Female gangs in the United States

Female gang members in US street gangs operate within either exclusively female gangs or mixed-gender gangs. Gangs that allow female recruits include all-women functioning units, coed gangs, and female auxiliaries to male gangs. Although female gang membership parallels male membership in many ways, female members and gangs exist and operate in unique ways. The body of research on female gang membership is much less comprehensive than that of male membership, but researchers like Chesney-Lind and Hagedorn are advocating that this topic be studied more extensively and in its own right.

History

In her book on females in gang culture, Taylor claims that historians have documented female gang membership and all-female gangs dating back to the early twentieth century, but traditionally limited their studies to how such gangs relate to existing male versions. Due to this, researchers like Taylor began drawing attention to women in gang culture and argued that the topic deserved to be studied in its own right. Modern research has shifted towards the belief that all-female gangs are not exclusively tied to male gangs, and merit their own study. Chesney-Lind and Hagedorn note that female gang membership does not perfectly mirror male membership, and because of this, interventions aimed towards potential female members must be tailored to women’s unique needs and motivations.

Gang

A gang is a group of recurrently associating individuals or close friends or family with identifiable leadership and internal organization, identifying with or claiming control over territory in a community, and engaging either individually or collectively in violent or illegal behavior. Some criminal gang members are "jumped in" or have to prove their loyalty by committing acts such as theft or violence. A member of a gang may be called a gangster or a thug.

Definition

In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen. In the United Kingdom, the word is still often used in this sense, but it later underwent pejoration. In current usage, it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. The word gang often carries a negative connotation; however, within a gang which defines itself in opposition to mainstream norms, members may adopt the phrase as a statement of identity or defiance.

The word "gang" derives from the past participle of Old English gan, meaning "to go". It is cognate with Old Norse gangster, meaning "journey."

Gangs (album)

Gangs is the second studio album by the Northern Irish post-rock band And So I Watch You From Afar, released on 29 April 2011 on Richter Collective.

Reception

Gangs was released to positive critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 68, based on 9 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."Allmusic reviewer Dave Donnelly referred to the album's sound as "weightier and more abrasive than its predecessor" but criticised that it was "tailored for the stage" which "sacrificed some of the beautiful flow and elegant dynamic." He awarded the album three and a half out of five stars. Writing for the Austin Chronicle, Adam Schragin said that Gangs "spins an enormously wrought piece of work that finally matches the band's inflated aspirations with production values" but called the songs "oddly unmemorable" in his two out of five star review.BBC Music writer Brad Barrett praised the album, summarising it as "an album strewn with the debris of a war march, albeit one laced with smirks and triumphant songs" and noted how it "starts to feel textural as opposed to bludgeoning." Simon Jay Catling of Drowned in Sound rated the album nine out of ten and described its music as "maelstrom of dexterity [that] gives way to great waves of squalled sound."

Female

Female (♀) is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, that produces non-mobile ova (egg cells). Most female mammals, including female humans, have two X chromosomes.

Defining characteristics

The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male. A female individual cannot reproduce sexually without access to the gametes of a male (an exception is parthenogenesis). Some organisms can reproduce both sexually and asexually.

There is no single genetic mechanism behind sex differences in different species and the existence of two sexes seems to have evolved multiple times independently in different evolutionary lineages. Patterns of sexual reproduction include

Plant reproductive morphology

Plant reproductive morphology is concerned with the physical form and structure (the morphology) of those parts of plants directly or indirectly concerned with sexual reproduction.

Among all living organisms, flowers, which are the reproductive structures of angiosperms, are the most varied physically and show a correspondingly great diversity in methods of reproduction. Plants that are not flowering plants (green algae, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, ferns and gymnosperms such as conifers) also have complex interplays between morphological adaptation and environmental factors in their sexual reproduction. The breeding system, or how the sperm from one plant fertilizes the ovum of another, depends on the reproductive morphology, and is the single most important determinant of the genetic structure of nonclonal plant populations. Christian Konrad Sprengel (1793) studied the reproduction of flowering plants and for the first time it was understood that the pollination process involved both biotic and abiotic interactions. Charles Darwin's theories of natural selection utilized this work to build his theory of evolution, which includes analysis of the coevolution of flowers and their insect pollinators.

Female (1933 film)

Female is a 1933 Warner Bros. Pre-Code film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Ruth Chatterton and George Brent. It is based on the novel of the same name by Donald Henderson Clarke.

Plot

Alison Drake (Ruth Chatterton) is the wealthy owner and hard-driving, no-nonsense head of a large automobile company, inherited from her father. Her work has caused her to lose her youthful romanticism, and she has casual affairs with men, including her own employees.

Alison hosts a party at her mansion, but becomes fed up with the men out to either sell her things or marry her for her money. She dresses down and goes to an amusement park, where she picks up a man at a shooting gallery. They have fun together, but he refuses her offer to go home with him.

The next day, they meet again at her factory. To their mutual astonishment, he turns out to be Jim Thorne (George Brent), a gifted engineer she has ordered her underlings to hire away from her competition. Saying that she has no time now, Alison has him come to her mansion that night, supposedly to discuss his plans for the company in detail. She attempts to seduce him, but he rejects her as anything other than his employer.