Reaction Paper on an Article about Criers, Liars, and Manipulators

575 Words2 Pages

Being a feminist, I am going to focus my reaction paper on Criers, Liars, and Manipulators: Probation Officers' Views of Girls by Gaarder, Rodriguez, and Zatz. While I was reading this acticle, I often found myself thinking, “if they only had better options” for not only females, but for all juveniles in the system – despite gender, race, class, etc.
What distresses me the most is the probation officers' view points of young, female offenders – often referring to them as promiscuous, manipulative, liars, sluts, etc. This amount of sexism (i.e. the belief that one gender is superior to another) in our juvenile court not only makes these young females feel inferior (dis-empowering them), but also makes it incredibly difficult for them to receive proper treatment. Instead of labeling these young female juvenile offenders – we should look more closely at their histories, take their stories at face value, and give them the support that they need. The stories told by the probation officers truly made me cringe – assuming that female offenders “play the system” and that they “groan” when ...

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