Navigating Hypermasculine Terrains: Female Tactics for Safety and Social Mastery

Capacity for Violence

Lina grew up in social housing listed as a “ghetto” area in the southern suburbs of Copenhagen. She describes this environment as “extremely tough,” with incidents such as bullying, derogatory name calling, stealing, and physical violence frequently taking place between children and youths. This description is similar to the way the majority of the participants described their social environment, highlighting violence and abuse as a potentiality of everyday life. As one informant put it, “Violence is not ok, but where I come from, it’s normal. It’s what people do” (Louise, 15 years old). Although the form and frequency of using violence differed among the participants, they all engaged in building a capacity for violence, which included perpetrating violence and circulating narratives of their violent capacities (Henriksen, 2013). Seven informants state that they engaged in violence since pre-school, whereas the large majority recall using violence from ages 12 to 14 when they started hanging with a certain peer group or spent most of their time outside the home. A study on exposure to violence among marginalized Danish youth suggests that they witness and are victimized by more violence than average, both at home (perpetrated by parents and siblings) and outside the home (perpetrated by peers) (Oldrup, Korzen, Lindstrøm & Christoffersen, 2011). Danish street culture is not predominantly a violent one, but violence as a potentiality nonetheless informs the everyday interactions of marginalized youth and calls for some mastery of violence, a tough front, and a reputation as someone not to be messed with.

Lina’s narrative conveys her as being violent from early childhood. In kindergarten, she recalled, she hit and bit other children. “What kind of child does that?” she asked, attempting to understand where such behavior comes from. She had no recollection of domestic problems from this period and had few memories from her early childhood that could explain her deviant behavior. She was raised by her ethnic Danish mother and had intermittent contact with her Israeli father. She described her mother as vulnerable and in need of protection: “She was never angry, just disappointed, sad, and tired. We never spoke much.” At age 13, Lina told social services that her mother abused her physically. Although untrue, an investigation of her domestic conditions led to placement in foster care. In the following years, she oscillated between her home and different institutions with an increasing propensity for negative behavior such as violence, crime, and use of marijuana. The peers she associated with throughout this time were youths who were marginalized and problematized in their institutional and domestic settings and who, like her, spent the majority of time in street-based peer groups. As British scholars demonstrate in a study of male and female youth, there are push and pull effects that make youth “go for street” (Young & Hallsworth, 2011). They are “pushed” by forces such as domestic violence, social isolation, and lack of acknowledgment, and they are “pulled” toward youths in similar social positions, to gain a sense of belonging, mutual assistance in times of scarce resources, and protection from street-based crime and violence.

Lina was involved in several street collectives consisting of either mainly male or female youths, and she was experienced in navigating terrains that compel young women to be proficient at violence and, overall, convey a reputation as someone not to be messed with (Henriksen & Miller, 2012). As Lina put it,

We did it all, stealing and violence, a lot of violence, mostly with other girls, where I just beat the shit out of them. For me, at that time, it was like “don’t fuck with me”; that was really it. I was looking out for myself.

Lina explained her violent behavior as a form of self-protection. Building a reputation of being someone who is willing and able to fight is a tactic all the participants applied in various degrees. The data do not support a rigorous analysis of the form and frequency of participants’ violent engagements; however, data suggest that most of the girls and young women have experienced periods of 1 to 3 months where violence took place on a weekly basis replaced by months with only a few or no incidents. Rather than finding a pattern of “fighters” and “good girls,” the data suggest that the use of violence intensifies temporally and contextually.

The capacity for violence is developed through fights taking place as retaliation for perceived disrespect and through narratives of violence disseminated among peers (Honkatukia, Nyqvist, & Pösö, 2006; Jackson-Jacobs, 2004). This tactic is preemptive and serves to deter future violence, as this quote from Susan, aged 19, shows:

It’s like nobody should think that . . . like, it’s good to build that reputation, you know, respect, so they know that you don’t take any shit. So if someone says, “Next time I see you . . . ” or “Who’s that girl Susan?” then someone will say, “That girl? She is crazy, don’t start anything with her.”

Building a reputation as competent and willing to use violence, even being “crazy,” is a preemptive tactic in a potentially violent social terrain (Batchelor, 2005; Jones, 2010; Ness, 2010). Susan was 11 or 12 when she started spending most of her time outside the home. This appears to be due primarily to her mother’s frequent and severe victimization of intimate partner violence and her father’s severe drug abuse. She described hanging out with a large group of peers with similar domestic problems. They were supportive and provided mutual assistance when they needed money, food, or a place to sleep. However, the pecking order of their peer group also called for protective tactics against bullying and social control within the group, which targeted the weaker children. As Clara, aged 18, stated, “Like, I know violence is not ok, but on the street, especially when you are younger, it’s the only way you survive.”

Some fighting takes place within peer groups to establish and maintain a social hierarchy, although most takes place among youths with a more peripheral knowledge of each other. These fights usually evolve over time with a circulation of insults using SMS messaging and social media and varying levels of participation from potentially large numbers of youth involved both passively and actively. Peers form alliances in these conflicts, and friends are expected to “have each other’s back” if the disagreement erupts into outright violence (Flekkoy, 2000, p. 85). In instances of potentially violent clashes such as these, girls align themselves with peers who have established a violent reputation. Having a capacity for violence thus works as a form of capital that builds both social ties and the social status of the individual, therefore working as a tactic of both safety and social mastery.

However, there are gendered limits to girls’ use of violence. Violence perpetrated by girls is “doubly deviant” in that it transgresses norms prohibiting both the use of violence in general and its use by females in particular (Morrissey, 2003, p. 33). The girls in the study conveyed an acute awareness that the symbolic connotations of violence are gendered, as expressed in the following quote:

It’s like when girls fight. It’s not as cool as when boys do it. Like when boys talk about having fucked someone, they are cool, but when a girl does it, she is a slut. The more girls do that is bad, the more people look down upon you. (Anika, 18 years old)

The girls make a distinction between what constitutes normal and legitimate violence in boys and in girls, displaying an understanding that excessive use of violence by the latter is less acceptable (see also Honkatukia et al., 2006). Female violent interactions consist mostly of less overtly brutal attacks, such as verbal insults, pushing, and hair pulling, rather than severe hitting or kicking that causes serious bodily damage, with the use of weapons also being rare ³ (Flekkoy, 2000; Kongstad, 2008). These observations are supported by crime statistics that show girls aged 15 to 19 as being convicted largely for violent offenses not resulting in bodily injury ⁴ (Statistics Denmark, 2014). Excessive violence can be counterproductive for creating social ties or powerful positioning and can, in itself, lead to marginalization or social exclusion. This idiosyncrasy was experienced by another informant, Louise, aged 15, who frequently engaged in violent incidents:

It’s good that people fear you, because then they don’t just beat you up, but it’s not nice when people walk away thinking you are a violent psychopath.

The gendered limits to the instrumental function of violence are emphasized when girls reach their late teens. The social meaning of violence changes with bodies marked by gender and age, and rather than creating proximity to social power, violence has the potential to engender exclusion. Across the data set, a pattern emerged of how gender and age intersect to limit the use of violence among older girls. The participants typically began to engage in street-based violence at ages 12 to 14, peaked at ages 14 to 16, and reduced their violent interactions in their late teens to early 20s. Crime statistics also reflect this, with a significant decrease in the number of young women convicted for violent offenses at ages 20 to 29 in comparison with ages 15 to 19 ⁵ (Statistics Denmark, 2014). The participants expressed an acute awareness of how the excessive use of violence translates into social identities marked by deviance and pathology, especially as girls reach early adulthood.

It’s cool to be that type having respect until you are . . . like, 16. That was the time I really started thinking about it, like this is not good anymore. I wanted people to like respect me, but not be afraid of me and thinking, “She is, like, crazy and all.” (Susan, 19 years old)

Lina explained that violence on her part was most frequent in her mid-teens yet was gradually supplanted by a tough demeanor and threatening verbal interaction. At the time of our interviews, she found her past behavior embarrassing and childish: “Today when I meet girls doing that whole ‘Wallah, I will beat you up,’ I think, ‘Take it easy girl, grow up, stop pretending to be someone you are not.’ But I was just the same [laughs].” For Lina, the use of violence is in the past and, although instrumental in her teens for creating social ties and protection, is less compatible with her age and lifestyle at 20 years old.

Ethnic Mimicry

Most of Lina’s friends in adolescence were ethnic minority youths of Middle Eastern origin. The following quote suggests a racialized hierarchy between the young people within her “ghetto”:

I have never really hung out with Danes. Danish boys were like those geeks you would always target. That is what is really happening in the Danish ghettos, with Danish kids, or just Danish people; the Danish race is, like, nothing. I have nothing to say. Like once, it was really bad, but we just took this guy’s dog. [Lina’s group said] “Give me that dog and fuck off.” [The Danish boy said] “But my mother paid 5000 for it” [mimics a high pitched voice]. [Lina’s group said] “Fuck off” [mimics a deep, threatening voice]. And then it was just our dog. It was sick, I mean really, really tough. This is the hard life.

In the quote, Lina claims that ethnic Danish children are marginalized and discriminated against, and she includes herself in the group that has “nothing to say.” Paradoxically, however, she also includes herself in the group perpetrating the discrimination and harassment of Danish children exemplified by stealing a dog valued at the equivalent of US$700. It is hardly a generalized empirical fact that such racism takes place. It is, however, a significant experience for Lina, and one that precipitated her desire for inclusion in the group with the power to protect, exclude, or subject youths to violence and humiliation in her social environment. As a result of her mixed ancestry, she has a fairly dark complexion, and this racial marker converts into membership in the group of boys from the Middle East who dominate her block. She desires not only acceptance and protection from them but to feel a sense of inclusivity in their close-knit families and friendship ties. She experiences ambivalent feelings between her Danish origin and her desire for inclusion in the unity of Arabic boys and families, as expressed in the following quote:

I started building a front, started to become someone else. Saying Arab words, dying my hair, talking like them. You’ve seen those girls saying “wallah” and stuff? I was ashamed about being Danish, and my Jewish father. I would eat pork, but always, like, hiding it. I really admired the lifestyle, the families, the unity, the brotherhood always protecting you. Maybe also a kind of purity.

Lina was drawn to the Arabic and Muslim lifestyle predominant in her neighborhood, and although conflicted as a teenager, evidenced by her description of “building a front” and eating pork in hiding, she nonetheless desired to be like them. Lina’s narrative gives insight into the way she has embodied the discursive practices of her social terrain and how situated patterns of power and powerlessness inform her desire to be part of the perceived unity of her ethnic minority peers. As an ethnic Dane, she risks victimization and marginalization, yet as part of the group, she takes up a position in proximity to the social power and safety she desires.

A similar narrative is found in Stine’s description of growing up in Mjølnerparken in Copenhagen. Mjølnerparken is also defined as a ghetto, and Stine reported converting to Islam at the age of 11. Unlike Lina, however, Stine is ethnic Danish and has archetypically Nordic features, with pale skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. Her narrative conveys a similarly positive attitude to the values of the Muslim lifestyle and an embodied desire to adopt this way of living: “For me it is about values. They don’t drink, you cannot smoke weed, and girls should respect themselves.” Despite her surety, for long periods in her youth, she vacillated between wearing a jilbab ⁶ and a head scarf for months at a time, while wearing makeup and rather sexualized clothes, such as tight shirts and short dresses, for the remaining period. Her appropriations of ethnic markers were temporal and situated and aligned with the social and heterosexual relations she prioritized at any given moment. At the age of 18 to 19, when Stine participated in this study, she seemed determined to maintain her Islamic identity and lifestyle, conveyed by her clothing, her eating habits, and the decorations of her small apartment, with its ornaments and pictures of Mecca.

In the study, the young women categorized as ethnic minority mostly originate from the Middle East, and they all refer to having mostly ethnic minority friends and peer group affiliations. None of them seemed oriented toward ethnic Danish affiliations or engaged in noticeable tactics of ethnic Danish mimicry. Differing slightly from Stine and Lina’s more extensive ethnic mimicry, other young women of mixed ethnic origin largely tampered with body markers to create situational proximity to ethnic minority youth. Anika, who has a Danish father and a Greenlandic mother, describes dying her hair so that she “looks more like a perker” (derogatory slang for ethnic minority youth). Anika self-identifies as ethnic Danish, yet racial markers such as her dark hair and skin are accentuated for situated positionings with social proximity to ethnic minority youth. Nonetheless, these situated tactics of ethnic mimicry also entail a great deal of domestic conflict related to loyalty and belonging within families that identify themselves as Danish. The two girls who converted to Islam both described protracted struggles with their mothers to obtain acceptance of their choices. For Anika, the incongruity of her racial identification creates situated confusion, as the following quote exemplifies: “So when I am with my friends or my boyfriend, it looks all normal. And then when I’m walking with my dad, people look all confused because he is white and I’m not.” Also Louise, who is ethnic Danish, mentioned that because of her dark hair and slightly dark complexion, she is often mistaken for being an ethnic minority. She appeared nonchalant about this, however, explaining, “I hang out with these guys all the time, so it’s OK, but it’s a bit strange because I’m, like, completely Danish.” For Louise, her ethnic minority positioning also appears to be situated. In conversation with me, an ethnic Danish researcher, she stressed that she is “completely Danish,” whereas in other social relations—including intimate heterosexual relations—she becomes situationally positioned to fit in with ethnic minority peers.

Conversely, some ethnic Danish girls apply a variation of this by emphasizing their ethnic Danish affiliation. Approximately half of the ethnic Danish girls stated having mostly ethnic Danish friends and only ethnic Danish boyfriends. They also gave examples of how minority ethnic labeling, such as being called “Pocahontas” or being asked where they come from, is used as a means of alienation to precipitate conflict. These girls actively distance themselves from ethnic minority affiliation, rejecting minorization in relation to both ethnicity and class. These practices suggest that ethnic positioning constitutes a significant site of power struggle among marginalized youth and that ethnic markers are both altered and emphasized in tactics for social mastery.

Power clusters around certain social categories (Crenshaw, 1991), and in this section, I have demonstrated how some of the young women alter racial and ethnic markers to appropriate social categories that hold social power. The analysis illustrates how this quest for social mastery exceeds a rational orientation toward inclusion, safety, and powerful social modalities and instead works as an embodied desire for the social categories that appear normal and appropriate in a specific context. The social organization of the terrain is embodied, and in turn, female bodies are manipulated to access positions of power and relevance. Altering hair color and skin complexion, speaking in accordance with the norms of the culture being emulated, appropriating a certain style of (body) language, and even converting to Islam can be viewed as tactics of social mastery in a terrain organized in gendered and racialized patterns of power and subordination.

Minimizing Femininity

I was like one of the boys, you know like baggy and boy-like. I would say stuff like “Shit, Slyman, you have a really big nose” [spoken with a deep voice and a southern suburbs accent]. I wasn’t like one of those [girls] giving myself to them, being all pretty and stuff, no way. I just came in my North Face jacket and my hair in a braid. I didn’t show anything and I didn’t get smart with them. I was part of it, like one of them. I knew their families and all.

Lina described being part of a peer group that consisted mostly of young ethnic minority boys, where she experiences being “one of them.” Lina takes up a position that she described as “easygoing smoker,” wearing clothes that reveal few feminine body markers such as breasts or buttocks, abstaining from using makeup, and never “giving anything” of herself sexually. It is noticeable that when she referred to conversations taking place in this social environment, her voice changed to a deeper, more assertive one with a distinctive southern suburb accent. Her appearance, her (body) language, and her descriptions of interactions with the boys display an understanding of how to create proximity to the boys and their style while still retaining aspects of her femininity, such as the braided hair. She wants access, not as a sexualized other but as one of them, entering into their social spaces and practices as an equal. Lina becomes “one of them” by creating distance to the discourse of femininity that permeates the hypermasculine terrain. In this environment, femininity is perceived as the negation of strength, agency, and social power, and females are reduced to objects of male fantasies of power and sexuality. Her narrative suggests a careful reading and negotiation of her social terrain, the organization of powerful positions, and her potential for establishing positions of social power. Within the limits of a binary gender matrix, she manages to create proximity to their style and gendered becomings, which I categorize as tactics of minimizing femininity.

Approximately half of the participants used the term “tomboy” ⁷ in defining themselves, particularly in their descriptions of childhood and their early teens. Being a tomboy implies seeking male friendships and showing lack of interest in clothes, makeup, gossip, and girls’ “silly conflicts.” ⁸ All the participants described friendships with boys as important, and approximately half of them stated that male friendships are easier than those with other girls. As one girl stated, “Boys are for fun and trouble—girls are all about competition” (Minnah, 15 years old). The narratives concerning male–female friendships give an insight into how other gender discourses are mobilized in these relationships that make friendship and equality possible.

In descriptions of female friendships, the young women in the study explicitly distanced themselves from what they generally defined as “girly girls” (see also Moesby-Johansen, 2004; Natland, 2006). In the subject position “girly girl,” it appears that femininity has crystalized in forms of extreme vulnerability, passivity, and preoccupation with ideals relating to the body, (body) language, and style. Natland argues that marginalized girls take up an oppositional femininity, which they primarily perceive superior to the “girly girls,” because they lack the resources to accomplish femininity as prescribed by dominant discourses. By contrast, I would rather argue that girls distance themselves from femininity due to the negative connotations it carries in the hypermasculine terrain. Rather than claiming that the girls attempt to define themselves through an oppositional discourse, I consider them to utilize a range of tactics related to minimizing femininity to accomplish social mastery and safety in their social terrain (see also Miller, 2002). Within the limits of the binary gender categories, which in this environment cannot be transgressed in meaningful and empowering ways, they instead successfully position themselves by creating proximity to hypermasculinity and integrating a hypermasculine style into their gender performances.

Lina described an incident when she harassed another girl, which amply conveys how the appropriation of hypermasculinity translates into misogynist practices targeting other girls.

Like we would scare the pretty little girls from the well-off areas. Like yelling at them, “What are you looking at, you slut?” [in a deep, affirmative voice]. And she would be all scared and shaking trying to ride her bike. And we would, like, continue, “Just kidding, you little bitch.” And you just know, she will never go near the station again. Poor thing.

This incident of name calling and scaring a “girly girl” exemplifies how a hypermasculine performance of style and (body) language and the use of derogatory and misogynistic names such as “slut” and “bitch” are incorporated into threatening and violent practices toward other girls. Lina uses a hypermasculine script to subordinate the “pretty little girls from well-off areas,” momentarily reversing hierarchies of gender and class. This narrative exemplifies how Lina perceives girls adhering to dominant discourses of femininity as passive and vulnerable and why she feels she needs to distance herself from such positioning.

As the girls reach their late teens, it appears that these subjectivities marked by hypermasculinity in the form of persona and violent dominating behavior grow increasingly at odds with dominant discourses of femininity. Natland identifies a similar pattern in her study of Norwegian girls, referring to this as a process of “re-feminization” (Natland, 2006, p. 174). As the girls mature, their attempts to appropriate the hypermasculine script are increasingly challenged, and their adopted mannerisms and attitudes lead to social exclusion and positions marked by deviance and pathology (Henriksen, 2013). The instrumental function of applying tactics of minimizing femininity is reduced, and the young women apply other tactics to establish safety and social mastery.

Hyperfemininity

Lina did not spend all her time hanging out with the guys from her block applying tactics of minimizing femininity. From Lina’s description of her teenage years, it seems she also positioned herself through dominant discourses of femininity, keeping her hair long and using makeup together with caring about her looks. She said, “I have always been good looking and I have known it. I was slim, had a good shape, [was] pretty, and I cared about my style.” Her narrative even suggests situated positioning within a hyperfeminine script, the mirror image of hypermasculinity, where beauty and heterosexual desirability are emphasized in “super-girly” performances (Paechter, 2006). The hyperfeminine ideal idealizes slim, voluptuous, and well-managed bodies with polished nails, well-maintained (or assiduously removed) hair, visible makeup, and clothes and accessories that radiate an image of caring about your style. Hyperfemininity allows young women to access male spaces through heterosexual relations and desirability, although its participation could be seen as being confined to highly gendered and sexualized ways.

From the age of approximately 16, Lina associated with a group of female friends who dated young men involved in gang-related crime and violence, allowing them to gain access to a glamorous lifestyle of fast cars and steady cash flow. She drew a clear contrast between her life in the suburbs hanging out with the boys and the more affluent life that centered mostly on nightlife in Copenhagen.

My friend Camilla was dating this really good-looking Palestinian who owned a lot of restaurants, had lots of money. He was recently deported after an escape attempt from Vestre Prison; maybe you heard about him? Anyway, we had a luxury life, drove in limousines and big cars, we went clubbing with private tables and bottles of champagne. A cool life, we never spent any money. Camilla was married to him, and I was just her best friend. I never gave anything, like, sexually; I just went along with it. Hotels and lots of cash. We weren’t used to it; we came from the ghetto. We never had that kind of luxury life.

It appears that at ages 16 to 19, situated tactics of minimizing femininity in one context takes place simultaneously with situated tactics of hyperfemininity in another context. When Lina went to Copenhagen for a night out, she would dress up, “hot but not in a slutty way showing it all, more like tight jeans and high heels.” Again, she emphasized the importance of having control over her sexual availability: “For example, when guys would hit on us, we would like open our mouth and say ‘Who the fuck are you?’ [pronounced in a deep voice and with a steady look].” The contradiction between a body communicating femininity and heterosexuality, and a (hidden) femininity with the power to dominate, set limits, and use violence, presents itself as being an important feature in Lina’s narrative. By wearing clothes communicating femininity, she gains access to the heterosexual gaze and desire, while maintaining the power to set the limits in terms of who and how.

The situated hyperfeminine subject position was pursued by all the girls to some extent. Some participants shared photos taken with their mobile phones that displayed hyperfeminine positionings at private parties and when going out. As mentioned, one young woman shifted between wearing a jilbab at one meeting and wearing short skirts, high heels, and visible makeup at the next meeting. For her, the positioning was more temporal than situated, in the sense that hyperfemininity was taken on for weeks at a time rather than in specific contexts. On reaching their late teens and early 20s, some girls pursued a more fixed hyperfeminine positioning, revealed by Facebook photo montages of the young women posing in highly sexualized ways, their faces fully made up and their clothes accentuating their femininity. Four participants had their breasts surgically enlarged, which I perceive as body modification informed by a hyperfeminine script. Lina did not pursue the hyperfeminine positioning. At 19, she converted to Islam and committed herself to a Muslim lifestyle devoid of drugs and violence, and the situational hyperfeminine positionings were replaced by a more fixed positioning as “a Danish Muslim,” communicated by wearing a head scarf and jilbab.