2A: Gender & Youth Subcultures

why men are five times more likely to be arrested by the police and are three times more likely to be excluded from school than young women.

Messerschmidt, hegemonic masculinity

how it this also class determined

He explains that hegemonic masculinity has certain key values that men need to accomplish to be seen as a ‘real man’.

These include material success, being the breadwinner, being a risk taker, showing leadership and dominance, being physically powerful yet emotionally detached, and dominating women.

Messerschmidt suggests that some men may struggle to move from childhood to adulthood because these hegemonic values are difficult to achieve and show.

Messerschmidt points out that there is a class element to this theory because middle class men can demonstrate these values through educational success or a highstatus job and so do not need to resort to deviance to prove their masculinity.

It is mostly young men living on the margins of society who are more likely to deviate from expected norms to achieve this masculine identity, “being a ‘real’, hard man”.

what does Ross Haenfler argue about masculinity and gain of status for men

“nerd masculinity”.

Ross Haenfler investigated online subcultures, linking them to new types of emerging masculinity in the virtual world.

For example, multiplayer online role-playing games are largely dominated by young men pursuing status and reward through competition and effort,

Haenfler calls this “nerd masculinity”. His research reveals that young people today have unprecedented choice on how to create an identity and this supports the postmodern notion that identity is ‘fluid, unstable and fragmented’.

So Haenfler disputes Messerschmidt’s idea that hegemonic masculinity is the only way for men to be, recognising that men are not automatically more deviant than young women, especially when considering online subcultures.

why are young women less likely to be involved in youth subcultures in general than young men. and less likely to be involved in deviant behaviour.

control theory

control theory suggests that young women carry out less deviance because they are more monitored than young men.

Parents are more controlling and enforce stricter curfews and tighter social controls on their daughters in comparison to their sons, for example in terms of what they can wear and who they can meet, leaving young women with less opportunity to carry out offences or to join deviant subcultures.

what is McRobbie and Garbers idea of bedroom culture for girls

They argue that teenage girls are more likely to form close friendships and bonds around activities such as magazine reading, using social media together, and conversation in their bedrooms about boys, make-up, fashion, dancing and listening to music.

These subcultures focus upon the values of friendship, personal appearance, romance, and relationships.

McRobbie and Garber argue that these bedroom cultures allow girls to have a private, inaccessible space, significantly one away from boys.

what did Safia Mirza find in her study of young black women in two comprehensive schools in South London

she found that they did not rebel against the system despite being marginalised by some teachers who had sexist and racist attitudes towards the young women.

She found that despite negative labelling, most of the black girls in her study were more concerned with academic success, opportunities and working hard to achieve it.

Mirza’s study is an example of a proschool subculture, as the girls actively joined together to succeed academically and to be able to overcome class and ethnic discrimination.

This contrasts to the anti-school subculture as identified by Cohen.

what is Otto Pollak, chivalry thesis

“let off with a warning”

Otto Pollak suggested that women may be involved in deviant behaviour that we are not aware of.

Writing about crime, Pollack suggested the ‘chivalry thesis’ which argues that the police are more lenient or chivalrous towards women.

Pollak argues that since most criminal justice agents like magistrates, judges and especially police officers were mainly men, they are also socialized to act in a chivalrous way towards women.

As a result, girls and young women are more likely to ‘just’ be “told off” than cautioned, more likely to be cautioned rather than charged with an offence and given more lenient noncustodial sentences if they do go to court.

what did Cieslik and Pollock find that shows that women may have more secretive subcultures than men but just as deiant

annorexia, online website

websites are used by young women suffering from anorexia; posting photos of themselves and encouraging other sufferers to eat less.

This damaging, deviant subculture allows young women to share tips on how to avoid eating and deceive parents / doctors in the pursuit of extreme weight loss.

what was the Pussy Riot in Russia

the group used spectacular clothing, conducted highly visible and publicised acts of “civil disobedience”,

using their bodies to draw attention to state oppression, misogyny, the erosion of civil liberties in Putin’s Russia in the 2010s,

specifically about how women in Russia had been marginalised and not protected by the law.

explain the the #MeToo movement of 2017/18

catalysed by the uncovering of sexual assaults by the powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein against over 70 women which Weinstein committed over two decades.

Social media mobilisation was rapid, with hundreds of thousands of women posting #MeToo (having been a victim of sexual assault) within less than one week and as many women, young and old, protesting in the streets against deeply entrenched sexism and violence against women in all layers of society.

what was jackson idea of ladettes

Jackson shows how some female pupils are becoming as rebellious as the boys, being sexually proactive, messing around, playing up in lessons, shouting out and being crude.

This shows that perhaps there is less difference between male and female roles in subcultures in 2025 than in previous decades.