? Like drug trials only done with male human beings, one-gender studies and programs don't impact or help the gender left out.

[Chovexani]

15. Bullshit

I got beat up by cheerleaders on an almost daily basis in high school (dyke bashings). I'm a student of the martial arts so the fucking cowards used to come at me in packs. This was in the mid '90s, but my sister used to get into fights with girls at school in the '70s.

The fact is, until the rash of school shootings no one took complaints of bullying seriously. Shit, they still don't--the burden of proof is always on the victim, and nobody wants to fucking listen to you, especially when it's popular kids and you're one of the school freaks. It was one of the reasons I dropped out.

This is twice as true when girls are attacking other girls. I'm convinced that no one will give a shit about this until some victimized girl snaps and pulls a Columbine (there have been one or two female school shooters but nothing as high profile as Columbine).

And of course when that happens, they'll blame her fashion style, the music she listens to, and the games she plays.

(Yes, I'm very bitter.)

[question everything]

16. Thank you. Interesting observations

I snipped the first paragraphed, but they started with the story of an 11 year old being stabbed to death by a 9 year old - yes, both girls.

So I guess you are right - it takes something serious like that to bring the issue to the front.

I, too, was taken aback when they interject the women's movement and I am sure that they are going to get many letters similar to the posts here.