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This chapter examines confrontations between rival political activists in the street. Political activists regularly clashed with their opponents for the transient control of public space. Groups policed their own territory and invaded that of their enemy. Symbolic confrontations were frequent, and uniforms, insignia, posters and songs ensured that groups were ‘seen’ in enemy territory. These invasions frequently led to violence as activists fought off the intruder. A variety of weapons were used, from knuckledusters and knives to clubs and revolvers. Fighting in the street was interpreted according to conceptions of acceptable behaviour rooted in notions of manliness. The use of offensive violence was discouraged as behaviour unbecoming of a man. However, defensive violence, framed as a punishment, was permitted as a necessary corrective to the opponent’s loss of self-control.

This chapter provides a sense of what girls' violence “looks like from the street” by focusing on how girls in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods experience causing physical harm, as well as the meanings they assign to doing so. It also considers the factors that drive a girl to engage in a fight, how girls construct and negotiate elements of identity and status through the practice of physical violence, and what instrumental value that engaging in violence has for them. It shows how fighting solidifies peer relations for girls and allows them to express their youthful exuberance. Moreover, it discusses the involvement of the criminal justice system in the life of a girl and the ways that street fighting serves as a kind of proving ground for girls to build up a sense of invulnerability and fearlessness.

This chapter explores the role played by family and peers in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods in socializing a girl to use violence and supporting her image as a fighter. More specifically, it considers the double-generation dynamic where mother and daughter fight side by side. It shows that there are mothers who had a history of fighting when they were younger, and that some even continue to engage in street fights. It shows that the girls' reliance on peers, female relatives, and even their mothers to come to their aid if outnumbered in a fight is an integral part of the anatomy of girls' violence. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the cultural and social dimensions of the mother-daughter alliance with regard to physical violence.

This book explores the social, cultural, and psychological components of female violence in inner-city neighborhoods on a collective level, as well as the responses to those structuring conditions on an individual level. In order to understand both the psychological and social worlds of violent girls, the author spent almost two years “hanging out” with girls in Melrose Park and Lee, two impoverished urban neighborhoods in Philadelphia. This book examines the reasons why female adolescents in such areas so readily engage in street fights and other forms of physical violence. It considers the instrumental and symbolic value that physical aggression, particularly street fighting, has for girls in inner cities. The text argues that street fighting in poor urban enclaves is not simply a “telltale” sign of individual emotional pathology, but part of carrying out girlhood, and that the girls' relationship to physical aggression is shaped by different cultural standards and social realities associated with race and class. The book also discusses the motivations and experiences of girls involved in the criminal justice system.

This chapter considers the reasons that girls in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods give for fighting, as well as what actually happens when they fight. It examines the “emotional logic” that underlies and organizes girls' thinking when they resort to physical violence and how it intersects with shared issues surrounding race, poverty, and social inequality. It also discusses the instrumental value of alliances into which girls enter with other girls to protect themselves against being physically assaulted or “rolled on” by a group of girls. It shows that many girls seem to think that making the first move in a fight is the best strategy, especially if they are not sure of how good of a fighter their opponent is. In other words, they strongly adhere to the idea of striking first, rather than take a wait-and-see attitude, before displaying their capacity to defend themselves. This chapter concludes with an analysis of the girls' use of weapons, from bat to knife, in street fights.

The most dangerous moment for Caesar in the political crisis that erupted in Rome, while he was occupied with the revolt of Vercingetorix, was the designation of Pompey as ‘consul without colleague’ (consul sine college) at the end of February 52 bc. The destructive and uncontrollable street fighting that led to the assassination of Clodius at Bovillae (18 January 52) was diametrically opposed to Caesar's interests. It was not in his interest to appear as the instigator of a subversive faction such as Clodius', nor was it in his interest that the deleterious activities of that faction should push Pompey to seek the backing of the factio (and vice versa). What most conflicted with his intention never to break with Pompey was the street fighting: it could have lead to a state of emergency (senatus consultum ultimum), with effective power in the hands of the proconsul stationed at the gates of Rome — Pompey. And this is precisely what happened, precipitated by the murder of Clodius.

This book has investigated the confluence of social, cultural, and individual factors that account for the physical violence among girls in the low-income neighborhoods of Melrose Park and Lee in Philadelphia. It has shown that girls resort to street fighting for reasons that are far more complex than the stereotypes and generalities that have often been put forward to explain their aggressive behavior imply. It has provided evidence that youth violence in low-income neighborhoods, whether carried out by males or females, is in large part a reaction to a sense of actual and perceived threat, as well as a compensatory attempt to increase a sense of security in both concrete and psychological terms. This concluding chapter offers some suggestions to truly understand the dynamics of girls' violence patterns in inner cities and what it means when girls fight.

There were several firsts for Allen Jones during the crucial months of summer 1965. He took his first sniff of heroin, he had real sex, and became an older brother for the first and only time in his life. All three of these events changed his small world. His mother gave birth to his baby brother, Robert F. Jones, later to be known around the city as Boogaloo Bob for his basketball skills. He would grow up to be good enough to play for the Globetrotters before injuries and weight problems would eventually slow him down. During this time something was always going on in the streets. He remembers one summer afternoon when word was out that there was going to be a street fight in the Patterson Houses, with one side of the Projects against the other. They called this a “shame battle.” This sort of thing happened regularly in the Lester Patterson Houses.