As the majority of offenders are male (80%) many feminists choose to stud the different ways in which women are harmed by crime. Feminists explanations explore women as victims of crime, and why women are less likely to commit crime compared to men.
Postmodern feminists - transgressive criminology
the work of Carol Smart and Maureen Cain is important as they argue hat the very concerns that criminology has (burglary/ street crime) are actually a reflection of male concerns and that women should be looking beyond these to look how harm comes to women in the widest sense possible.
Smart and Cain introduced the idea of a transgressive criminology.
criticisms of postmodern feminism
Radical feminism - women as victims of crimes committed by men
Femicide is defined as the international murder of women because they are women.
the world economic forum shows that six women are killed every hour by men around the world.
UN data shows us that more than half of women and girls killed by men are murdered by their current or previous partners.
the Casey report (2023) uncovered a toxic culture of misogyny, racism and homophobia within the metropolitan police.
official statistics show that 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.
Dobash and Dobash found that such violence became routine and normal. they found that men felt they had the right to punish or discipline their wives for being bad wives or mothers. women too expected domestic violence to be ‘normal’ within their marriage.
Dworkin argues that rape, prostitution and pornography are inevitable because we live in a male dominated culture.
^ she is suggesting that all heterosexual sex in capitalist society is like rape because women are not free to give consent, because most women are unaware of the true levels of misogyny in society and therefore any consent is given without full consciousness.
Criticisms of radical feminists
Dworkin’s views encourage the view that all men are potential rapists and a risk to women, which is biologically deterministic meaning she assumes all men have the same characteristics, something most feminists have spent a long time trying to reject.
Liberal feminists - reasons why women commit less crime than men.
Heidensohn (1996) argues that females are generally more conformist because patriarchal society imposes greater control over their behaviour at home, in public and at work.
daughters are given less freedom than sons to come and go as they wish
Hey shows how working class girls were controlled through their sexual reputation. Girls used terms like ‘slags’ as a deterrent to promiscuity and nonconformity.
McRobbie and Garber suggest a similar idea that girls are socialised, thus controlled, to be conformist through a bedroom culture. thus stating that women are more conformist within society.
Criticisms
some criminologists believe that the idea that women commit less crime than men is a myth; the difference between the rates can be explained by the fact that women don’t get caught or get away with it. Pollack highlighted the chivalry thesis, this is the idea that the police and judges are more lenient towards women because males have been socialised this way.
Marxist feminism
Criticisms
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