ATS1281 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: 2014 Isla Vista Killings, Heterosexuality, Victimology
8 May 2018
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UNDERSTANDING CRIME: LECTURE 9
Feminist Criminology (Gender & Crime)
Overview
• Key concepts: Gender vs Sex
• Early theoretical perspectives on female offending
• Feminist research on female offending
• Feminist research on the victimisation of women
• Feminist perspectives on why men offend
Se vs Geder
• Foundation of feminist criminology (and indeed, feminist theory) is distinction
etee gede ad se
• Sex as a biological classification (ie. Female/male/intersex) – assigned at birth,
reflection of biological characteristics
• Gender as a social construct – a set of historically and culturally produced
characteristics and attributes assigned to the sexes
• Idea of what it is to be a man/woman or identification
• Ifluees peoples ehaiou
• Gender and sex are not the same thing
Early Theoretical Perspectives on Female Offending
• Biological positivism (Week 3)
• Core argument = women commit less crime than men because they are less
developed and have less scope for engaging in deviant behaviour
• Most common form of female offending argued to be prostitution
• Focus on biological differences endured despite the fact that the ideas of Lombroso
and Ferrero were otherwise largely discredited
• Many early theoretical perspectives were also heavily sexualised –
promiscuity/prostitution
• Thomas (1923) argued that social disorganisation was caused by rapid social change
(eg. Durkheim) undermined social constraints for women leading to deviance which
manifested as promiscuity
• Pollak (1961) argued that low female rates of offending could be explained by their
biological predisposition to deception and this is reflected in the type of crime they
commit
• Poisoning, infanticide, blackmail
Key Points
• Early theoretical perspectives relied on folk wisdom (women being deceptive) and
stereotypes rather than rigorous empirical research
• Elsewhere in criminology
• oe ee eithe iisile o peset ol as postitutes or marginal or
contingent figures. Further when women were discussed, it was in crude
sexist stereotyped which were widely and thoughtlessly dismissed
(Heindensohn 1966: 161-162 as quoted in Newburn 2017: 320)
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Frances Heidensohn
• 1968 article in the British Journal of Sociology drew attention to theoretical dilemma
at the heart of this neglect
• Sociological theories of offending increasingly came to view it as normal but applying
these theoies to feale deliue as poleati eause it as oth
statistically unusual and also deemed role-iappopiate :
• Ie. Delinquency viewed as unfeminine, but normal male behaviour
• Why the neglect?
• Ciiologists ae to oatiise deliuet ahiso
• Men historically occupied almost all of the senior positions in criminology for
most of 20th Cetu…gede ialae otiues to eist toda
• Infrequency and mundane nature of most female offending
• Preserve integrity of dominant theoretical paradigms by ignoring cases that
defy their logic
Enter Feminist Criminologies
• Feminist criminologies emerge in 1970s
• Woes offedig
• Women offend less than men due to cultural and social conditions
surrounding them
• Victimisation of women
• Hidden figure of crime: failed to capture a lot of what was going on
• Crime that was much more likely to affect women than men often
went undetected
• Thought of as a piate issue ot a puli issue, a as issue to sot
out ith his ife
• Natue of oes eoutes ith the iial justie sste
• Inadequacy of the criminal justice system in providing support for
women
• Patriarchy
• Aouted fo the ifluee of gede o es offedig ehaiou
• How men act
• Why they act that way
• What triggers them to act this way
• Focus on gender as a social construct as opposed to biological differences
• Influenced by wider developments in feminist thought/activism
• Early focus on opportunities created by changing gede oles ie. eaipatio
thesis; see Feda Adles Sisters in Crime)
Carol Smart (1976) Women, Crime and Criminology
• Shifted focus from imparting changing gender roles to understanding criminalisation
and control of women as a product of patriarchal structures
• Patiah defied as
• a se/gede sste i hih e doiate oe ad hat is osideed
asulie is oe highl alued tha hat is osideed feiie…[As] a
system it uses a wide array of social control policies and practices to ratify
ale poe ad to keep gils ad oe suodiate to e. Chese-Lind
2006: 9 quoted in Newburn 2017: 326)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
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