Bullying and gang violence in female sex workers

Bullying and gang violence in female sex workers

Bullying is an act of mistreating someone to gain or show your worthiness. At the same time, gang violence is the chaos that arises due to bullying or rather rudeness in a given group of people. Female sex workers get engaged in these practices to gain some excellent benefits. Their behavior is influenced by TRA and TPB, which predict and explain their plans and their behavior (Ajzen, 2015). The intentions are based on the readiness of someone to get engaged in a particular behavior, which is based on the beliefs of the female sex workers regarding such a behavior (Hayden, 2019). TRA and TPB are thus influenced by female workers’ attitudes on bullying and gang violence. These subjective norms arise from the social or environmental conditions, volitional control on the behavior as well as behavioral control.

Attitude is a set of beliefs that drive engagement into a particular action, dependent on the results of the outcome. The engagement in action depends on the positivity or negativity of the outcome, which makes attitude as either favorable or unfavorable (Hayden, 2019). If someone has a belief that doing something leads to a favorable result that benefits him/her, then there are high chances of involvement in such activities since they would develop a positive attitude towards such behavior. Conversely, if the belief is of outcome is unfavorable, then the likelihood of participation in such behavior is dismal since the attitude towards it is negative. (Rah et al., 2004). Attitude is an essential belief that influence bullying and gang violence behavior of female sex workers and thus crucial in the evaluation of educational plan to counter this behavior among the female sex workers as the intentions of the behavior influence them.

Subjective norm is also a belief influenced by TRA and TPB that proposes the intentions of the female sex workers to the behavior of bullying and gang violence. It is an influence from the peer group, family members, or even the occupants of their job environment to do things that please them. It is social pressure. They have perceived behaviors that essential people in our lives expect from them (female sexual workers), and thus they are people we please. Therefore sexual workers desire such behaviors due to the expectations of the society around them who are profoundly important to them (Hayden, 2009). Female sex workers thus are engaged in bullying and gang violence not because they are interested in it but due to the pressure of pleasing the society around them, especially their clients. They are both the victims of such behaviors and also the cause of the behavior. Therefore, if the client suggests bullying the female sex workers before paying but with an absurdity of payment, the female sex worker would readily comply with bullying as they, in turn, responds by creating chaos that causes gang violence. However, if the clients approach them peacefully, then the sex workers would have no reason for causing bullying and gang violence.

The peers also influence engagement in bullying and gang violence behaviors among female sexual behaviors. This mostly applies to females who are quite new in the job of sexual work. The new female sexual workers will be forced to adopt the behaviors of others to please them and also which is the expectations of the other sex workers. If the other sex workers are involved in bullying the communities around them to catch the attention of the customers, then the new females will also follow the same trend as per the expectation of others so that they work as a community. This bullying behavior results in gang violence between the sex workers and the community around them who are trying to avoid them from bullying them; the sex workers will fight back the community as a protective mechanism. Therefore, subjective norms is also an essential belief of intentions influence in the evaluation of educational plans to counter bullying and gang violence

The behavior is a result of someone’s intentions to do something, as explained by TRA, though this behavior ought to be under volitional control, which is the willingness of someone to participate in a particular behavior (Hayden, 2019). Therefore, volitional control is a belief influenced by the TRA since it comes from personal reasoning of taking action hence not affected by external conditions. Bullying and gang violence may not be volitional control among female sex workers due to results that might come from this behavior. It is not essential in the evaluation of educational plans to counter bullying among female sex workers since nobody is willing to get involved in something risky to their lives. TPB also influence behavior through construct belief of behavior control. Behavior control is based on perceived control over a given action. It determines how easy or difficult behavior is to undertake (Ajzen, 1991). It is accompanied by a set of control beliefs that assist or instead disrupt someone from getting involved in a specific behavior. It is also not necessary in the evaluation of educational plans to counter bullying among sexual workers since it is a personal perception of particular actions.

In using TRA and TPB in evaluating educational plans to counter bullying and gang violence, attitude, and subjective norms are the most important in the evaluation among female sex workers. The sex workers are driven o such behaviors by the outcomes of the behavior as far as attitude is concerned (Hayden, 2019). Most female sex workers believe that bullying the customers would cause fears to the customers and thus avoiding the harassment from the customers; hence they are sunk to such practice at their jobs. They also believe that creating violence among themselves and the society around them gives them safety and also enables them to survive the harsh treatment from the police officers and rude customers. These are their positive attitudes towards bullying and causing violence; hence they are likely to get involved in this behavior. However, when their expected outcomes of this behavior are unfavorable to them in any way, they would resist engaging in it due to their negative attitude of the behavior.

Female sex workers are also involved in bullying and gang violence due to the influence of the subjective norm. This is a belief of perceived actions due to the expectations of important people to them. These critical people include colleagues or friends in the group and also their bosses. The influence of colleagues at the workplace will influence sex workers to get involved in behaviors such as bullying and gang violence as they believe that by doing this, they will meet expectations of them by their colleagues and also they won’t be isolated from the group. They might also be influenced by gang violence to steal from the people around them as the violence continues. This is maybe due to their belief that they would please their boss when they take the amount of money expected from them by their boss, and the only way to garner this money is through stealing at the violent scene if they fail to raise it at a job scene.

The belief of these sex workers of a favorable outcome to them and the achievement of the expectations from the prestigious society around them gives them the driving force to instill this behavior. Through perceived behavioral control, which contains a set of control beliefs, one can control the performance of a particular behavior (Ajzen, 2002). These control beliefs give the female sex workers confidence and capability of completing the bullying and gang violence behavior since they can weigh on it.

References

Ajzen, I. (2002b). Perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, locus of power, and the theory of planned behavior. Journal of Applied  Social Psychology, 32, 1–20.

Ajzen, I. (2015). The theory of planned behavior is alive and well and no ready to retire: A commentary on Sniehotta, Presseau, and Araujo-Soares. Health Psychology, 9(2) 131–137

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, 50, 179–211.

Hayden, J. (2009). Introduction to health behavior theory (3^rd Ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Rah, J. H., Hasler, C. M., Painter, J. E., & Chapman Novakofski, K. M. (2004). Applying the theory of planned behavior to women’s behavioral attitudes. 36(5) 238-244.