...STATUS, AND EXCLUSION. Blackwell, 2006. 344p. pap., $29.95, ISBN 978-0631234258.

Martha Putallaz Karena L. Bierman, eds., AGGRESSION, ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR, AND VIOLENCE AMONG GIRLS: A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE. Guilford Press, 2005. pap., $28.00, ISBN 978-1593852320.

James Garbarino, SEE JANE HIT: WHY GIRLS ARE GROWING MORE VIOLENT AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT. Penguin Group, 2006 (pap., 2007). 304p. pap., $15.00, ISBN 9780143038689.

Christine Alder & Anne Worrall, eds., GIRLS' VIOLENCE: MYTHS AND REALITIES. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004. 212p. pap., $21.95, ISBN 978-0791461105.

Contemporary artist Anna Gaskell is known for her engrossing depictions of girls engaged in acts of violence. They are the subjects of mysterious, sadistic narratives in which they plot against and injure each other. The girls don outfits reminiscent of illustrations from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, from which the photographs in Gaskell's override series are inspired. Devoid of the naivete and innocence that mark Alice as an icon of white girlhood, Gaskell's girls embody the "new" aggressive girl of the twenty-first century.

The surge of interest in girls' aggression has been generated in part by statistics on girls' increasing arrest rates relative to boys, media attention on acts of girl violence, widely read books on girl-against-girl relational aggression, (1) such as Rachel Simmons's Odd Girl Out (2002), and popular cultural representations of young women in films such as Mean Girls (2004). The books featured in this review offer a wide and divergent range of perspectives on these new mean and violent girls, and some of them question whether there is anything "new" about such girls at all.

Tempering Empowerment

Prior to the recent focus on aggression in girls' studies literature, publications such as the American Association of University Women's study Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America (1991), Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia (1994), and Peggy Orenstein's Schoolgirls (1995) were concerned with girls' loss of self-esteem at adolescence and inspired advocacy and activism for girls' empowerment. James Garbarino links girls' empowerment to their growing aggression in See Jane Hit: Why Girls Are Growing More Violent and What We Can Do About It. Garbarino states, "It is logical to assume that if girls are empowered, they will become more likely to engage in physical aggression. Of course that is exactly what I think is happening" (pp.43-44). See Jane Hit, which is aimed primarily at parents, explores the causes of girls' increasing physical aggression, cites pop cultural influences on girls' violence, and offers strategies for prevention.

The book features accounts of female aggression from a narrow sample of approximately 200 middle-class, suburban women students at Cornell University, where Garbarino was formerly a professor. Their accounts describe clashes with siblings, self-harm, fighting over boyfriends, and overindulging in the physicality of sports. Although Garbarino includes some accounts of "troubled" girls of color he encountered through his work with youth in the juvenile justice system, the book is primarily concerned with the burgeoning violence of the...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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