SOC362H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Hegemonic Masculinity, Masculinity, Intersectionality
February 27, 2020
SOC365 Gender and Violence
Lecture 7.2 – Gangs and Violence
• What was Jody Miller’s central argument?
o Contradiction in girls identity and the reality
o Identity vs. reality
o Girl who got raped by gang member but didn’t take action against it – ignored and
rationalized it because she wanted to maintain her identity as an equal
o Girls felt tough – not preoccupied with femininity
o Wanted to distance themselves with feminine girls – wanted to be thuggish
o Pretty girls looked down on these girls
o Resisted the idea of being seen as sexual objects – focused on reputation
▪ Similar to reading on girl fighters in Hawaii
o Wanted to be accepted and be one of the guys
• Reality – women insisted they were the same as men but despite that:
o Leadership was always men
▪ There was variability in hierarchy – leadership varies but girls never at the top of
mixed gender gangs
▪ Sometimes higher ranking girls than boys but never at the top
▪ Status through affiliation with high status members of the gang – not boyfriend
but family or friend affiliation
o Membership
▪ Girls joined at about 13 – younger than boys
▪ Easier for girls to leave the gang and can leave earlier
▪ Phase in their adolescence rather than a lifetime commitment
o Exclusion from crime
▪ Activities that delivered status excluded girls
▪ Attacks on rivals or violence excluded girls – shoot outs or guns used
▪ Girls experience is not seen as seriously
o Witness sexism and sexual violence
▪ Guy gang members mistreated and assaulted girls
▪ Had to ignore things said about girls
▪ Had to ignore rapes and brush them off – justified them
o Sexual double standard
▪ Girls in gang can be sexed in or jumped in
▪ Guys can’t be sexed in
▪ Girls sexed in were treated horribly and with no importance
▪ Not all girls sexed in but some that are gave all the girls a bad reputation – girls
hated girls who got sexed in and needed to prove themselves as worthy of
fighting and being different from those girls
▪ One of the guys is an identity – draws on same frame that identifies femininity
as weak, frail and deserving of mistreatment
• Same as hegemonic masculinity
