Deborah Prothrow-Stith is a Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of the Practice of Public Health and Associate Dean for Diversity for the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is a nationally recognized public health leader. As a physician working in inner-city Boston, she broke new ground with her efforts to have youth violence defined as a public health problem; not just a criminal justice issue. Her passion for prevention was not satisfied with the emergency room work of “stitching people up and sending them out.” She turned to public health and, with others, created a social movement to prevent violence that has had an impact on Boston and the nation. In 1987, Governor Dukakis appointed her as the first woman Commissioner of Public Health for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In that role, she established the first Office of Violence Prevention in a state department of public health, expanded prevention programs for HIV/AIDS and increased drug treatment and rehabilitation programs.
As a chief spokesperson for a national movement to prevent violence and a frequent speaker in national media and public forums, Dr. Prothrow-Stith supports the application of rigorous scientific methods to strengthen violence prevention programs. She developed and wrote The Violence Prevention Curriculum for Adolescents, a fore-runner of violence prevention curriculum for schools and communities. She is the author of Deadly Consequences, the first book to present the public health perspective on violence to a mass audience. She has authored and/or co-authored over 80 publications on medical and public health issues.
Those of you who know me in my professional life should remember that I booked her for our 2nd Annual Strengthening Youth and Families Conference to speak regarding the first book I read from her, Murder is No Accident: Understanding and Preventing Youth Violence in America. It was an honor to hear her speak about the topic, and get to diagloug in person with her regarding the issue.
However, I just finished her second book, Sugar & Spice and No Longer Nice: How we can stop girls' violence, and found it a very good read with some extremely relevant information.
I would like to draw attention to a few of her key points.
She talked about there being 3 Waves of Youth Violence in the United States, pointing to the First Wave of young male violence in urban poor neighborhoods, such as in Chicago, New York and other big cities. We're all familiar with that wave. The Second Wave is the one characterized by the suburban, rural, smaller-town feel, such as Columbine. The Third Wave she points to is with girls and young women, the topic of today's blog. (She hinted at her thoughts toward a Fourth Wave, that of much younger children and violence.)
Perhaps the most interesting idea was revealed when she spoke about the Risk Factors that foster youth violence. They include:
1.Poverty
2. Access to Guns
3. Alcohol/Drug Use
4. Biological/Organic Abnormalities
5. Culture of Violence
The first 4 risk factors are equally evident for both boys and girls (girls and boys have similar rates of poverty, similar access to guns, etc.). She pointed to the last one as on the rise for girls, that our society is now actively "marketing violence to girls," a la Zena the Warrior Princess and such. While violence has always been marketing to some degree to boys, it's now being "sold" to girls more and more.
Dr. Prothrow-Smith expounds on this obvious connection. In her view, violence is everywhere, spreading in waves. All that's needed is a "precipitating event" -- plus a gun:
"This epidemic of youth violence appears... to now have a second wave," she continued. "It is in small towns and rural communities. The second wave is a bit different, but there are some striking similarities to the first wave: If you take a troubled child, a child at risk, and you take a society that glamorizes explosive responses to anger, add guns and a precipitating event - whether it is he said/she said, a boyfriend/girlfriend issue or a child being ostracized - all of that equals a dangerous situation whether you are in an urban context, a suburban, context or a small town."
It's an epidemic, and it's infecting everyone, even girls.
If this epidemic is like others, such as the AIDS epidemic, the second wave probably won't peak as high as the first wave, but may follow the same pattern unless there is some intervention.
After the second wave, Prothrow-Stith warned, "It is not unthinkable that there may be a third wave to this epidemic that has to do with girls and violence. One quarter of juveniles arrested for violent crimes are girls. That is very unusual."
Seeking to explain why girls are now engaging in violent expressions of anger, Prothrow-Stith cited social-cultural issues as a factor.
What is it that forces nice little girls to commit crimes?
It's... It's.... The Power Rangers! In pink!
"The Power Rangers are [dressed] in pink, yellow and light blue...There are movies now where women are getting beat up and beating people up. It is an interesting challenge for those of us who are looking for testosterone poisoning, Y-chromosome problem or genetic influences [as an explanation for youth violence]; we can't ignore social-cultural issues."
The most robust risk factor for youth violence, according to Prothrow-Stith, is being a witness and/or a victim of violence. She also warned about our society's glamorization of violence.
"This is a society that celebrates violence, that celebrates the super hero choosing [to blow] people up to solve problems. So we teach our children to admire violence and to feel justified by any use of violence as long as they are solving a problem that they have," she said. "It is a very interesting set of messages. Television and movies come to mind almost immediately...but it is not just television and movies; it is in some ways who we are. Mean is popular in the United States...phrases like 'in your face' are an example. It is in our sports and politics."
The key take away point I got from the whole book could be found in part two, entitled Taking On the Challenge. It begins with Chapter 6, Tips for Parents. During this chapter the authors describe the ART model of parenting for raising girls and advocate for it serving as a framework for getting the help needed to be a caring parent and providing your children with the help that they need. ART (of course) is an acronym for:
A: Act as a role model-do rather than tell; demonstrate rather than dictate.
R: Reach out to others-build a community of caring adults around your child.
T: Talk and listen-communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.
To me, we should apply ART to all that we do. After all, life is nothing more than the ART of living after all, isn't it?
If you have a chance to look at her work, despite whether you agree with her argument or not, I think you'll find it interesting, and find some take away points no matter what the situation.
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