Published in 2018
218 pages
Krista McQueeney is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Criminology & Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, USA
Alicia Girgenti-Malone is Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Merrimack College, USA
What is this book about?
From media images of “mean girls” to the disproportionate punishment of Black, Latina and/or queer girls in schools and the justice system, female aggression has become a public concern. Scholars, educators, policymakers and parents are scrambling to respond to the perceived upsurge in girls’ bullying, peer pressure, and aggression/violence.
Girls, Aggression and Intersectionality examines how intersecting social identities – such as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, and others – shape media representations of, and criminal justice reactions to, female aggression. The book focuses on three overarching questions: How do race, class, and/or sexuality influence media images of female aggression? How do aggressive girls’ intersecting identities affect law enforcement and criminal justice responses to their aggression? How are diverse groups of girls trying to resist their labelling and criminalization?
Using intersectionality as a conceptual framework, this insightful volume deconstructs a unitary analysis of “female aggression” and transforms the mainstream discourse that paints girls as inherently “mean.”
