Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Gender and Crime - Coggle Diagram
Gender and Crime
Patriarchal Control
Heidensohn (2002): women's lower crime rates are due to patriarchal control. Men exert power and control over women in the private and public sphere throughout their lives so they have fewer opportunities to commit crime.
In the workplace: women's behaviour at work is controlled by men as managers and supervisors are predominantly male. Sexual harassment at work is widespread and continues women's subordination. Their subordinate positions also reduces their opportunity to commit major criminal activity/ white collar crime
In the home: women's domestic role with the constant housework and childcare imposes severe restrictions on their time and movement= less opportunity to commit crime.
Dobash and Dobash: Women who try to reject their domestic role may face domestic violence from their partners who force them to do so.
In public: women are controlled in public through the fear and threat of male violence, especially sexual violence. E.g. they "cover up", avoid going out at night, avoid going to pubs and locations where street crimes might occur
eval: Jones argues women in prison were often "co-defendants with a controlling man= were pressured into criminality by patriarchal control, rather than being prevented from committing crime.
Chivalry Thesis
Pollak (1950): suggests the criminal justice system treats men and women differently. This stems from gender role socialisation, as men are were socialised to be 'chivalrous' towards women, because of ideas that they are fragile and need to be protected
The CJS is dominated by men at every level, which means that when faced with a female offender, male police officers, judges etc are more likely to treat them leniently.
Criticisms
Double Victimisation: Walklate (2000): The CJS treats women very poorly when investigating claims of sexual assault or domestic violence. They experience double victimisation as they are blamed for the crimes committed against them and have to relive trauma.
Double Deviancy: Carlen (1998) and Heidensohn (2002): When a woman acts out against her gender stereotypes, she receives a harsher sentence. E.g. if a mother kills her baby, she is not being nurturing and expressive= longer sentence
Farrington and Morris: The more serious the crime, the less difference in sentencing
Outdated: there are now more women in the CJS, no longer dominated by men. The police force is 69% male and 31% female. Judges are 61% male and 39% female.
Supportive evidence:
Flood (2000): only 1 in 11 female self-reported offenders were cautioned, whereas 1 in 7 males were cautioned
Hood (1989): looked at 3000 defendants and found that women are a third less likely to be jailed than men in similar cases
Messerschmidt
Hegemonic Masculinity is defined by:
- being in paid employment (breadwinner, provider)
- being dominant over other males and subordinating women
- heterosexuality, being sexually active
- physical strength
Hegemonic Masculinity: the socially approved idea of what a "real male" is, highly valued by most men. Many struggle to live up to its expectations and work constantly at developing their masculinity to achieve its ideal
- This can lead to crime as it encourages risk-taking behaviour and reacting with physical force to "challenges" to their dominant position.
- Young w/c males have limited opportunities to pursue intellectual pathways to goals, so they use violence and crime to assert their power and prove their masculinity e.g. joining gangs, using domestic violence in the home in order to control their female partner if they challenge their authority.
Males are socialised into hegemonic masculinity by their fathers and the media, which reinforces this image through fictional characters who dominate opponents physically, are tough, are emotionally limited. These behaviours are encouraged as these men are portrayed as desirable to women.
-
Parsons: Sex Role Theory
Women make a rational decision to commit crime by weighing up the risks of being caught- they have more to lose if they turn to criminal activity as they risk their children being taken
Women are less likely to be criminals due to their genetic characteristics and gender role socialisation. They take on the expressive role = more caring, nurturing, carry out primary socialisation of children= less likely to commit crime, particularly violent or physical
Boys are generally allowed more freedom and encouraged to be more aggressive, physical, extroverted= more likely to commit violent physical crime. They may also have status anxiety which can lead to exaggerated male behaviour- this is often channelled through delinquency
-
Evaluation
Katz: Suggests that men commit crime in order to feel a thrill, not because of patriarchy. In most cases, many crimes are committed out of boredom and that male criminals are seeking ‘thrills’ at any opportunity.
Carol Smart: criminology is malestream- women are ignored in the sociological study of crime. Most theories of crime come from men who focus on what interests them: violent/ gang crime etc. Male academics lead boring lives, living precariously through their violent, risk-taking subjects. Feminists should take a transgressive approach to criminology, focusing on what causes harm to women, as men's work will not have answers.
Winlow
Globalisation has led to the decline in traditional manual jobs. These jobs involving heavy manual work in factories/mines were ways for w/c men to express their masculinity and earn respect from other men.
However, their decline (and rise in white-collar, new service sector jobs mainly aimed at women) has caused a crisis of masculinity. Men lost their expression of masculinity and were driven into unemployment= formed an underclass, now rely on being hard and violent to earn status and rise through criminal ranks. May also vent their frustration through domestic violence.