Gender Equality In Gangs

In chapter eight of One of the Guys the topics addressed in chapters 4 and 5 were brought up again when discussing equality as a normal feature of gangs. 88 percent of young women in the study were in groups of mixed-gender and only three girls associated themselves with all girl gangs. All these girls had a strong belief that males and females were considered equal in their gangs. Once again this was bizarre to me because, I had no prior knowledge about gangs but assumed that there was no gender equality in gangs and that the males were still considered the strongest and the higher ups. While doing the interviewing a lot of the gang members were hesitant to talk about the topic of gender equality, which to me could be considered a red flag.
One girl even referred to how-people call it the women’s civil rights group and look up to the fact that these females are receiving the same respect and doing the same thing as their male peers. The fact that girls in these mixed groups were not segregated and rather integrated made it so clear that there was equality in these groups and that these females could feel more safe and feel as if they are a gang member doing the same things all other members are doing. I found it interesting that society belives girls should be doing something better than being in a gang but that in these gangs these girls feel welcomed and feel like they belong. Then the thought of being lady like comes in and how these females in gangs don’t fit in the society norm of what a female should be like. Society kind of frowns upon these females and groups them with the male gang members. Gang females identifit3ed popular girls as being “too pretty” or “too girly” which also seems to be a reason why girls who don’t feel the same or as if they belong in that group feel like they can belong and feel more comfortable in these mixed gang