Bookshelf
Sugar & Spice and No Longer Nice: How We Can Stop Girls’ Violence
by Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Howard Spivak
(Jossey-Bass, $15.95)
Reading about girls’ violence can be dull, mostly because girls aren’t toting weapons. Not yet.
If we don’t improve parenting and change our culture and media, the authors say, young women will start fighting with more than fingernails.
1. The authors expect violent behavior in boys and girls to equalize over time in part because “movies and children’s TV programming … regularly portray the female superhero as violent and sexy.”
2. Society’s current approach to violence prevention ignores girls’ unique characteristics, including socialization, vulnerability, peer relationships and family position.
3. Girls don’t often use weapons; their friends play an important role in fueling the fire or putting it out.
4. “When girls do use weapons, they are more likely than boys to use knives rather than guns.”
5. In 2003, one in three kids arrested for a violent crime was a girl.
Chicago Tribune