In engaging with subcultural street culture, do girls simply mimic the practices of their male counterparts or exhibit their own specificity?
The trend of “hipsters” is the latest movement following a long line of worldwide popular subcultures, and gathers urban, young middle class people who are interested in independent music and films, who follow progressive political views and various alternative lifestyles, and above all declare themselves against the mainstream society – that is, that they despise following popular culture and prefer to follow ‘underground’ trends that are unknown to the great majority- which is ironic considering how popular the hipster movement became. And yet upon discussing this particular subculture as well as others
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McRobbie and Garber start their chapter by saying that “very little seems to have been written about the role of girls in youth cultural groupings” (1975). And indeed, it seems as if girls were absent – or is it because researchers never deemed girls important enough to focus on during their analyses?
One could argue that girls did actually simply mimic the trends of each male-focused subculture, and that is why they were not mentioned in particular. For example, McRobbie and Garber state that “texts and images suggest that girls were involved with and considered themselves as part of the teddy-boy subculture” (1975). The “Teddy Girls” movement is sometimes mentioned in the aforementioned researches – but the only thing that can be found is that they focused solely on their makeup and clothes – and therefore are just being reduced to vapid beings while those analyses completely overlook their own political and societal views that also came with the aforementioned subcultures. Another example is also the Mod Girls, who “came to the attention of the commentators and journalists because of the general ‘unisex’ connotations of the subculture” (McRobbie and Garber, 1975). However, both authors make sure to remind
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Indeed, the French edition of Marie Claire investigated back in November 2012 on the “female gangs” that wreak havoc on Paris. Author Manon Quérouil writes that she’s investigating “those lost teenage girls for whom violence is the only way to emancipate themselves” (Quérouil, 2012). Said girls are 15 years old at most and yet already have a criminal record – theft and violence, mostly. They do not hesitate to get into fights with people to be respected, according to them. Most of these girls come from broken homes where parents have given up or are absent; they’ve also dropped from school. Quérouil also states that “contrary to their male counterparts, who fight to gain control of a council estate block, those girls get into fights far from their homes and without any financial motivation” (2012). Where the boys try to keep low profiles especially for the police, those girls “want to be noticed, want to be heard, so that’s why they cause a ruckus” (Quérouil, 2012). And this sudden rise of female gangs is noticed in alarming numbers: the number of minor girls involved in criminal offences grows three times faster than the boys’ (Quérouil, 2012). But there is a deeper issue there, which can be noticed especially when the girls say that “violence comes from where we grew up. We have to do justice ourselves because no one else cares” (Quérouil, 2012). They
In Girl Rising (2013), reveals how gender discrimination negatively affects the future of many women and continues to be prominent in society through forced marriages, extreme poverty, and/or labor obstacle. Girl Rising (2013) reveals heartrending stories of nine girls from different countries to show how these girls overcome great obstacles to obtain an education and change their fate. Each of these girls was paired with a writer from their own country to help tell Soka story. Young girls that were faced extreme poverty, forced marriage, and forced labor (Robbin, 2013). Each story is written by a writer from the girl’s native country and is narrated by renowned actresses such as Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, and Meryl Streep
Bridge 1 Gangsters Without Borders by T.W. Ward is an ethnography about the El Salvadorian gang Mara Salvatrucha. Ward chose to focus the majority of his research on the male members in order to earn their trust. With that in mind, I am presuming that the views of women portrayed in this ethnography are fundamentally the thoughts of its male members. Nonetheless, early on in my reading on this ethnography, I identified the role gender plays not only for the ethnographer but also for the gang members. The gender roles for these gang members mimic those of most societies, although some of the roles appear contradictory.
How well Wes Moore describes the culture of the streets, and particularly disenfranchised adolescents that resort to violence, is extraordinary considering the unbiased perspective Moore gives. Amid Moore’s book one primary theme is street culture. Particularly Moore describes the street culture in two cities, which are Baltimore and the Bronx. In Baltimore city the climate and atmosphere, of high dropout rates, high unemployment and poor public infrastructure creates a perfect trifecta for gang violence to occur. Due to what was stated above, lower income adolescent residents in Baltimore are forced to resort to crime and drugs as a scapegoat of their missed opportunities.
Society has only changed to adjust to some female role. For example, in the text and in the videos it showed how girls are more likely to be watched more than their brothers. This example comes from a long line of things girls are
Recognizable for looser moral behavior, the flapper wore revealing clothing desiring a body type focused on androgyny and cut her hair into a short style framing the face. Typically found in urban areas and practiced by “young, single women,” the flapper forcibly distorted the divisions “between working class and middle class femininity,” yet this was not a purposeful social cause such as what led to the passage of the 19th Amendment. Concerned mostly with individual actions and rebellions, the flapper stayed “oblivious to the problems” of the 1920 and was not a “political identity” at all but rather a youth movement that did not include or consider the feminists of the previous decade that pushed for female suffrage; in fact not equate their “femininity with gender equality” in American society. As the Great Depression hit, however, the behavior of men and women changed drastically. This economic downturn led to a return to traditional forms of femininity with the safety of marriage, and though criticized under the eyes of “revolutionaries,” remained the unshakeable basis for American society until the 1960s.
In the United States, every year there are around 2,000 gang-related homicides and in the realistic fiction novel, The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton, it explores the issues of gang violence, and teenagers in gangs. Around 40% of all members in gangs are teenagers, who are getting involved in some dangerous things very early in life. In the novel The Outsiders, the “Greasers” which is a gang of all teenagers, fight other gangs and commit serious crimes such as murder. We as a society need to pinpoint why teenagers join gangs and stop them beforehand. We also need to help people get out of gangs if they are already in one.
Gender roles are present everywhere and are more and more prevalent the further back you go. They define relationships and heavily influence people's actions. Gender roles can hurt those that are trapped in them because they are not allowed the freedom of living like they want. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, one key relationship in the story is wrecked by gender roles.
Since early ages, mothers have always criticized the ways their daughters acted. In the 1920s criticisms were taken a step further by the flappers, who completely revolutionized the view on females. Flappers in the 1920s had an impact on women for the future. Who they were, what they wore, and what their morals were was how their impacts changed the future for all the females. “The term "flapper" originated in the 1920s and refers to the fashion trend for unfastened rubber galoshes that "flapped" when walking, an attribution reinforced by the image of the free-wheeling flapper in popular culture.”
Middle-class, white, adolescent girls embraced the symbol of the flapper and the development of change and innovation. It is important to note not all young women embraced the flapper’s rebellious movement and adhered to traditional pre-World War I morals and values. Young women who joined the flapper movement would no longer abide by pre-conceived conventional expectations
Jody Miller’s, Getting Played, illustrates to the common eye, what young people have to do to survive on a daily basis in poor urban communities. These poor urban communities often have a negative connotation which usually scares off common folk. The residents of these communities are usually African Americans. They face challenges daily that common people wouldn’t even dream of worrying about. Jody Miller describes what makes girls go through these victimizations.
During his time studying these boys, he found that most cases of conflict were resolved without the use of weapon(s), but rather with “harsh conversation”. This observation highly contradicts the typical view of gang members who are commonly stereotyped by their local community and justice system in Oakland. Rios describes how the boys “Conversations often involved references to guns as analogies for resolving conflict and demonstrating manhood”. The fact that most conflicts are dealt with in non-violent ways, highlights the negative role
When I was writing my response, I thought of the word gender but nonconformity never came to mind when I read the story. Non-conformity is a good way to explain why people are distracted by the girls since it doesn’t follow the norm of the community. Do you think Sammy might be a little embarrassed for the girls since he explains in paragraph ten, “… the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something…”? Another good point you brought up is stereotypical view.
What do you call a rock that listens to The Ramones? Punk Rock. While some people are familiar with this genre of music, there are others who have no clue what music it is. However, depending on the person, that may be a good thing. The Punk Rock genre of music has affected American society because of trends, behavior, stereotypes, parenting, and suicide rates.
Adolescent delinquency rates grew rapidly. Girls behaved against decency and boys fought against war. At this time, the idea of peace was extremely utopic. Journalists introduced the term “shook up generation” explaining new forms of organization that differ from the traditional family criteria
In our society exists another social norm, a code called, “Behavior Code”. Even at this moment, many idiosyncratic babies with different characteristics are born around the world. In their adolescence, however, many boys and girls question themselves whether their behaviors are in accordance with the behavior code. For instance, some girls grow into tomboys — “girls start wearing stylish clothes and watching from the sidelines as the boys acted and spoke” (Pipher, p1). But, unfortunately, at some points of their adolescence, those idiosyncratic girls lose thier authenticity and become a part of the society, behaving correspondingly to the behavior code.