Many mothers are themselves involved in fighting, especially in defence of their family's good name. They are strong figures who must cope alone with daily stresses of subsistence living. For families living in these neighbourhoods, the frequent absence of a consistent father figure means that mothers (and grandmothers) play a pivotal role. Female aggression is more prevalent in disorganized neighbourhoods with high levels of poverty and low social cohesion. The media depiction of girls’ aggression-as an anomalous violation of the feminine gender role-ignores the way that femininity is constructed differently in different cultural contexts. Here, I will focus specifically on same-sex aggression by young women.

Boys and girls predominantly engage in same-sex aggression, although girls are more likely than boys to target members of the opposite sex. In the previous month, 60% of girls had called another girl names, 50% had sworn at them and 35% had pushed or shoved them. Surveys indicate that in the previous year, 40.5% of boys and 25.1% of girls had been in a physical fight. The gender gap is considerably greater for aggravated than simple assault, reflecting girls’ less injurious behaviour and their lower likelihood of using weapons. The male-to-female ratio for assault has remained remarkably stable over time. Despite a 24% increase in female arrests for simple assault between 19, victimization and self-report data indicate that this reflects changes in police practice rather than girls’ behaviour.

In the United States, girls account for 33% of arrests for simple assault and 24% of aggravated assaults. The impact of testosterone and oxytocin on the neural circuitry of emotion is also considered. Neuropsychological evidence is not yet conclusive but suggests that women show heightened amygdala reactivity to threatening stimuli, may be better able to exert prefrontal cortical control over emotional behaviour and may consciously register fear more strongly via anterior cingulate activity. This selection pressure is realized psychologically through a lower threshold for fear among women. From an evolutionary perspective, I argue that the intensity of female aggression is constrained by the greater centrality of mothers, rather than fathers, to offspring survival. Nonetheless, even where competitive pressures are high, young women's aggression is less injurious and frequent than young men's. For these women, fighting is not seen as antithetical to cultural conceptions of femininity, and female weakness is disparaged. These are discussed in relation to escalated intrasexual competition for men and their resources between young women in deprived neighbourhoods. Evolutionary researchers have identified age, operational sex ratio and high variance in male resources as factors that intensify female competition.

Antisocial by Bradley Campbell