Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Self-Silencing, Trauma, and Mental Health Among Juvenile Legal System-Involved Youth

• Author: Shabnam Javdani,Megan Granski,Morgan Rentko,Corianna E. Sichel
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1557085120955234
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085120955234

Feminist Criminology

2020, Vol. 15(5) 545 –566

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085120955234

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Article

Gender Differences in the

Relationship Between Self-

Silencing, Trauma, and Mental

Health Among Juvenile Legal

System-Involved Youth

Megan Granski1, Shabnam Javdani1,

Corianna E. Sichel1, and Morgan Rentko2

Abstract

The current study investigates the impact of trauma exposure on adolescent girls’

and boys’ self-silencing and the impact of self-silencing on and internalizing and

externalizing mental health symptoms. Results are informed by data from 206 legal

system-involved youth ages 12 to 18 in short-term detention facilities. Hierarchical

regression analyses with gender modeled as a moderator revealed that girls with

greater trauma exposure were less likely to self-silence, and girls with lower levels of

self-silencing were at increased risk for depressive and anxious symptoms. This study

has implications for trauma-informed approaches in juvenile legal settings, which may

inadvertently reward emotional restriction.

Keywords

adolescence/youth, juvenile justice, self-silencing, trauma, mental health

Introduction

Increasingly, research suggests that young women of color are at increased risk for

myriad health and public health disparities compared to their male and White female

counterparts (Epstein et al., 2017). One of the most disruptive social consequences

for this population of girls is arrest and subsequent detainment in the juvenile legal

1New York University, USA

2Connecticut College, New London, USA

Corresponding Author:

Megan Granski, Steinhardt School of Culture Education and Human Development, New York University,

246 Greene St., New York, NY 10003, USA.

Email: gransm01@nyu.edu

955234FCXXXX10.1177/1557085120955234Feminist CriminologyGranski et al.

research-article2020

546 Feminist Criminology 15(5)

system. Scholars and scholar activists have named this as one of the most pressing

public health concerns of our time (Alexander, 2010; Moore & Padavic, 2010;

Nanda, 2011). Indeed, girls comprise an increasing proportion of juvenile arrests

(Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014), which can exacerbate physical and mental health

challenges (Espinosa et al., 2013), substance abuse (Chassin, 2008), and academic

achievement and social difficulties (Pardini & Fite, 2010). Girls of color living in

under-resourced, urban contexts are at particularly high risk for legal system involve-

ment (Nanda, 2011).

Prominent criminological theories, including general strain, social bonding, and

social learning theories, are largely gender neutral and assume that girls and boys have

similar criminogenic pathways (Ishoy & Blackwell, 2019). Thus, over the past several

decades, feminist scholars have advanced feminist pathways theory as a framework

that accounts for risk and protective factors for legal system involvement that are par-

ticularly salient for girls and women (Belknap, 2015). Childhood abuse and comorbid

mental health problems have consistently been documented as stronger predictors of

delinquency outcomes that also occur at higher base rates for girls compared to boys

(Leve et al., 2015; Welch-Brewer et al., 2011). Both childhood abuse and mental

health problems are impacted by weaker caregiver attachments and also can lead to

difficulties in interpersonal relationships—a hallmark of women and girls’ pathways

to violence victimization and perpetration (Javdani et al., 2011a; Lin et al., 2016).

Despite this robust theoretical and empirical foundation, there is a dearth of litera-

ture on the specific processes and mechanisms through which childhood trauma

impacts interpersonal communication. Similarly, there is little work on the impact that

interpersonal communication style has on mental health within a context that punishes

girls of color for violating stereotypes of white female passivity (Gaarder et al., 2004).

The present study aims to address these gaps in the feminist criminology literature

through incorporating theoretical and empirical scholarship on the construct of self-

silencing. In doing so, this paper draws upon a framework based in ecological theory

(Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and intersectionality theory (Crenshaw, 1989) that focuses on

multiple levels of influence, each of which are informed by intersecting marginalized

identities, including race, gender, class, nationality, and sexuality, which position indi-

viduals in contexts that render them structurally vulnerable to punitive and traumatiz-

ing policies and institutions. This approach conceptualizes the disproportionate rates

of trauma, mental health problems, and juvenile legal system involvement among girls

of color as arising from a complex interplay of individual factors, contextual factors,

and gendered oppression.

Self-silencing was initially conceived of as a gender-specific construct by Jack

(1991), who theorized that women may present themselves as passive to preserve rela-

tionships, which stems from a social dynamic that is part of the fabric of learned gen-

der-based socialization for which women are systematically rewarded (Kittay, 1999).

According to the model, a patriarchal society in which women experience negative

consequences (e.g., economic; physical; social) for voicing anger or demands gives

rise to cognitive schemas that direct women to defer to the needs of others, inhibit self-

expression and self-directed action, repress anger, and compare the self to an ideal