The London Riots: The Elephant in the Room

I had thought it was an elephant in the room too. I did see women as well as men involved/onlooking the looting but it was clear that the overwhelming majority were men. I didn't see ANY all-girl groups (and i have watched a lot of coverage over the 3 days).

It shows that most crime whether directed at women, men or property is committed by men. I'm sure there aren't many 'meterosexuals' amongst their numbers so therefore i think we have to look at the cult of masculinity to really get to the root cause of these problems. Poverty hits men and women (disproportionatly women) but joblessness cuts to the very essence of masculinity the way it doesnt to femininity IYKWIM.

For me, it is along the continuum of masculinity of the construction of masculinity in general, with this hyper masculinity and violence being an extreme representation.

Women are capable of extreme violence, as seen in.girl gangs and wars...but generally it is socialized out of us.

The good side, we don't generally rush about starting riots...the bad side we are taught to be passive, compliant and 'good'.

For me these riots are another demonstration of how problematic constructions of gendered behaviours are.

HerB, that made me squirm too, but I think he was just trying to get the youth worker on side, which worked.

issy, perhaps they're just not reproting it then? Because it doesn't fit into the stereotype of the rioting gangs?

Ken Livingston's electioneering was disgusting. Smug, smug, while businesses were burning.

Ken Livingstone did sound very old fashioned and Darcus Howe!!! So far behind the times, wittering on about his grandson being stopped and searched.

I was attacked by a girl gang in Finsbury Park in 1984 - it's not new. They were nothing like the women from Sex and the City, they were violent and armed. I was 14 and out with a few friends. I was punched unconscious, as was another friend, I have had back problems all my life as a result of the kicking along my spine. Someone's mum was with us and dragged us into a car which was turned over while we were in it. Police, once called, were too busy to come and took statements later. This was 1984, all involved were female. There was no robbery, just violence. They were out for trouble and they had fun. No men were involved. Usually it's male, but very naive to think groups of women/young girls are not attracted to this kind of mob adrenaline.

Oh god did anyone see that wanker Ken Livingstone on the TV last night? What a dinosaur. He was going on about hwo these young men need jobs so that they can support families.

On one level I don't disagree that young men - and young women - need a living wage. But the dinosaur element of KL just screamed at me - women are far more likely to be hit by unemployment in this recession than men, and apart from Handbag-Yobette-Gang, they aren't generally rioting. His idea of larvely 1950s family, with Dad going to work and Mum being "supported" by Dad's living wage, made me heave. (Not literally)

I don't think Elephant in the Room is an overstatement at all.

Given that the massive majority of this violence will be perpetrated by males and given that hardly anyone in the media will discuss that, what's so OTT about the expression? That's what Elephant in the Room means - a massive important fact which everyone ignores.

I must confess I did wonder last night if women went merrily rioting down the street every now and then, how that would affect our status in society.

I know it's very serious and bad, but I couldn't help sniggering at the thought of girl gangs making off with handbags. I had visions of the Sex and the City women looting shoe-shops. Sorry.

Well most physically aggressive behaviour is male biased. Lots and lots of evidence to show this experimentally, cross-culturally, observationally. Literature on the riots in the 80s actually includes having women/families in crowds as a factor which reduces the chance of violence.

I often wonder, like with the prison population, it's ignored because it's men who are in power and they aren't willing to see or look at the gender dimension. Well, apart from a cursory, let's blame female single parents, men of course having no responsibility for birth control or not fucking off and having little or nothing to do with their offspring.

I remember thinking exactly this thing 10 years ago when the Bradford riots happened. There was much speculation and hand wringing about the ethnicity and religious affiliation of those involved (remember, this was months before the 11th September attacks,) comparing and contrasting with the Brixton and Toxteth riots 20 years or so before, stuff about disaffected youth, etc. But, I don't recall there ever being discussion about the obvious common denominator between 99% of those involved then - they were blokes. There were examples of Asian and white women coming together in women's centres during and afterwards, trying to build bridges between communities, but still, zilch mention of the gender dimension. That was in much earlier days of the internet, so there wasn't the instant 24/7 news or twitter or anything, but there were plenty of discussion boards and nada on this.

Maybe it's too early to draw any useful conclusions just yet, but I hope this will be discussed further down the line. I don't think "elephant in the living room" is too strong a term, personally.

I saw a video of that. She was awesome. Reminding them how they were destroying their own communities.

There was at least one incident last night where an older woman was filmed shouting at the rioters and telling them to back off.

Traditional gender roles mean that women always have their place or role, in that there is a home, however crappy, there are children, however ill-supported etc. whereas when there are no jobs, the young men have no role.
They aren't risking anything.

The younger girls are either less influenced by stereotypical gender roles, wouldn't that be nice, or are simply too young to have grown into them yet.

I'm not sure if that's what I believe, just one possible analysis of it.

Guardian article

"We waited for hours outside the station for a senior officer to speak with the family, in a demonstration led by young women. A woman-only delegation went into the station, as we wanted to ensure that this did not become confrontational. It was when the young women, many with children, decided to call it a day that the atmosphere changed, and guys in the crowd started to voice and then act out their frustrations."

I think, actually, that when it's mostly teenagers, there are going to be quite a lot of girls involved too because adolescents are easily roused to violence and stupidity.

Elephant in the room is a bit dramatic.

The mums of the rioters are probably at home texting in their orders for the next looting spree.

no no, i'm sure they were the parents of teenagers who felt disenfranchised from the babynames section. i read it in the dm so it must be true.

Arf arf!

they are called moldies

There are more nasty female teenaged gangs these days, aren't they? What's that all about?

They are however discussing the age of the rioters - Lavender Hill disturbance appears to have been characterised by a high number of teenagers, both boys and girls.

Other locations have older rioters (according to one commentator) and those areas may have been male-dominated.