How Has Feminist Thought Influenced the Discipline of Criminology?
How has feminist thought influenced the discipline of criminology?
In attempting to answer the question how has feminist thought influenced the discipline of criminology? This essay will briefly discuss the development of feminist thought within the discipline. This essay will then discuss the female emancipation leads to crime debate which was the focus of liberal feminists, like Adler and Simon, before focusing on the radical feminist notion of patriarchy. This essay will then discuss how feminist thought has challenged and invalidated the leniency hypothesis and then the development of a gender based theory of female criminality that focused on social control systems. Finally this essay will discuss the raising to greater prominence of the female victim and feminist victimology.
Until recently, criminology has been primarily focused on men and crime with little reference to women, according to Gelsthorpe and Morris (1988, p.94) theories of criminality have been developed from male subjects and validated on male subjects. It was assumed that these theories would apply to women but it appears most do not. Heidensohn (1985, p.112) argues that when women were incorporated into criminology, it was only to explain women’s apparent sexual deviant nature which traditional criminologists, such as Lombroso and Ferrero, explained by suggesting women were still primitive and thus driven by their biological and physiological needs. For Oakley (1972, p1) women’s invisibility in the academic discipline of criminology renders women’s problems to be insignificant, and thus women suffer not only academically but also in the policies which are generated from academic studies.
Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe (2007 in Maguire, Morgan and Reiner p.383) state that feminist thought in the discipline of criminology developed with the emergence of second wave feminism in the 1960s and 1970s and led to female academics looking critically at the invisibility of women within the
In attempting to answer the question how has feminist thought influenced the discipline of criminology? This essay will briefly discuss the development of feminist thought within the discipline. This essay will then discuss the female emancipation leads to crime debate which was the focus of liberal feminists, like Adler and Simon, before focusing on the radical feminist notion of patriarchy. This essay will then discuss how feminist thought has challenged and invalidated the leniency hypothesis and then the development of a gender based theory of female criminality that focused on social control systems. Finally this essay will discuss the raising to greater prominence of the female victim and feminist victimology.
Until recently, criminology has been primarily focused on men and crime with little reference to women, according to Gelsthorpe and Morris (1988, p.94) theories of criminality have been developed from male subjects and validated on male subjects. It was assumed that these theories would apply to women but it appears most do not. Heidensohn (1985, p.112) argues that when women were incorporated into criminology, it was only to explain women’s apparent sexual deviant nature which traditional criminologists, such as Lombroso and Ferrero, explained by suggesting women were still primitive and thus driven by their biological and physiological needs. For Oakley (1972, p1) women’s invisibility in the academic discipline of criminology renders women’s problems to be insignificant, and thus women suffer not only academically but also in the policies which are generated from academic studies.
Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe (2007 in Maguire, Morgan and Reiner p.383) state that feminist thought in the discipline of criminology developed with the emergence of second wave feminism in the 1960s and 1970s and led to female academics looking critically at the invisibility of women within the
References: Gelsthorpe, G. & Morris, A. (1988). Feminism and Criminology in Britain. British Journal of Criminology. 28(2) 93-110 Hale, C., Hayward, K., Wahidin, A., & Wincup, E Heidensohn, F. & Gelsthorpe, L. (2007). Gender and Crime. In Maguire, M., Morgan, R., & Reiner, R. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. (4th ed., pp. 381-420). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heidensohn, F Hopkins Burke, R. (2005). An Introduction to Criminological Theory (2nd ed.). Devon: Willan Publishing Joyce, P Lilly, J R., Cullen, F T., & Ball, R A. (2002). Criminological Theory, Context and Consequences. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Marsh, I., Melville, G., Morgan, K., Norris, G., & Walkington, Z (eds). (2006). Theories of Crime. Oxon: Routledge. McLaughlin, E. & Muncie, J. (2006). The Sage Dictionary of Criminology (2nd ed.). London: Sage Publications Ltd. Newburn, T. (2007). Criminology. Devon: Willan Publishing. Oakley, A. (1972). Sex, Gender and Society. London: Temple Smith