Feminist Criminology

Female offenders rarely feature in early criminological work. It was thought that there were three substainal reasons why women were not studied; 1) for a topic that has been so widely researched it is suprising that it fails to explain the behaviour of half of the population 2) there has been more sociological interest in other parts of womens experiences 3) there are very major differences between male and female offending yet this does not attract social scientists like it should. Feminists merely argue that early work has a set of assumptions about both gender and crime which at the core features men. It is argued that the type of sociology known as appreciative sociology led social scientists to focus more on men therefore ignoring women. Delinquency and crime is often seen as highly unfeminie.

It has been noted how recently women are leaving household roles and are becoming more involved in violence and other forms of crime. There are five key elements underpinning feminist work 1) gender is not a natural fact 2) gender and gender relations order social life and social institutions in fundamental ways 3) gender relatinos and constructs of masculinity and femininity are not symmetrical 4) Systems of knowledge reflect mens views of the social world 5) women should be at the centre of intellectual inquiry.

SMART - She thought that…