Has Criminology Been Gender Blinded
Criminology has been Gender-blind' rather than Gender neutral'. Discuss
It has been argued that the gaze of criminology has been primarily focused on male offenders, Cain (1989) argues that criminology is in fact incapable of speaking in gender neutral terms (cited in Walklate 2001: 19). A reason for this includes that history has been prepared to offer universal explanations of crime achieved by the study of the male offender.
Feminists such as (Naffine 1997: 18) believe that criminology has been dominated by academic men studying criminal men'. A major concern for feminist writers on this subject is that for many the world is seen as a masculine one, despite facts clearly proving that it is made up of feminine and masculine attributes, they see this as a clear example of gender blindness (Walklate 2004: 22).
This essay will discuss the historic assumptions of the female criminal, theories of gender blindness which look toward the feminist criminologist perspective on gender attempting to show studies where the female criminal has been studied, but to which degree, and finally does this present criminology as more of a sexist social science, gender blinded or possibly even gender biased discipline.
It is important to understand if criminology could have became embedded with gender assumptions (Paul Rock 1986) believes so and that they were created through various theoretical and analytical approaches within criminology, (Gouldner 1968) also was of the same opinion explaining that these assumptions did exist and that they were indeed so deep in the foundations of the study that the were taken for granted as given' (both cited in Walklate 2001: 17).
A brief look at the history is now needed to understand more concerning these claims.
Cesare Lombroso was responsible for many studies into the criminal, he published six editions of his notorious book The Criminal Man' between 1876-1897 each edition published to combat criticisms from the last, Lombroso
It has been argued that the gaze of criminology has been primarily focused on male offenders, Cain (1989) argues that criminology is in fact incapable of speaking in gender neutral terms (cited in Walklate 2001: 19). A reason for this includes that history has been prepared to offer universal explanations of crime achieved by the study of the male offender.
Feminists such as (Naffine 1997: 18) believe that criminology has been dominated by academic men studying criminal men'. A major concern for feminist writers on this subject is that for many the world is seen as a masculine one, despite facts clearly proving that it is made up of feminine and masculine attributes, they see this as a clear example of gender blindness (Walklate 2004: 22).
This essay will discuss the historic assumptions of the female criminal, theories of gender blindness which look toward the feminist criminologist perspective on gender attempting to show studies where the female criminal has been studied, but to which degree, and finally does this present criminology as more of a sexist social science, gender blinded or possibly even gender biased discipline.
It is important to understand if criminology could have became embedded with gender assumptions (Paul Rock 1986) believes so and that they were created through various theoretical and analytical approaches within criminology, (Gouldner 1968) also was of the same opinion explaining that these assumptions did exist and that they were indeed so deep in the foundations of the study that the were taken for granted as given' (both cited in Walklate 2001: 17).
A brief look at the history is now needed to understand more concerning these claims.
Cesare Lombroso was responsible for many studies into the criminal, he published six editions of his notorious book The Criminal Man' between 1876-1897 each edition published to combat criticisms from the last, Lombroso