Wales Stabbing - What is going on with teen girls?!

[SpicyMoth]

Is there any research etc looking into what is seemingly going on with young teen girls lately?
I'm finding it increasingly worrying that a group who are the least likely to engage in violent crimes such as these is becoming a more and more common occurrence...
Is there a degree of social contagion re; media reporting akin to when a suicide is reported, others copy or feel emboldened?

Brianna Ghey's murder, then another I heard about where girls were involved with beating a dog walker who I think ended up passing away later on (I believe two boys were also involved), now this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68901555

I'm sure I've also heard of others more recently as well but I can't remember the details off the top of my head - What is going on with young girls?!!

Most shit comes down to the internet one way or another. It has broken the world.

Concern about girls being violent seems to be a periodic thing that comes up. It was noted by Stanley Cohen half a century ago.

Violent crime by girls is unusual enough to be newsworthy if news editors are inclined. If you’re seeing more stories in the paper than usual it doesn’t necessarily mean there are more girls being violent, it may just be that editors have decided to highlight them.

I couldn’t find any stats that easily compared rates of girls and boys accused of violent crime over the last few years. But I would be cautious of assuming that just because you remember stories in the news, that it indicates a real trend.

That's valid and something that I hadn't really considered! Thank you for the alternate view on it, I'll look into it more if I can!

• I was talking to a male friend about this recent stabbing in Wales, saying that "it's a bit shocking considering statistically women don't commit violent crimes at anywhere near the same rate" and was met with this as a response;

"oh shut up" and "it's more fucked up when a woman does it, get off it"
I replied with this link; https://www.statista.com/statistics/377453/females-arrests-type-of-offense-england-and-wales/
He stopped replying to me lol.

I genuinely cannot wrap my head around him giving me that response, he's very much on the GC side of things, so it took me by surprise!!
Defensive maybe? Who knows!

This^ is how I feel too.
Our world is broken.
I hate it.
My mum is 99. God forbid I live that long.

The world has always been thought by people of the time to be "broken". The past was a "better place". Nostalgia isn't a new thing.

Lots of things are worse with the advent of the internet. Lots of things are better. And all things in between.

This is why it cheeses me off when trans allies go on about the "right side of history" and think they mic drop with "it's 2024!" As if we just improve in society in every way in a linear fashion.

It's just harking back to supposed halcyon days of childhood. Every generation does it since time began.

Testosterone?

Happy slapping was a big thing a few years back (I am sure it still is but the newspapers were reporting on it heavily at one point). And I can remember back when I was young there were girls that were really rough/violent and you did not want to get on the wrong side of. Most of them, looking back, had really difficult homelives or had some sort of issues. The same with boys probably but that doesn't make being on the receiving end any better.

But its always been the case that women/girls can be violent. Usually they offend at lower rates than men but the level of violence tracks consistently. So a really violent society will have proportionally higher rates of female offending.

What was your friend offended by? Was it the suggestion that women are less violent than men statistically or the fact you were suprised by the violence at all? I can't work out if his "its more fucked up when a woman does it" was sarcastic or not...

I wasn't being nostalgic particularly. I just happen to think that it is true and that the internet has hastened the decline.

Sorry quoted the wrong post.

I can't access those graphs, but crime recording certainly isn't uniform over time, so I'd be suspicious of any supposed trend.

I'm in the camp that says there's always a golden age of a few decades ago. The long term trends in most things are towards improvement.

"What was your friend offended by? "
I was under the impression his reply was sarcastic and that he wasn't happy with me saying that females are less likely to be violent, implying males are way more violent - Which flummoxed me because it's pretty evident in stats globally that women tend to be less violent.

I assume he just got defensive? But like... there's no reason to be defensive about that imo, it's just a fact :S

That's the problem with nostalgia. It just isn't what it used to be.

I think it’s a really valid point noted by pp - violence by females is less usual so it’s more newsworthy .

FWIW I think "its more fucked up when a woman does it" would be a fairly common reaction amongst men. Who see themselves as a bit lairy, often drunk... but girls and women 'don't do that, do they?'. Well no, the stats, and everyday experience, show they don't. When they do, it doesn't match those socialised (?) sex-based assumptions.

I work in a secondary school and we’ve done more permanent exclusions in the last year than in previous years put together. 80% are girls who’ve been violent, including two 11 year olds this year. It’s utterly shocking what they’re doing to each other. Tik Tok has normalised violence and real fights are circulated on social media as entertainment. Parents don’t seem to think this is an issue and aren’t equipped to deal with it. The students have to be excluded as otherwise the messages to others is that it’s ok, and teaching staff will leave because they see that there is no real sanction.
It doesn’t solve the problem but just moves it on to an equally ill-equipped place to educate them but at least we feel safer in our workplace with them gone.

I think there is something going on with teenage girls at the moment, even the ones who aren't desperately trying to flee womanhood. On the other hand there have always been troubled girls who have resorted to threats or violence. A girl in my school year stabbed a boy in the hand for being 'ignorant' (she meant ignoring her at the rugby club) when we were about 15. I don't think the police were called or anything. That was less yhan 10 miles from Rhydaman/Ammanford.

There's an odd mismatch among teenagers. Sone are lacking in the maturity to manage the out of control feelings of adolescence, and on top of that there's the wearing down of boundaries around acceptable behaviour from not just the internet but soap operas etc. Most young people can see the distinction, but some can't.

My first thought was whether it was a girl or a “girl”.

I'd have agreed if he'd meant it seriously, but I'm 95% sure he meant it sarcastically - he doesn't usually use punctuation but I read it in my head as;

"Of fuck off! So it's more shocking when it's a woman that does it is it? Come off it!"

Implying (at least to me) that he wasn't shocked at all, was annoyed at me suggesting it was unusual for women to be violent, and that he believes women are equally as likely to be going out and stabbing people, which just... Statistically is not the case afaik!

He entirely stopped replying when I linked him the stats and pointed out as a further example that men commit 98% of sexual crimes and women only 2%
I can only assume he couldn't be bothered to argue/didn't have the points to!

My first thought was OMG a 13 year old child

My first thought was whether it was a girl or a “girl”

It was a girl.

See now that is just insane to me!
I went to an all girls CofE high school and I genuinely only recall one fight throughout my entire time there!!
It's gotta be SM related at this point, surely!

I do think social contagion can create all kinds of unusual behaviours among girls.

ABout 25 years ago there was a rash of assaults by teen girls in the city I was living in, mainly swarming incidents. They were not the same kids, but it was all in the media the first few times and that seemed to inspire copycats. It went on for about 6 months or maybe a year, then seemed to die off.

But there are so many new social elements now with the internet, and drugs are so much worse in general in the population that might be having an effect too, at least with older girls.

My husband asked me the same thing. Ridiculous that we cannot trust this basic reporting now.

😂😂😂

julili · Yesterday 23:01

My first thought was whether it was a girl or a “girl”.

Likewise, I'm sure were not in a minority with that.

I don’t think it’s any more shocking.
That attitude is part of the problem.
’Society’ prompts the attitude boys will be boys and allows males to be shitty. Girls are clamped down on. This is part of the reason that males are more violent, because they are allowed to be.
Just look at how boys are allowed to behave compare to girls. Spitting, pissing in public, scratching their bollocks, wearing dirty, grubby tracksuits, swearing.
Think of any make football match.
You see this behaviour all the time
Females are expected to ‘be kind.’
Hmmmm well news flash, they go through puberty too and have raging hormones inside them.
Also feminine qualities don’t often get you far in life.
I see aggressive, uncaring people succeeding.
Perhaps females are starting to emulate this.
Bottom line though, males do commit more violent crimes however the media report it.