We’ve been hearing that girls develop faster than boys – and subsequently do better at school – for years. But new research has shown that girls are also using their superior social skills to elevate their status in street gangs.
Dr Simon Harding, a lecturer in criminology and sociology at Middlesex University, spent years talking to eight gang members aged 16-25, as well as dozens of community workers in Lambeth, south London. He will tell the British Sociological Association in Leeds today the worrying trend he whitnessed during his research – that young women are becoming much more influential than their less streetwise male counterparts.
During his research, he discovered that boys were content to hang around local estates smoking weed, while girls took advantage of their superior social skills to help them rise through the ranks of criminal gangs, being relied upon for smuggling weapons in their prams, hiding drugs and money laundering.
At today’s conference, Dr Harding will say: ‘The rougher, tougher and nastier [boys] are, the higher their status. But the girls and young women could gain status in a different way through their social skills – they can become quite important players but not though violence or brutality. They deal in information – trading and exchanging this daily.
‘In the gang world information is vital if you’re going to be successful at fighting off rivals and staying ahead of the police. The male members of the gangs often spend a lot of time hanging around with their gang mates, smoking dope, staying out of the way.
‘[Girls] know who is dealing drugs on the gang’s patch and when the police are watching the estate. They can be used to arrange fights with other gangs, and they can smuggle weapons or drugs – sometimes in the prams next to their babies. They can be used as "clean skins" – they don’t have criminal records and it’s easier for them to avoid suspicion.
‘The girls’ knowledge gives them status within the gang and the male members are wary of their power to spread rumours about them or inform on them to others in the gang, and that can put some of them in a powerful position.’
It's a tricky one. The research contradicts conventional wisdom that girls have low or secondary status in street gangs, and it shows how some young women are now playing the gang structures to their own ends, rather than just existing as vulnerable victims. But it's not exactly a heartening trend, is it? We'd far rather see those girls applying their superior social skills and massive brains to something a bit more productive.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.