Gaslight, Gatekeep, GirlBoss: A Girl Gang Grab-Bag
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Like most American Millennials, I was subjected to Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE. It was the typical kind of “Drugs Are Bad, mmmkay?” sort of thing. Police officers would come to school and show 2nd graders pictures of smoker lungs and suggest that everyone and their mom would be peer pressuring you to smoke weed and/or crack, which was not as big of an issue as some of us might have hoped. During one such class, we were being taught about the danger of gang violence and we were told to draw what we thought a gang member would look like. Yes, it does sound like a potentially extremely racist arts and crafts session, but yours truly decided to get creative. I drew a woman wearing a crop top and JNCO jeans. The DARE officer looked at my drawing and told me that women weren’t ever members of gangs, but were usually girlfriends, which made my tiny feminist hackles raise. What do you MEAN there weren’t any lady gang members? Whatever men could do, women could do, right? EQUALITY, RIGHT? If she had been prepared for nuance beyond her vaguely racist lesson, she might have talked about the culture of toxic masculinity that pervades most gangs as we think about them today and often, women have to carve out their own niche when it comes to organized crime. Officer Silva, this one’s for you.

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