Gender Sex and Crime - 27/01/25

Gender and crimimology

  • Criminology has historically overlooked gender

  • Cesare Lombroso carried out a similarclassification of women as with men

  • The Female Offender (Lombroso andFerrero 1895)

  • A lot of historical criminological theory that did consider women’s criminality minimised their rationality and agency, considering their behaviour as hysteria

  • As women were considered to be ‘different animals’ to men, it was not really considered that their criminal behaviour may have similar explanations

Feminist criminology

  • Different strands of this, all with a focus on viewing women’s criminal behaviour from the perspective of women

    • Liberal, marxist, intersectional etc.

  • Moral panics about an increase in violentfemale offending led to more researchinto this area specifically

  • Worrall (2004) – moral panics and girlgangs in the 1990s

  • Heidensohn (2006) - media presentationsof women seems disproportionate to theamount of crime committed by women.

  • Smart (2012)- criminology adapted anentirely uncritical attitude towards sexual stereotypes of women and girls.11


Worrall (2004)

  • Explored how moral panics surrounding theperceived rise in violent female offending,particularly involving girl gangs in the 1990s,led to increased academic and mediaattention in this area. The term "moralpanic" refers to exaggerated societalreactions to perceived threats, often drivenby sensationalist media coverage.

  • the visibility of violent female offenders was amplified by these panics, despite statistical evidence showing that female crime rates were not rising dramatically. Thiscontributed to stereotypes of "out-of-control" girls, reinforcing fears about abreakdown in traditional gender norms andsocial order.

  • The research highlights how media narratives can shape public perceptions and influence policy responses to female crime.

Heidensohn (2006)

  • Media portrayals of women and crime aredisproportionate to the actual amount ofcrime committed by women. The mediaoften sensationalises and over-representscases where women commit violent orunusual crimes, reinforcing genderstereotypes. This leads to the perceptionthat women who break the law aredeviating not only from legal norms butalso from societal expectations offemininity.

  • Heidensohn highlights that while women are statistically less likely to commit crime compared to men, their criminal actions attract greater attention, especially when they involve violence or sexual deviance.

  • This disproportionate focus reflects broader cultural anxieties about gender and conformity.


Women in criminal justice

  • Despite being half the population, women are underrepresented within the CJS

Types of offences

  • Whilst women are less likely to be involved in crime overall, where they are involved this is likely to be regarding

    • Fraud

    • Motoring offences

    • Theft

  • Women’s crimes are less likely to involve violence and are more likely to relate to childcare or finances

Why do women offend less than men?

  • Heindensohn (1985) - socialised into being‘feminine’. Subjected to higher levels of socialcontrol

  • Carlen (1998) – women offend when the exerciseof informal social control is disrupted at an earlystage in their life.

  • Caddle and Crisp (1997):

    • Having no money (54%), Mixing with the wrong crowd (46%), Need to support children (38%), Drink or drugs (35%),Family Problems (33%) & Having no job(33%)

  • Fear and impact of stigma ‘spoiled identities’

    • Double deviancy thesis – women committed two offences: one legal and one social

      • The chivalry thesis – women are treated more leniently.

  • Discourse on ‘the mad, bad and sad’ -labelled differently.


Men are more likely to be victims except in specific crime types

  • In homicides where the principle suspect was known to the victim, 67% of cases with female victims suspected the partner/ex-partner (compared with 9%for male victims)

  • In 2019/20, sexual assault towardsfemales within the last year were over 4times higher than towards males

  • In 2019/20, 27.6% of females aged 16-74reported being victims of domestic abuse once or more since age 16, double that of males (13.8%)17.

  • The majority of female homicides took place in or around a house/dwelling(71%), whereas only 39% of male homicides took place here.

Gender based crime

Whar is gender based crime

  • Domestic abuse, stalking, harassment,and sexual assault are all criminaloffences

  • All genders can be victims of these crimes

  • Women are disproportionately more likely to be victims than men in these types of incidents

  • Transgender, genderqueer, and non-traditionally presenting individuals arealso more likely to be victimised, butmore data is needed on this issue

  • Often these types of crime can be linked to societal views of gender roles


How do we know when gender is the motivation

  • Similarly to other hate based crimes, the motivation is power, or fear of difference rather than personal gain.

  • Not all rape is a gender motivated crime, however, rapists are more likely to have regressive views about gender roles, and feel strongly about what men and women should do

  • Examples: corrective rape

    • Originally referred to rape perpetrated by straight men against lesbians in order to correct or cure their homosexuality

examples of gender based crimes

  • Acid attacks

  • Domestic abuse

  • FGM

  • Sexual assault

  • Of course these crimes are committed by people of all genders, and anyone can be victimised regardless of gender, but there is a disproportionate trend of cis and trans women being victims

Statistics

  • Women are disproportionately affected acrossthe spectrum of intimate violence - range ofphysical and non-physical abuse:

  • In 2017/18, the proportion of women who werea victim of sexual assault at some point since theage of 16 was 5x higher than males (20.3% forfemales compared with 3.8% for males).

  • 3.1% of females were a victim of sexual assault inthe last year, compared with 0.8% of males.

  • Most common age group reporting victimisationfor both sexes was 16- to 19-year-olds.

  • 7.9% of females reported experiencing domesticabuse in the last year, compared to 4.2% ofmales.

  • Proportion of females who were a victim ofdomestic abuse at some point since the age of 16was over double that of the proportion of males(28.9% vs. 13.2%).

  • Given the frequency of these types of crime, why are they not discussed as often as other crime types?25

Victim blaming

  • Often in discussions of gender based violence there are arguments that either the victim was lying or the victim is at fault as well as the perp

    • She was asking for it

    • Why was she dressed like that/out late/drunk if not to have sex

    • If you behave like that you should accept consequences

    • Did you even fight back

    • You cant let people treat you that way

  • These arguments prevent people from disclosing the abuse, and make it harder for victims to be believed when they do disclose

  • Often charges in these cases are dropped as victims find the process too traumatic / distressing

  • Victims have already gone through abuse, the justice process itself shouldn’t further exacerbate the effects of this

Why does victim blaming happen?

  • Just World Hypothesis (Lerner, 1980)

  • Defensive Attribution Hypothesis (Shaver, 1970)

  • Attribution Theory (Heider, 1958)

  • Rape Myth Acceptance (Burt, 1980)

  • System Justification Theory (Jost and Banaji, 1994)

  • Labelling Theory (Beck, 1963)


Why does gender based crime happen?

  • Individualist explanations

    • Socio-biology and new-darwinism, learned helplessness, pathology, women-blaming

  • Cycles of violence

  • Family/systems approaches

  • Structuralist explanations

Individualist explanations

  • Socio-biology and neo-Darwinism

    • Male aggression evolved as a method of ‘mate retention’ and abusive behaviour is a result of this biological drive

    • There is little empirical evidence for this view

  • Learned helplessness (Battered women)

    • Walker (1983): Victims feel unable toescape their situation and learn to expect abuse/feel helpless to respond to it.

  • Pathology

    • Mad, sad, or bad

  • Women-blaming

    • Common in the public domain, conforms to gender roles and assumes that abuse is a response to women’s behaviour

Cycle of abuse

  1. Tension building: Tensions increase, breakdown of communication, victim becomes fearful and feels the need to placate the abuser

  2. Incident: Verbal, emotional and physical abuse. Anger, blaming, arguing. Threats. Intimidation

  3. Reconciliation: Abuser apologises, gives excuses, blames the victim, denies the abuse occurred, or says that it wasn’t as bad as the victim claims

  4. Calm: Incident ‘forgotten‘ no abuse is taking place. THe honeymoon phase

Family systems approaches

  • Focus on patterns of interaction within families

  • Behaviour of one member of a family is affected by responses and feedback of other members

  • Control is an important aspect of FSA

  • Violence/Abuse can become part of the family’s dynamics due to power/control imbalances and flawed system structures

  • Violence is seen as used to correct behaviour or dynamics to enable functioning of family according to appropriate roles/behaviours; or it is a sign of dysfunctionality


Structuralist explanations

  • Socially constructed gender dynamics

    • Applied through patriarchal social structures

  • This creates expectations of behaviour from men and women

    • E.g. Women should be passive

    • Violence is an endemic part of socialisation of ‘masculinity’

  • When someone does not conform to these expectations, this can be seen as threatening to the social order or the individuals’ place in it

  • Thus crime is used as an expression ofpower, or to ‘correct’ the individuals’ non-conformity

  • Many feminist views of this are linked to structuralist explanations due to the centering of patriarchy as a social structure

Case study: Sarah Everard

  • Case overview:In March 2021, Sarah Everard, a 33-year-oldwoman, was abducted and murdered by a serving police officer,Wayne Couzens, in London. This case sparked national outrage and reignited conversations about gender-based violence and the safety of women in public spaces.

  • Public response:Sarah’s murder led to widespread protests and vigils across the UK, with movements such as "Reclaim TheseStreets" gaining prominence. The public demanded systemicchange to address gendered violence and the role of police insafeguarding communities.

  • Policing and trust:The fact that a serving police officer perpetrated the crime raised significant concerns about trust in the police, institutional misogyny, and abuse of power. This casecatalysed calls for reforms within the police force to addressviolence against women and accountability measures.

  • Policy impact:The case influenced policy changes, including the introduction of strategies aimed at improving women’s safety, enhanced scrutiny of police officers, and funding for projects addressing gender-based violence.

Double Deviancy

  • Since the 1970s Western feminist criminology has analysed female deviance, arguing that criminology has historically portrayed criminal women as pathological or 'double deviant,'breaking both state and natural laws (Rosenhan 1973; Carlen 1985). A woman who commits a murder is often seen as a monster, since a 'normal' lady would not be capable of such violent action

  • Bisi argues that women's marginalised status in criminology stems from the assumption that they lack autonomy (2002), save for offences related to their biological situation, such as sex work or infanticide.

  • Double Deviance theory suggests thatwomen are punished for doing two thingswrong. They are perceived as violatingsociety standards and expectations offemale behaviour, as well as breaching the law. They are assessed as havingcommitted two offences.

  • Murphy and Brown's (2000) breaking cultural norms might lead to womenbeing demonised or treated moreleniently.