Gender & crime

What is the chivalry these & who is associated with it? What is evidence of female crime being left out of stats?

Evaluate the chivalry thesis.

• Pollack- Chivalry thesis- men have protective attitudes towards women so are unwilling/ reluctant to arrest, charge, prosecute or convict them. This distorts crime stats by under representing female crime in the stats.

• Evidence- Hood found in 3000 defendants women were 1/3 less likely to be jailed than men in similar cases.

• X- Feminists argue there’s a bias AGAINST women- Carlen- women are assessed in terms of being wives/ mothers/ daughters, less conventional girls receive harsher punishment.

What is the functionalist sex role theory? What does Parsons add?

What pov contrasts?

• Girls are socialised to be conformist, passive ‘bedroom culture’ whereas boys are socialised into ‘manly’ ‘tough’ macho attitudes, possibly leading to aggression and violent crime.

• Parsons- gender diffs in crime = due to gender roles in nuclear family- women’s expressive role gives young girls a role model whereas boys rejected this feminine role model & instead engaged in compensatory compulsive masculinity through aggression.

What is Heidensohn’s patriarchal control?

• Argues women commit fewer crime than men bc patriarchy controls them, reducing opportunities to offend e.g. at home- domestic roles limit freedom & time confining them to the home and reducing opportunities to offend, in public- women fear sexual violence due to media reports frightening them to stay home & fear not being defined as respectable (in terms of clothes/ hair/ makeup) so less female crime occurs, at work- women’s subordinate positions reduce criminal opportunity at work (glass ceiling prevents women rising to senior positions where there are more white collar crime opportunities).

Who compares working class and middle class women? How?

• Carlen- using unstructured interviews- interviewed w/c girls & women who’d been convicted of a range of crimes- showing how most convicted females are w/c.

• Class deal- women dealt a m/c life are handed opportunity to achieve legitimately whereas w/c women are likely to rationalise crime.

• Gender deal- patriarchal ideology promises women emotional & material rewards from family life if they conform to gender role, but several women are abused by partners/ fathers.

What is the liberation thesis? Who coined it?

Criticise liberation thesis.

• Adler- liberation thesis- she says as women become more liberated from patriarchy, their crimes will become more severe & frequent as mens. E.g. Lucy Letby- used her freedom & exploited her powerful position to commit heinous crimes on babies.

• X- most female criminals are w/c (the group least likely to be impacted by social liberation), X- Adler over estimates extent to which women have become liberated & their freedom to commit such crimes.

Why is there a moral panic about girls?

• The media displays them as ‘booze monsters’ displaying them as a threat to society & out of control, it presents women as not ‘lady like’ so their behaviour needs correcting e.g. the ladettes.

What does Messeeschmidt say about masculinity?

• It’s a social construct- viewed an ‘accomplishment’ among males e.g. white w/c youths tend to have less chance at educational success so masculinity may compensate by opposing authority, acting tough, whereas black w/c youths have few expectations of a reasonable job and may use gang violence to express masculinity.

What is bodily capital? Where is this evident?

What does the study show?

• When men use their bodies to portray masculinity e.g. Winlow- Bouncers study- the job gave young men chance to be paid while engaging in illegal activity e.g. drugs to express masculinity, also through violence, the men all had the same build to maintain their ‘tough’ reputation and employability as a bouncer. Winlow’s study shows the shift in the expression of masculinity in postmodeen de-industrialised society.