Female Gang Essay

Female gangs have been ignored by researchers for a long time. They have been trivialized especially by early studies that were a source of research agendas (Taylor, 1993). Most of these studies concentrated on studying male gangs. Therefore, little was known about the roles of women in the gang structure. Over the years, researchers have dismissed female gangs by terming them less important. In fact, one of the expert termed the female gangs as a pale imitation of male gangs and thus not very important to study about (Howell, 2012). Due to lack of extensive research on female gang, most of the information on their roles in gang structure were gotten from journalist reports, fellow male gangs or from social worker’s statements according to Howell 2012. However, they have been actively participating in gangs in United States of America for a very long time (Taylor, 1993). Female gangs played a very important role as fighters and skilled thieves from early days. For example, female gangsters in Five Point gang, street gang in New York among many other gangs were used as decoys and helped in looking out for male during crime (Moore & Hagedorn, 2001). They did these functions with ease especially due to feminine stereotypes. So they were used as …show more content…
However, this narrative started changing through information that was being narrated by journalist and social workers (Howell, 2012). They would emphasize female gang personal problems and essential roles that they were playing in the criminal world. In addition, progressive research on female gangs realized that female gangs were a real menace (Moore & Hagedorn, 1996). It was found that they thrived well as autonomous group or a group that was closely related to a male gang. In other occasions, they worked as a fully integrated gender gang with each member playing a very important role regardless of their gender (Howell,