Gender Flashcards
Statistics
- Women appear to commit fewer crimes (less focus on their criminality)
- Women’s crimes are less likely to be reported and prosecuted
- Gender patterns in crime – 80% of convicts are male. By 40 – 9% vs. 32%
Chivalry thesis
- Chivalry thesis – justice agents are male and socialized to be chivalrous. System is lenient to women
- For – Flood – Page et al found 1/11 females vs. 1/7 males prosecuted
- Against – Farrington and Morris found 408 sentences in magistrates found women not treated leniently
Bias against women
• Bias against women – Heidensohn found courts punish women more harshly than males when they deviate from gender norms (7/11 girls referred to care for promiscuity and jury perceptions based on gender roles)
Explaining female crime
• Explaining female crime – biological, functionalist sex role theory, new right, Heidonsohn’s control
Evaluation of explanations
biological assumption
Class and gender deals
for conformity
promises rewards for paid work or gender identity
Liberation thesis
as patriarchy lessens, women will offend more (crime in legitimate structure)
• Evidence – girl gangs
Criminalisation of females
share of arrests increased to one third since 1980. Net widening and prosecution for low level altercation
Evaluation of liberation thesis
underplay role of free will, female crime started rising before women’s liberation
Gender and victimisation
70% of homicide victims are male, women are more likely to victims of intimate partner violence
Masculinity and crime
Messerschmidt says that men have to construct hegemonic masculinity
Winlow’s postmodernity
loss of manual jobs through which masculinity can be expressed
Evaluation of masculinity
doesn’t explain all men all the time
