Feminist Criminology

Question 1

What is Sex?

Answer 1

The biological components, chromosomal, chemical, and anatomical, that are associated with males and females

Question 2

What is Gender?

Answer 2

A social construct that refers to a set of social roles, attitudes, and beehaviours that describe people of one sec or the anoter

Question 3

What is gender roles?

Answer 3

A set of behaviours that are considered acceptable, appropriate, and desirable for people based on their sex or gender

Question 4

What is gender socialization?

Answer 4

The process by whic males and females are informed about gendered norms and roles in a given society

Question 5

What is gender identity?

Answer 5

A person’s identification, or sense of belonging to a particular sex, biologically, psychologically, and socially

Question 6

What is hegemonic masculinity?

Answer 6

• The version of masculinity that is set apathy from all others
• Considered dominant or ideal within society
  –> Often associated with toughness, bravado, aggression and violence

Question 7

what is emphasized femininity?

Answer 7

• The acceptance of gender inequality
• A need to support the interests and desires of men
• Often associated with empathy, compassion, passivity and focused on beauty and physical appearance

Question 8

Feminist criminology history

Answer 8

• criminology has focused on men
• theories and studies consisted only of men
• women criminality was seen as tangential to the crime problem
• early analyses of women were sexist
• viewed female criminality as a departure from “natural” female behaviour that is maternal, passive and gentle
• female criminals had a pathological defect in their biological makeup or within their psyche
  -social factors were given little to no importance

Question 9

The critique of Cesare lombroso

Answer 9

• females are more primitive than man; female deviants are masculine; female deviants lack maternal qualities

Question 10

Critique of Otto Pollak

Answer 10

• low rates of female deviance die to underreporting and leniency in prosecution and sentencing
• found evidence of female criminality at home and work; ignored potential for male criminality
• women as cunning and deceitful
• linkage of sexual “deceitfulness” to general dishonest

Question 11

What is the chivalry hypothesis?

Answer 11

police and courts deal leniently with women offenders
- research shows this to be a myth

Question 12

What was the critique of W.I Thomas

Answer 12

female deviance caused by removal of social sanctions
- therefore female emancipation should be resisted

Question 13

What are 5 ways that female violence has changed between the 1960s and 1990s

Answer 13

1. women in the 1990s were less likely to act on their own
2. women in the 1990s were more likely to use guns
3. women in the 1990s were more likely to be motivated by a need for money and or drugs
4. Women in the 1990s were more likely to report that they have a family member who has been incarcerated
5. female offenders in the 1950s were less likely to have been arrested before 21

Question 14

women right movement

Answer 14

significantly changed after the movement
- some feminist criminologist believed that if girls were raised like boys and had the same opportunities as boys, their behaviour would be more like that of boys
- would lead to equality in crime

Question 15

Rita Simons women and crime

Answer 15

• a major byproduct of the women right movement will be a high proportion of women who engage in criminal behaviour
• women entrance into the workforce would also increase their probability for white-collar crime
• however, the women rights movement would not increase violent crime

Question 16

Alder: Sister in Crime

Answer 16

• women were committing more crimes and engaging in traditionally male offenses
  -between 1960 and 1972s female arrests increased
  –> burglary
  –> robbery
  –> embezzlement
  –> larceny

Question 17

Liberation thesis

Answer 17

• Adler supported this thesis
• as women were demanding equal opportunity in legitimate endeavours they were also forcing themselves into the world of crime

Question 18

Main criticisms of liberation thesis

Answer 18

1. the empirical research does not support it predictions
2. crime is more common among those women who did not achieve gender equality those trapped in economically marginal positions
3. the liberation thesis did not consider the structural roots of the inequality between men and women

Question 19

Rise of feminist criminology

Answer 19

• gender relations become central to understanding human behaviour including crime
• focus on how gender relations are related to crime
• special emphasis on how crime is related to gender based inequality
• attempt to change structural relationships in society that results in gender discrimination and oppression

Question 20

Where has the gender gap closed?

Answer 20

• women are charged more for sex related crimes
• drug related offences
• property crime (shoplifting)

Question 21

Intersectionality Theory

Answer 21

• created by Kimberly Crenshaw speaking to lived realities of African-american women
• a concept to describe the ways in which various aspects of identity interconnect on multiple and often simultaneous levels
• can form interlocking systems of oppression
• example: how indigenous women go missing and unfound

Question 22

What is liberal feminism?

Answer 22

• focuses on the salience of sex-rile socialization
• more influence early in the feminist criminology

Question 23

What is the critical or radical approach feminism?

Answer 23

• emphasizes the structural inequality in power between men and women
• focus on the role of patriarchy
• currently directs most theory and research within feminist criminology

Question 24

Inside womens correctional facilities

Answer 24

• pains of imprisonment may be much more severe for female offenders
• female offenders adjust to life inside correctional institutions differently than males
• little is known about the inmate social system in Canadian women prisons

Question 25

Patriarchy and crime

Answer 25

radical feminism places patriarchy at the center of its analysis
- has illuminates disparities in sentencing and crime control and victimizations of women by men and their sanctions
- the oppression of women including their criminal victimization is seen as a major cause of female offending
- argues a need for gender-specific theories that take into account the role of patriarchy and the gendered experiences of women
–> one popular theory is media Chesney-linds feminist theory of female delinquency

Question 26

Chesney-lind’s feminist theory of female delinquency

Answer 26

• existing theories only focus on men and don’t take female social experiences into consideration
• does not agree with the liberation perspective
• says that girls are usually the recipients of violence and sexual abuse and can do little to fight back against their abusers
• patriarchy is conducive to such abuse because females are in general objectified as sexual property
• Girls are easily defined as. sexually atteactive by older men
• In addition official action of the juvenile justice system is a major force of oppression and reinforces women’s place in society
• Parents often insist on their daughter arrest
  –> More girls than boys referred to the juvenile court by their parents than by law enforcement
• Escape from abuse is not easy and leads to a pathway to crime for girls
  –> Run away from sexual victimization (Runaways are often returned home by the state)
  –> Once on the street they are forced to commit crimes to survive (Steal money, food, clothing, Prostitution to obtain money, Thus, their survival strategies are criminalized)
• The backgrounds of adult women in prison show virtually all were victims of physical and/or sexual abuse as children
• Over 60 percent were sexually assualted and over hald were raped
• Often ran away and began engaging in prostitution and became addicted to drugs