Week Eighteen - Double Deviance

Question 1

Heidensohn (1985) has criticised Pollak’s chivalry thesis….

Answer 1

Heidensohn (1985) has criticised Pollak’s chivalry thesis, arguing that his ideas are based on female biology therefore a historical, unsociological and ideological.

Question 2

Heidensohn’s ideas…

Answer 2

He primarily “put forward a view of women as inherently deceitful and vengeful, exploiting a flow of helpless victims and aided by men’s besotted chivalry” (Heidensohn 1985: 119).

Heidensohn instead argues that female offenders are treated as ‘doubly deviant’ in that they are on trial for the crime they commit and for their femininity (moreover not adhering to their prescribed femininity as determined by a patriarchal society).

Question 3

Worrall 1990

Answer 3

hose who buy into the ‘gender contract’ secure more lenient treatment within the system (Worrall 1990).