The Fatal Femmes Fighting Championship is a mixed-martial arts event for women only. These violent women punch, kick, strike, slap, choke, and "ground-and-pound." It's brutal ultimate fighting – "They're almost more brutal, more barbaric, than the guys," says one mixed-martial arts fan in the special summer issue of Time (2007). Fatal Femmes Fighting hasn't found the right press machine yet, but once they do the "fight club for girls" could take off.
Are women getting more violent? Three possibilities regarding fight club for girls:
- Women are more physically aggressive now than they used to be.
- Violent women are simply revealing, not suppressing, their true selves.
- Society is finally noticing the violent tendencies of aggressive women.
Related to Fatal Femmes Fighting is the behavior of aggressive teenage girls in juvenile detention centers. Psychologists are learning that girls exhibit more aggression, depression, and psychopathology than boys in juvenile detention facilities.
Beyond Fatal Femmes Fighting to Aggressive Teenage Girls
Psychologist Elizabeth Cauffman, associate professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California (Irvine), was surprised to find that girls in juvenile detention centers are twice as likely as boys to be aggressive. They're just as likely to have problems with drugs and alcohol. Girls in juvenile detention centers are more likely to "externalize their problems through aggression." They say they have a "short fuse" and want to "get back at someone."
According to Science Daily, "incarcerated girls were two and a half times as likely as boys to describe levels of depression and anxiety that may require treatment, and twice as likely to have a number of somatic complaints, such as physical aches and pains."
Girl Juvenile Offenders Exhibit More Risk for Psychopathology
Ohio State University's Stephen Gavazzi found that girls attempt to manipulate others, refuse accountability, and are less likely to take responsibility for their actions. They're more likely to have friends in trouble with the law.
"Our results may help explain the rather widespread notion among practitioners who work with troubled youth that girls are harder to work with than boys. The reason is that girls often have more numerous and more serious problems to address," says Gavazzi. "Girls are being affected by their families in a much more pronounced way than boys. In many cases, girls are being detained precisely because of the dysfunction within their families."
Boys are more likely to commit "traditional" offenses, such as thefts or assaults on strangers. Girls are more likely to commit family-related offenses and get out of control at home.
Girls & Women Getting Violent
Maybe psychologists are finally studying violence in girls that was there all along; maybe women are getting more violent – such as the Fatal Femmes Fighting. Either way, women are now more than ever a force to be reckoned with.
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