The social field of the gang is highly gendered, replicating the gendered social construction of the wider community. Bourdieu (1984) views gender as a stratifying feature of the social field, secondary to economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. In all social fields where capital is unevenly distributed, the male/female binary is a form of domination evident in all social hierarchies (Swartz, 1997, p 156). Thus the hierarchical power relations of the social field dictate that capital allocation is weighted towards men, compounded by the fact that male and female roles and social aspirations are determined by the habitus and the social norms operating within the field.

As a ‘structured arena of conflict’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992), the social field is also defined by the internal struggle for power and dominance. This internalised hierarchical structure replicates opportunities for patriarchy, male privilege and male violence. Indeed, male violence dominates as a key strategy for advancement. In this way, the hierarchy favours males over females. As a result, the gang repertoire – including tried and tested opportunities for generating street capital – is largely gendered in favour of men, and physical violence is more highly prized than social skill. This, in turn, means that women tend to occupy subordinate roles in the social field of the gang.

Instead girls and young women simply operate and strategise differently within the social field to locate positions of power and influence which provide opportunities for them to manufacture their own street capital and thus advance.

In a social field relatively well stocked with interpersonal and family connections, there are opportunities for those with social skill to increase both their social and street capital. Social skill is thus a capital asset for women in particular. Before exploring this in more depth, we look at how other academics have traditionally viewed the role of girls and young women in the gang.

Traditional gang research perspectives on girls and young women

The roles played by girls (females aged under 16) and young women (females aged 16 and over) within a gang have received scant academic focus in the UK.1 Male-dominated criminological research has frequently overlooked such roles, a fact compounded by the variant definitions used to define the term ‘gang’.