Fighting for Girls: New Perspectives on Gender and Violence (Suny Series in Women, Crime, and Criminology)

Synopsis: Have Girls Really Gone Wild? Despite The Media Fascination With Bad Girls, Facts Beyond The Hype Have Remained Unclear. Fighting For Girls Focuses On These Facts, And Using The Best Data Available About Actual Trends In Girls' Uses Of Violence, The Scholars Here Find That By Virtually Any Measure Available, Incidents Of Girls' Violence Are Going Down, Not Up. Additionally, Rather Than Attributing Girls Violence To Personality Or To Girls Becoming More Like Boys, Fighting For Girls Focuses On The Contexts That Produce Violence In Girls, Demonstrating How Addressing The Unique Problems That Confront Girls In Dating Relationships, Families, School Hallways And Classrooms, And In Distressed Urban Neighborhoods Can Help Reduce Girls' Use Of Violence. Often Including Girls' Own Voices, Contributors To The Volume Illustrate Why Girls Use Violence In Certain Situations, Encouraging Us To Pay Attention To Trauma In The Girls' Pasts As Well As How Violence Becomes A Tool Girls Use To Survive Toxic Families, Deteriorated Neighborhoods, And Neglectful Schools. Introduction / Meda Chesney-lind And Nikki Jones -- Have Girls Gone Wild? / Mike Males -- Criminalizing Assault : Do Age And Gender Matter? / Eve S. Buzawa And David Hirschel -- Jailing 'bad' Girls : Girls' Violence And Trends In Female Incarceration / Meda Chesney-lind -- The Gendering Of Violence In Intimate Relationships : How Violence Makes Sex Less Safe For Girls / Melissa Dichter, Julie Cederbaum, And Anne Teitelman -- Policing Girlhood? Relational Aggression And Violence Prevention / Meda Chesney-lind, Merry Morash, And Katherine Irwin -- I Don't Know If You Consider That As Violence : Using Attachment Theory To Understand Girls' Perspectives On Violence / Judith A. Ryder -- Reducing Aggressive Behavior In Adolescent Girls By Attending To School Climate / Sibylle Artz And Diana Nicholson -- Negotiations Of The Living Space : Life In The Group Home For Girls Who Use Violence / Marion Brown -- It's About Being A Survivor : African American Girls, Gender, And The Context Of Inner City Violence / Nikki Jones -- The Importance Of Context In The Production Of Older Girls' Violence : Implications For The Focus Of Interventions / Merry Morash, Suyeon Park, And Jung Mi Kim -- Epilogue. Edited By Meda Chesney-lind And Nikki Jones. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. This book focuses on data available about actual trends in girls' uses of violence, the scholars here find that by virtually any measure, incidents of girls' violence are going down, not up. Additionally, rather than attributing girls' violence to personality or to girls becoming "more like boys," the contributors examine the contexts that produce violence in girls, demonstrating how addressing the unique problems that confront girls in dating relationships, families, school hallways and classrooms, and in distressed urban neighborhoods can help reduce girls' use of violence