Gender and Crime Flashcards
Miller - focal concerns
Miller suggested that working-class boys were socialised into a number of distinct values that together meant they were more likely than others to engage in delinquent or deviant behaviour. Miller described these values as “focal concerns”.
> Excitement
Toughness
Smartness
Trouble
Autonomy and fate
Heidensohn - control theory
According to Frances Heidensohn, girls are controlled by fathers and other relatives until they are married when they are controlled by their husbands. The fact that boys and young men spend more time away from older or otherwise authoritative figures could account for their higher levels of criminality, especially anti-social behaviour.
Messerschmitt - normative masculinity
Normative masculinity’ is the socially approved ideal of what a ‘real man’ is. This involves being successful in terms of money and sexual conquests, being in control/exercising power. Messerschmitt argues that high levels of male crime are simply down to men trying to prove they are ‘real men’.
Parsons - gender roles
Functionalist Talcott Parsons traces differences in crime and deviance to the gender roles in the traditional nuclear family. While men take the instrumental role, performed largely outside the home, women perform the expressive role in the home where they take the main responsibility for socialising children.
Whilst this gives girls access to a role model it tends to mean that boys reject feminine models of behaviour that express tenderness or emotion. Instead boys tend to distance themselves by engaging in “Compensatory Compulsory Masculinity” through anti-social and deviant behaviour.
Cohen - boys lack role models
Cohen suggests that the lack of a role model means that boys turn to street gangs as a source of male identity, where status is earned through toughness and aggression.
Heidensohn and Carlen - females have more to lose
Heidonsohn & Carlen back this theory up by suggesting that females have more to lose if they turn to crime. Their socialisation means that their central role as ‘Guardians of Domestic Morality’ carries with it an expectation to set a good example and to not take risks.
Anderson - CJS is paternalistic
Anderson (1976) suggests that the Criminal Justice System is ‘Paternalistic’ and as such has a stereotypical view of females as helpless and naïve. As such the CJS is more likely to treat females more leniently than men and let them off for offences.
Ministry of Justice - women cautions
According to the Ministry of Justice (2009) 49% of women recorded as offending received a caution where as for men it was only 30%.
Pollak - boys raised to be chivalrous
Pollak suggest that men are raised to be respectful and courteous to women so are more likely to treat them with leniency, however women are also much more subversive due to biology and therefore are better at hiding their crimes.
Adler - women committing more crimes
Adler (1975): argues that as changes in the structure of society have led to changes in women’s offending behaviour. As patriarchal controls weaken and opportunities in work and education have become more equal, women have started to adopt traditionally male behaviours in both legitimate and illegitimate activity. As a result women are no longer just committing traditionally female crimes such as prostitution and shop lifting but also more typically ‘male’ crimes such as violence and white collar crimes.
Denscombe - ladette culture
Denscombe (2001) :uses the phrase ‘Ladette’ to describe females who are taking on more typical male characteristics and as a result are more likely to take risks, disrespect authority and engage in drinking and violence. ‘Ladette Culture’ has become somewhat of a moral panic lately.
Women are assert their identity through binge drinking, gang culture, risk-taking, being hard and in control, and peer-related violence etc. There is some evidence that the police are now reacting in a more serious way, taking more action and prosecuting girls involved in such behaviour rather than dealing with it informally by other means, which would increase the statistics for such offences.
