It Hurts to Be a Girl - Article Example

Nine middle school youths were observed and one-on-one interviewed by the researcher to meet the scope of the study. They are interrogated about their family lives back home, and their responses are tragic as they bring out difficult times that they face. They are compassionate about issues their parents face within their family setting, and this makes them afraid of things like marriage and family life. All in all, their main concern is the mistreatment of women and the girl child by men in society which scares them.

In the study, the researcher uses an observation and interviewing process to gather data from his respondents. In this process, the researcher poses questions on what he wants to get information on and subjects it to the respondents who answer it from his knowledge of the question. This method is very good in gathering information while investigating in-depth issues, when there is a need to know how an individual thinks on given topics or issues, on sensitive topics, deepening understanding and explaining statistical data among others despite some of the disadvantages it possesses (Jefford's, 66).

The first advantage is that it is very useful when used to obtain personal information about personal feelings, perceptions, and opinions, for instance, the interviewing of the school girls. Second is that they allow detailed questioning on the subject under study to respondents. Next is that they achieve a high response rate from the respondents. The other one is that the respondents' own words can be recorded, ambiguity can be clarified and incomplete answers followed up, interviewees cannot be influenced by others and lastly, some interviewees may be unconscious on one in one situation (Jefford, 68). On the other hand, they can be very time-consuming, costly, and more so subjective. In addition, interviewers can give biased information as they interpret questions differently.
The author's participants are a group of nine young women who resided within the neighborhood with both their parents or single parents and boyfriends, some were from bilingual schools, and others from the local community center. The researcher used a sample size of nine schoolgirls to carry out his research. Most of the respondent's parents were unemployed with only one employed.
Domestic abuse of girls has been discussed throughout the article. The author says, “I turned this critical lens on middle school girls. What I found is that their lives are also saturated with domestic abuse.” This has brought about the topic under the scope of the study by the researcher since throughout the study the interviewer tries to find out ways in which women are mistreated just because of their gender by their men. In addition, he finds out the effects of this domestic violence that their mothers face now and would possibly face in the future. The issue of poverty is also revealed in the article. “In terms of employment, seven of the girls state their mothers are not presently working, nor have they been in the past.” These young girls explain their parents’ work which seems to be paid poorly. Some say they do not want to live the life of their parents. Issues of alcoholism arise too as the girls explain the violence that arises between their parents due to alcoholism. Anne reveals, “My mom and her boyfriend constantly fight because they drink.”

The finding of this research is that domestic violence mostly affects women and children, with the girl child being the most affected group in society. To worsen this, these violations go unreported hence increasing the suffering of the girl child in society. To solve this, proper ways to eradicate these problems should be formulated such as coming up with places to mentor and share with our girls on life issues.
This article is very important in sociology since it focuses on critical social issues that take place in the day-to-day life experienced by different people. It delves into the issues and effects of domestic abuse of middle-aged girls and women in general in society, alcoholism and its effects on a family setting, poverty, as well as gender disparities issues. Read More