Gendering Criminology: An Intersectional Lens

Gendering Criminology Through an Intersectional Lens

Gender intersects with various factors like race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, nationality, immigration status and age.
Intersectional feminism addresses multiple consciousness.
Avoid gender essentialism.
Consider queer criminology and the Global South.

Feminism is defined as "the struggles to end sexist oppression" (bell hooks).
Aims to end domination in all forms, not just benefit a specific group.
Feminism doesn't privilege women over men but transforms all lives.
Myths damaging feminist movements include lack of objectivity and narrow focus. Men's experiences are the norm.
Feminist perspectives include arguments, disagreements, transformations, and problematizations (Marxists, socialists, liberal, radical, postmodernist, intersectional, Black, Chicana, Asian, Indigenous, Native, etc.).
Common thread = Gender inequality exists and discrimination is disproportionately experienced by girls/women, which must be challenged.

Women and Girls as Offenders:
- Gender is a strong factor in likelihood to break the law.
- There's a lack of research on sentencing, punishment, training and needs.
Women and Girls as Victims:
- Gender-based abuse (GBA)
- Review the history of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
- History of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act
Women as Professionals in the Criminal Legal System:
- Low rates of women in positions like prison/jails, policing/law enforcement, and courts.
- Women face resistance, harassment, discrimination, obstacles, and hostility.
Blurring of Boundaries of Women’s Experiences in Crime:
- Overlap with offenders, victims, and workers needs attention.
- Impact of experiential knowledge.

Sex differences = biological differences (reproductive organs, body size, muscle development, hormones). Sex continuum and acceptance of sex as nonbinary.
Gender differences = ascribed by society (social roles). Clothing, wages, child-care responsibilities, professions.
Racial Differences = ascribed by society that relates to expected race roles. Biological racial categories do not exist. Race is also socially constructed.
Benevolent sexism = seemingly positive attitudes reinforcing negative stereotypes.
Structural sexism = gender inequity embedded in society’s institutions. Unequal pay, healthcare, education, etc.
Both sex and gender are socially constructed.
- Society categorizes individuals as male or female based on physical characteristics, is a system of classification created and reinforced by social norms and expectations, which vary across cultures and change over time; particularly when considering the existence of intersex individuals who do not “fit” neatly into the binary categories of male and female.
- A strict male/female binary is a social construct, not a biological reality (there’s a spectrum of biological variation in sex characteristics)

Praxis: Findings result in societal and political change.
Empirical variety of ways to collect data.
Reflexivity: Relationship between the researcher and those studied
Feminist standpoint theory: research framed by standpoint, knowing, and perception of knowledge.

Images of girls and women in society are important (sexuality-driven images of women; categories of women of color).
Feminist criminologists document how women/gender are presented in mass media.
Impact of movies like Pretty Woman and Thelma and Louise.