Book Review: One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs, and Gender

• Author: Robert Fong
• DOI: 10.1177/1043986202018002006
• Published date: 01 May 2002
• Date: 01 May 2002
• Subject Matter: Articles

Journal
BOOK of Contemporary
REVIEWS
Criminal Justice / May 2002
BOOK REVIEWS
One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs, and Gender. By Jody Miller. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001.
Research on gangs is not a new scholarly endeavor. Yet, for the most part, gang
research has focused primarily on male gang members despite the fact that female
gang members have played a significant role in the evolutionary process of American
gangs. With the resurgence of interest on the study of gangs as a result of the prolifera-
tion of gangs since the 1980s, female gang members, who may account for as much as
one third of the gang population, continue to be trivialized and denied the level of
attention they deserve. Thus far, much of what has been written about female gangs
has come from three less-than-objective sources: journalists (who only report sensa-
tional stories to get high ratings), social workers (who view gang members as individ-
uals who have personal problems), and male gang members (who tend to minimize
female members to maintain their masculine and dominant image). My decision to
review Dr. Miller’s book was based on three factors: the sources of data collection, her
research design, and the degree of care and objectivity she demonstrates in addressing
specific concerns.
The book itself is divided into nine chapters. In chapter 1, Dr. Miller provides a bal-
anced analysis of the various perspectives on gender and gang research. Drawing
from the existing literature, Dr. Miller provides a careful examination of the three
major approaches to female gang research, namely gender ratio, victimization, and
gendered resistance. From there, she proposes a feminist approach, which would not
only explore between-gender similarities and within-gender differences but, more
important, differences across gender.
In chapter 2, Dr. Miller makes a clear and convincing case for choosing St. Louis
(nonelastic) and Columbus (highly elastic) as her study sites. Unlike Los Angeles,
which has...