Self-report of fighting by females: A preliminary study

Three samples of British girls and women, selected from schools (N=251), a borstal (N=60) and a prison (N=53), participated in a questionnaire study of their experiences, attitudes and the perceived limits of aggressive behaviour. A high proportion had been involved in a fight within the last year, principally against another female. The fights usually arose over issues of personal integrity or loyalty to a friend who was not present to defend themselves. The majority of the fights resulted in minor injuries such as bruises or cuts and the animosity was not long-lasting. There was high consensus with respect to the kinds of behaviour which were considered inappropriate in aggressive encounters. These social rules operated to exclude access to adults or other authority figures and to limit the possible damage sustained. Schoolgirls who reported having engaged in more than six fights were characterised as having begun fighting at a younger age, going around in mixed sex groups, having a more positive attitude to fighting and being more willing to break the limiting rules of fights. Many of these same characteristics were also more prevalent among young women from the borstal and prison. VioLit summary: OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study by Campbell was to examine the experiences, attitudes, and perceived limits of aggressive behavior by British girls and women. METHODOLOGY: A quasi-experimental research design was employed for this study. A questionnaire was administered to three different groups of girls/women in Britain and Scotland. 251 schoolgirls in several locations around Britain and Scotland comprised one group; 60 girls in a youth offender facility and 53 women under 40 in an adult women's prison comprised the other two groups. The schoolgirls completed the questionnaire on a voluntary, unsupervised basis; the juvenile offenders completed the questionnaires during association time on their wing or unit, and the adult women in prison completed the questionnaire in the dining room before the evening meal. In no case was there outside interference. Four major areas were covered in the questionnaires: demographic/background information (age, police contact, peer group, and degree of involvement with fighting), moral attitudes about fighting, permissibility of various kinds of behavior in fights, and specific details of a fight in which the respondent had been involved. Descriptive and chi-square analysis were used to analyze the data. FINDINGS/DISCUSSION: All the schoolgirls had seen a fight, and 88.8% had been involved in one. 25.5% had been in more than six fights. Of the 88.8% who had ever been in a fight, 48% had been in a fight in the preceding 12 months. 6% of the girls had had police involved in any of their fights, and only 1.2% had been taken to juvenile court because of their behavior. The girls in the juvenile facility were, on average, older than the school girls and had been involved in more fights. 97% had been involved in at least one fight. 65% had been in more than six fights, and 90% of the offenders had been involved in a fight within the last year. 75% had had the police involved, and 58.3% had been brought to court. These girls, as opposed to the schoolgirls, were more likely to spend time with males. The prison sample included 39.6% of the respondents being 25 or older. All had seen fights, but only 39.6% had been in more than six fights. 50% had had the police involved in a fight, and 32.7% had been taken to court. Mixed-sex peer groups were the most common interaction groups. The schoolgirls were found most likely to have fought at school while the incarcerated juveniles were most likely to have fought in private houses, streets, or pubs. The prison women fought in pubs and on the street. Most of the fights in all groups took place with one opponent and friends as witnesses, many of whom fought with them. The general pattern included the opponents' making a verbal remark before the fight, but the girls/women were usually the first to strike the blow. Justification for fighting among the schoolgirl group involved personal integrity or loyalty. The prison group fought over jealousies. The incarcerated girls were more evenly divided between loyalty, personal integrity, and jealousy. Fights were most often stopped by adults or the protagonists for the schoolgirls, police for the incarcerated girls, and the combatants themselves for the prison women. The majority of the females said that they had won; for the schoolgirls and the women, this involved submission of the opponent, and for the incarcerated girls, this involved physical damage inflicted. The schoolgirls often fought with friends or acquaintances, but the fight did not do lasting damage to the relationship. This was less true for the incarcerated girls. Punching, kicking, tearing clothes were the most common forms of fighting. The incarcerated girls more often reported punching, tearing clothing, and using weapons and less often to slapping, biting, kicking, and scratching. Weapons were the biggest difference between schoolgirls and incarcerated girls. The prison women reported punching as the most common form of fighting followed by kicking and tearing clothes. For all three groups of females, opponents were reported as using "dirty" tactics. Very little serious damage occurred during the fights described by schoolgirls with most common injuries to opponents being bruises, cuts, and scratches. The incarcerated girls were more likely to have fights characterized by injury. The prison women were more likely to have sustained injury, albeit minor, than their opponents. Rules for fighting stated by the women were most often proscriptive rather than prescriptive. The rules gathering the most consensus were these: 1) one should not take on more than one person at a time; 2) one's friends should be asked to join; 3) friends should call the police or one should report it to the police or school herself; 4) bottles were not acceptable weapons, and 5) knives were not acceptable. Punching and slapping were two prescriptive rules receiving a good amount of consensus. These differed for the incarcerated girls in that it was not all right to ask friends to join in or call the police, to tell the school or police, or to use a handbag. Slapping was favored much less than among the schoolgirls while fighting someone who was on the ground was more accepted. The prison women showed less agreement on rules with it not being all right to take on more than one person, ask friends to join in, or to report it to the police. Slapping was endorsed. Significant correspondence was found between the rule and behavior. In general, attitudes toward fighting were negative among the majority of schoolgirls. Among the incarcerated girls, it was most agreed that fighting was not just for boys. The prison women showed most agreement that fighting was "not a laugh." Both institutionalized samples were more likely to view fighting in a positive way with the juvenile girls being most positive. Frequent fighters were found to have started younger, continue longer, go around with mixed sex groups, have more police encounters, and see fighting not only as positive but as an important part of their self-concept and role. AUTHOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS: The author recommended that attention be directed toward self-presentation styles among girls who fight to try to investigate the transformation rules which relate social action to social talk. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado) N1 - Call Number: F-512, AB-512 KW - Scotland KW - England KW - Countries Other Than USA KW - FeMale Violence KW - Female Offender KW - Female Aggression KW - Juvenile Aggression KW - Juvenile Female KW - Juvenile Offender KW - Juvenile Violence KW - Adult Aggression KW - Adult Female KW - Adult Offender KW - Adult Violence KW - Adult Attitudes KW - Adult Perceptions KW - Female Attitudes KW - Female Perceptions KW - Juvenile Attitudes KW - Juvenile Perceptions KW - Offender Attitudes KW - Offender Perceptions KW - Physical Assault Offender KW - Physical Assault Perceptions KW - Physical Aggression KW - Aggression Perceptions KW - Violence Perceptions KW - Attitudes Toward Aggression KW - Attitudes Toward Violence KW - Offender Characteristics