Why girls fight : female youth violence in the inner city / Cindy D. Ness.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ness, Cindy D., 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Female juvenile delinquents--United States.

Female juvenile delinquents.

Teenage girls--Psychology.

Teenage girls.

Inner cities--United States.

Inner cities.

Minorities--United States--Psychology.

Minorities.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 185 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, c2010.

New York, NY : New York University Press, [2010]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In low-income U.S. cities, street fights between teenage girls are common. These fights take place at school, on street corners, or in parks, when one girl provokes another to the point that she must either “step up” or be labeled a “punk.” Typically, when girls engage in violence that is not strictly self-defense, they are labeled “delinquent,” their actions taken as a sign of emotional pathology. However, in Why Girls Fight, Cindy D. Ness demonstrates that in poor urban areas this kind of street fighting is seen as a normal part of girlhood and a necessary way to earn respect among peers, as well as a way for girls to attain a sense of mastery and self-esteem in a social setting where legal opportunities for achievement are not otherwise easily available. Ness spent almost two years in west and northeast Philadelphia to get a sense of how teenage girls experience inflicting physical harm and the meanings they assign to it. While most existing work on girls’ violence deals exclusively with gangs, Ness sheds new light on the everyday street fighting of urban girls, arguing that different cultural standards associated with race and class influence the relationship that girls have to physical aggression.

Contents:

The City of Philadelphia and Female Youth Violence

Girls’ Violent Behavior as Viewed from the Streets

The Reasons Girls Give for Fighting

Mothers, Daughters, and the Double-Generation Dynamic

Culture and Neighborhood Institutions.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Jan 2024)

ISBN:

9780814759073

0814759076

9780814758670

0814758673

OCLC:

779828184