Women

1
Women Crime

• Mike Keating 2006

2
Hidden from History

• Early Sociology and Criminology dominated by men
  doing science women are hidden from history
• (Dale Spender)
• Malestream Sociology / Criminology
• Men dominate University Departments
• Men dominate top posts/ control funding
• Men determine research priorities
• - areas of study
• - methodology
• - publishing
• Men determine the curriculum
• e.g. Founding Fathers as basis of sociological
  / criminological knowledge.
• Male orientation may so colour the organisation
  of sociology as a discipline that the
  invisibility of women is a structured male view
  rather than a superficial flaw. The male focus,
  incorporated into the definitions of subject
  areas, reduces women to a side issue from the
  start.
• Oakley (1974) quoted in Abbott and Wallace
  (19971).

3
Feminist Critique of Sociology

• It is mainly concerned with research by men, on
  men using theories for men.
• Generalisation based upon samples of men.
• Womens concerns overlooked.
• Women who do feature are presented in a distorted
  manner.
• Sex / gender rarely offered as explanatory
  variables.
• Any treatment of sex / gender is marginal
  reinforcing the idea that it is unimportant
  justifying the dominance of other perspectives.
• (Abbot Wallace 19976)

4
and Criminology

• The history of criminology has been largely a
  history of men but one in which the maleness of
  crime, crime control and crime analysis has been
  so taken for granted as to be rendered invisible
• Smith (2005346)

5
The Feminist attack on malestream sociology

• 1) The gendering of society.
• 2) Feminist research methods.
• 3) Feminist Theory.
• See pages 3-4 in handout.
• See also
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Anne Oakley
• Sue Sharp

6
In the 1970s 80s writers such as Smart and
Heidensohn led the charge in criminology

• Carol Smart wrote Women, Crime and Criminology in
  1976 and went on to become Professor of Sociology
  at Leeds and is now Director of the Morgan Centre
  at Manchester University. In 1985 Frances
  Heidensohn published Women Crime and has
  written extensively on the topic since. She is
  now Professor of Social Policy at University of
  London and visiting Professor at the Mannheim
  Centre for Criminology at the LSE.

7
Feminist Criminology

• Rejection of Malestream criminology as gender
  blind
• (Laws are) man made in the interests of men, in
  accordance with a paternalistic attitude towards
  women... The innumerable studies of criminality
  and delinquency that exist do not include women
  and girls in their subject matter. They are
  written by men, on the subject of men for an
  audience of men
• Smart (1977)

8
Hidden from Criminology

• INVISIBLE WOMEN statistically rare therefore
  hard to access.
• MALESTREAM CRIMINOLOGY almost everything we
  know about crime is from a male perspective
  (which ignores or marginalises women)
• FUNCTIONALISM - very conservative view of family
  and gender roles women seen as affective,
  maternal and conformist see Mertons theory
  of anomic crime.
• MARXISM - class based and gender blind
• SUB-CULTURAL THEORY- mainly interested in
  disaffected juvenile males (girls as marginal to
  the male gang)
• LABELLING - apart from W.I. Thomas (The
  Unadjusted Girl 1923) very little interest in
  gender
• See Madeleine Leonard Masculinity, femininity
  crime in Sociology Review September 1995.

9
Feminist Criminology raises specific issues

• i) What are the gendered patterns of crime?
• ii) Why do women commit so few crimes relative to
  men?
• iii) What explanations are offered for female
  criminals?
• iv) Women as victims of crime.
• v) Women in the CJS discriminatory practices in
  courts prisons.
• vi) Rethinking the links between masculinity
  crime

10
and three key questions

• The Woman Question taking female offending
  seriously. Challenging simplistic stereotypes.
• The Man Question - The maleness of crime has
  been so taken for granted as to be rendered
  invisiblestudies have tended to be on men as
  offenders rather than offenders as men.
• (Smith 2005353)
• The Convergence Question are women becoming
  more promiscuous and predatory?
• Can increasing female criminality be accounted
  for by the liberation thesis?

11
The Woman Question

• Problematic nature
• i) Criminology as gender blind or gender
  neutral.
• ii) Real crime in defined as male crime.
• This has been referred to as the stag effect
• It has attracted male scholars who wanted to
  study and understand outlaw men, hoping perhaps
  that some of the romance and fascination of this
  role will rub off. Among the disciplines it is
  quintessentially male
• (Chesney Lind quoted in Rafter and Heidensohn)
• iii) The limitations on theorising of the
  ideology of femininity and stereotypical
  thinking. E.g. Deviant women as double damned
  deviants.
• iv) Failure to recognise the changing nature of
  society and criminology.

12
NATURALISTIC VIEW OF WOMEN.

• ACCEPTABLE FEMALE NORM IS CLOSELY RELATED TO
  BIOLOGY
• WOMEN CLOSER TO NATURE THEY GIVE BIRTH,
  MENSTRUAL CYCLE, CARERS
• GIRLS SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THINGS NICE
• THEREFORE WOMEN CRIMINALS ARE UNNATURAL /EVIL
  (MYRA HINDLEY ULTIMATE TRANSGRESSOR AS SHE
  KILLED CHILDREN)

13
Naturalistic explanations of female criminal

• Biological / Psychological - often related to
  sexual deviance
• LOMBROSO AND FERRERO Women less biologically
  evolved But Criminal women like men (Atavism)
• THOMAS 1907 - early work suggests female
  criminals are pathological
• OTTO POLLACK (1950s) Womens true nature
  (deceitful, vengeful and emotional) protected
  by male chivalry in the CJS
• PMT (Dalton 1961 and Moire Jessel 1997)

14
Naturalism simplistic and stereotypical
explanations

• "In the first place, the delinquent girl is much
  less frequent than her male counterpart, and she
  is less interesting. Her offenses take
  predominantly the form of sexual misbehavior, of
  a kind to call for care and protection rather
  than punishment. Delinquency in the male at an
  equivalent age is very much more varied,
  dangerous and dramatic
• (Cowie 1968)

15
Sociological explanations of conformity

• Not a biological trait but the consequence of
  differential socialisation and cultural
  expectations (Oakley 1972)
• Heidensohn (1996)uses Hirschis control theory
  to explain female conformity - girls more closely
  monitored by family while boys encouraged to take
  risks.
• Therefore girls get less opportunity to learn
  about deviant and criminal behaviour (Smart 1976)
  and are rewarded for conformity to traditional
  gender roles.
• Carlen (1988) argues that girls / women are more
  likely to be attracted by the rewards of work and
  home and less likely to be tempted into crime.
  Also moral sanctions against female criminality
  are greater.

16
Sociological explanations of female criminality

• W.I. Thomas (1923) - social disorganisation
  breakdown of traditional society led to less
  social control for women increasing desire for
  excitement. Women more likely to define their
  aspirations in terms of risk (and crime).
• In the 1970s this idea of social change and
  female criminality became known as the
  liberation thesis
• EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE FIELDS OF LEGITIMATE
  ENDEAVOR RUNS PARALLEL TO THE FACT THAT WOMEN ARE
  FORCING THEIR WAY INTO THE WORLD OF MAJOR CRIMES
  (Adler 1975)
• Womens participation in financial and white
  collar offencesshould increase as their
  opportunities for employment in higher status
  occupations extend (Simon 1975)
• CASE STUDY Martha Stewart (look her up)

17
and lack of opportunities.

• MARGINALISATION THESIS / ECONOMIC RATIONALITY
  (SIMON AND LANDIS 1991)
• The feminisation of poverty and the
  criminalisation of poor women (CARLEN 1988)
• E.G. PROSTITUTION (MCLEOD 1982)
• Maybe exacerbated by chivalry and paternalism
  in CJS especially when it comes to sentencing
  women with family responsibilities but
• Those who reject gender roles and
  responsibilities are condemned as doubly deviant
  and doubly damned (Lloyd 1995)

18
The Man Question

• The statistics support the traditional view of
  the problem as a male one.
• This tends to be supported by a naturalistic view
  of the aggressive male which comes from
  socio-biology.

19
The masculine turn

• Socialisation processes gender is learned and
  so are the behaviours which lead boys into
  trouble.
• Power Control men exert their dominance
  through violence, intimidation, abuse as Smith
  says the one emotion men do allow themselves is
  anger.
• Masculinity and identity work writers such as
  Connell (1995) have argued that there is an
  hegemonic masculinity which is based upon notions
  of dominance and toughness and which criminal
  activity and risk taking are closely linked with
  traditional notions of being a man. Doing crime
  can be seen as a form of identity work.
• In certain situations, men are likely to engage
  in criminal behaviour as a mechanism for
  constructing their masculinity
• (Copes and Hochstetler 2003)

20
Male Violence

• What we know about the nature of violent crime
  is that males predominate as both offenders and
  victims, at all levels (from the working class
  man on the street to the powerful world leaders
  who wage war). It is almost as if violence
  belongs to men. Women very rarely use violence to
  the same extent, or arguably, for the same sorts
  of reasons as their male counterparts. As Collier
  (1998, p.2) notes Sex difference explains more
  variance in crime across nations and cultures
  than any other variable.
• (Fiona Brookman 2000)

21
A Question of Convergence?

• It has been suggested that the gap between male
  and female offending is narrowing. This may be as
  result of increased female offending especially
  violence as well as the growing awareness of the
  authorities to female crime as a social
  problem. Although there may be some truth in the
  argument that this is a socially constructed
  issue following moral panics about liberated
  women losing control, there is also hard
  evidence that the changes are real with the Home
  Office reporting increases in female offending
  rates for serious crimes such as robbery,
  burglary, drugs and violence. This is replicated
  in the dramatic and unprecedented increase in
  the female prison population
• (Smith 2005351)