Feminist Criminology

Essay # 45389

Criminology
Gender and Sexuality > Gender Studies
Gender and Sexuality > Theories of Gender

A discussion of the impact and contribution of feminism to criminological thought.

2,250 words () | 12 sources | MLA | 2003 Australia

Paper Summary:

This paper explores the impact feminism has had on criminology. The paper points out that while men are studied as non-gendered subjects, women are subject to study by virtue of their gender issues. All feminist groups believe that the main discrepancy between the sexes and the unequal distribution of power is caused by a social institution called patriarchy. The paper attempts to answer the question: Can feminist perspectives give us an insight into contemporary issues of crime and criminal justice and if so, how?

From the Paper:

"Feminist criminology seeks to explain women's offending; women's victimization and women's experiences within the criminal justice system, almost all of the other prominent traditional criminological theories either ignore women's offending or relied upon stereotypes generated by men. Given this it was, and still is in some cases very difficult for a woman within the criminal justice system as this system was designed primarily around traditional criminological theories which had several inadequacies in addressing the gendered nature of crime. Traditional criminological thought was generally theorized to be gender neutral and apparently applied to both sexes equally. However this ignores the notions of masculinity and femininity imposed by everyday socialization, thus it becomes virtually impossible to explain the gendered nature of crime, this being that men commit the majority of offenses whilst women commit the minority. Once the issue of crime being gendered was addressed the theories then "implied women's inferiority and tended to reinforce their subordination to men in the larger society" ."