2A: Patterns and Trends: Gender

Messerschmidt on Youth Subcultures linked to masculinity

Young men:

5x more likely to be arrested by the police and 3x more likely to be excluded from school than young women

Messerschmidt suggests this may be associated with stereotypical masculine identity

Hegemonic Masculinity ‘real man’ - material success, being the breadwinner, risk taking, leaders

Some men may struggle to move from childhood to adulthood because these hegemonic values are difficult to achieve and show

These men may use deviant / criminal behaviour eg Fighting to show toughness, stealing to get material wealth, sexual assault to show dominance over women

Class element - middle class men can demonstrate these values through educational success or a high status job - mostly young men living on margins of society

Haenfler on Online Subcultures

Links online subcultures to new types of masculinity emerging

Multiplayer online games - men pursuing status and reward through competition and effort

‘Nerd masculinity’ - Men no longer have to excel in sports, sexual activity, aggression to be successful

Young people today have unprecedented choice on how to create an identity

Control Theory

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 than sons

Safia Mirza (1992) girls as less rebellious

Studied young black women in two comprehensive schools in South London

Did not rebel against the system despite being marginalised by some racist and sexist attitudes - more concerned w/ academic success

Pro-school subculture

Otto Pollak

Women may be involved in deviant behaviour that we are not aware of

‘Chivalry Thesis’ police are more lenient towards women

Girls/women more likely to just be ‘told off’ and not cautioned or charged

Cieslik and Pollok

Very secretive online female subculture which was focussed on ‘Pro-Ana’ websites

Used by young women suffering from anorexia - posting photos of themselves and encouraging other sufferers to eat less

Shared tips on how to avoid eating to doctors/parents

Lack of control elsewhere → control their bodies

Pussy Riot in Russia

Demonstration of highly organised women who are mobilised in political subcultures

Raising awareness through acts of deviant behaviour

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

Further Examples of Political movements involving women

‘Slut Walks’ in late 2010s: women and teenage girls took to the streets in several major cities against comments of a Canadian police chief who suggested that women who experience SA have themselves to blame if they dress like ‘sluts’

#MeToo movement of 2017/18