8 Ball Chicks : A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters [Hardcover]

Gini Sikes (Author)

Book Description

Dismissed by the police as mere adjuncts to or gofers for male gangs, girl gang members are in fact often as emotionally closed off and dangerous as their male counterparts. Carrying razor blades in their mouths and guns in their jackets for defense, they initiate drive-by shootings, carry out car jackings, stomp outsiders who stumble onto or dare to enter the neighborhood, viciously retaliate against other gangs and ferociously guard their home turf.

But Sikes also captures the differences that distinguish girl gangs-abortion, teen pregnancy and teen motherhood, endless beatings and the humiliation of being forced to have sex with a lineup of male gangbangers during initiation, haphazardly raising kids in a household of drugs and guns with a part-time boyfriend off gangbanging himself. Veteran journalist Gini Sikes spends a year in the ghettos following the lives of several key gang members in South Central Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Milwaukee. In 8 Ball Chicks, we discover the fear and desperate desire for respect and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place--and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the catch-22 of their existence.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"TJ had never killed anyone before, but then who knew for sure? Sticking a pump shotgun out of a moving car and blasting into a crowd--you could never really tell which bodies fell because of you, whose life you were accountable for..." The cover may be gaudy, but this account of girl gangbangers is down-to-earth and refreshingly free of melodrama. In order to write 8 Ball Chicks journalist Gini Sikes spent a year hanging out with girl gangs in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and San Antonio. As Salon writes, "Sikes's analysis is sparse and not particularly illuminating ('Without an effective national policy for youth, kids fell through the cracks in droves'), but she's got a good ear and the sense to step back and let her subjects seize the microphone most of the time."

From Publishers Weekly

Imagine a world in which teenage girls hang obituaries on their bedroom walls instead of posters. Sikes, former Mademoiselle senior writer and producer of the youth-oriented PBS series In the Mix, knows that world, having spent a year "kicking it" with girl gangs in three U.S. cities (Los Angeles, San Antonio and Milwaukee). According to Sykes, 10% of the American teenagers involved in gangs are girls. These young women organize and identify themselves through their own gangs, which are often auxiliaries of male gangs. They deal drugs, steal, fight and retaliate viciously against their rivals. Sikes's relationship to her subjects ranges from anthropologist to big sister, and her portraits are sympathetic and genuine. The reportage hits hardest when she implicates herself in the events she describes. A party she attends in South Central Los Angeles is rousted by the cops and she is forced, along with the Crip set she is studying, to kneel and put her hands up: "The action felt strange, humiliating. I noticed how much it hurt on the concrete." Her writing is brisk and accessible, though short on analysis or conclusions?rather like a Mademoiselle feature. Still, Sikes offers a convincing, unsettling view of a domain that most would as soon avoid.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st Anchor Books ed edition (December 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385474318
• ISBN-13: 978-0385474313
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,734,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Even in the gang culture women are treated with no respect.., February 12, 2003

By 

Det / Sgt Charles Russo (Kearny, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 8 Ball Chicks (Paperback)

A lot of people ask me about women in gangs. After reading Sikes book, I am able to fill in a lot of the blanks concerning women as "gang-bangers." It was tough to read about how some of these beautiful young girls were treated. You have to get back out there and write a sequel, please. Thank you Ms. Sikes, good job.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Choking and brutal..., April 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: 8 Ball Chicks (Paperback)

8 Ball Chicks is a book that i can't but down, I read Do or Die and it's nothing compared to that. I was chocked to learn about what gang girls go through and what's so disturbing, is that they feel like they don't have a way out, no education, money, they have kids at 15 years old from gang rape and they don't even report it. Reading this book just made me want to continue in that field and maybe be able to help because even if you don't know them, you read about there lives and at some parts, i was frustrated and at others, i just wanted to cry because it's so real and powerful. Gini did a good job and i give her great apprciation for writing a book so real about what people try so hard to hide. Read it...

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly haunting, January 10, 2002

By 

"ladytronic" (South Dakota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 8 Ball Chicks (Paperback)

This is the best book I've read in a long time. I couldn't put it down. It was both fascinating and frightening to look into the world of girls in gangs. It's very sad how most of the time neither male gang members nor police officers see any value in the girls, most of whom are depicted as being intensely intellignet and insightful. They're a group of people who slip through the cracks, so to speak; they're neglected by social workers, police think they're worthless, and male gang members think there's nothing wrong with beating a girl, even if she's pregnant. This book shocked me.