Initiation: First Step into a Gang

After I read "Male Gender and Rituals of Resistance in the Palestinian Intifada," it became apparent to me that the lives that many of the boys in this article, were very similar to American gangs. As many know, when a new recruit wants to join a gang, he or she must be initiated before he or she can be an accepted member of the group. For males, the initiation can be massive beatings, called jump-ins, and for females, sex-ins, which is basically that they have to sleep with one or many men (sometimes members of another gang). This article described that many boys would get themselves beaten time and time again, then join a underground rebellion group. These boys, after receiving these beatings, would then be seen as men with stature and worthy of respect. Just like in American gangs, these boys had to prove themselves by savage beatings before they would be considered gang material, or masculine men. Another American similarity to these beatings, although on a much less severe note, are college fraternities and sororities. It is not necessarily beatings (as far as I know) but rather other, many times unsafe, actions. These activities range from things as simple as a water drinking game to "trust" exercises where the newbie has to do something incredibly dangerous, VERY stupid, and trust the fraternity brother or the sorority sister to keep them safe or save them. I feel that these initiations are incredibly stupid and dangerous, and really have no real point to them. In fact, these initiations are one of the reasons that I refuse to go Greek.