Feminist Perspective of Criminology

Feminist Perspective of Criminology

The feminist perspective of criminology started in the 1960s and continued to the 1970s as a reaction to the general disregard against discrimination of women in the conventional study of crime. The perspective recognizes that the field of criminology has been dominated by men resulting in the development of criminology theories that focus on the experiences of men. The patriarchal domination is exceptional to the criminology theory as it is reflected in the criminal justice system, which is referenced under the institution of gender. The feminist perspective and victimology developed after the second wave of feminism, and it speaks with several viewpoints that were developed by feminist writers.

It is intended to solve the issues of inequality between different genders in criminology. Feminist perspective and criminology focus on women as criminal offenders, women as victims of crime, and women working in the criminal justice field.

Feminist Perspective and Victimology

The sexism in criminology has a significant impact on sentencing, punishment, and even imprisonment of women who are not expected to be criminals, and if they are, they are described as mad, not bad. The madness attribution to women flows mainly from a construct that is out of date. The women who conform to it are considered to be pure, obedient daughters, wives, and mothers who are of great benefit to society and men as well (Moghadam, 2015). The women who go against the natural biological traits are considered to have weakness of compliance and passivity, and they are deemed to have mental illnesses. This view is quite orthodox and has been held for decades. Feminism operates within the existing social structures, and they examine the economic, social, and political experiences of women to come up with strategies for attaining greater equality in the role that women play in the society. It entails explaining how women came to occupy the subordinate roles, the nature of the privilege given to males, and the ways through which the conversations comprise of the power of patriarchy that can be redirected for the intention of changing the society.

Gender expectations continue to define behaviors and attitudes that are acceptable for males and females. Deviation from these expectations can lead to many sanctions in society ranging from violence, verbal abuse to imprisonment. The roles that men and women play for the social control that is upheld through mechanisms that are both formal and informal.  The place of a woman in society is defined as home (Panfil & Miller, 2015).  A woman has few opportunities for the criminology activity since the domesticity keeps her at home.  The reason why women are scared to go out of their homes is that they are afraid of aggressive male behavior. Men hold the major supervisory roles, and this makes it hard for women to commit crimes in the society. The feminist perspective intends to control dominant groups and the normality standards that so maintained through inequality and meaning of defiance according to the social control institutions.

Susie’s Case Study

In the case of Susie Jane, she was raised in Redlands, California, during the period of the Great Depression. Her parents were migrant workers; she ended up in an orphanage when they died.  She is a mother of two and gave one child up for adoption and then sent the other one to live with a relative. She ended up in jail in the 1940s because she turned to cheque fraud. In 1960, she was arrested in Sacramento for running a brothel. After serving the jail term, she returned being more aggressive, and her primary target was the elderly and the disabled. She sought a job as a nurse aid to help and the disabled to steal from them. She started to forge benefit cheques that were stolen from older men that she encountered in bars. Susie was then arrested in 1982, for drugging an older man and looting his home. The incident made Susie to be imprisoned for three years at state prison while she was at the age of 61.

In the case of Suzie, she has been engaging in crime since her first arrest in the 1940s. She has been in and out of prison, and it is like she has become used to committing a crime.  According to the feminist perspective and victimology, women who commit crimes are considered to be mentally challenged. Also, women are considered to have natural passivity from breaking the law, and they lack the intelligence to become criminals. In this case, Suzie does not have adequate knowledge about crimes, and this is the reason why she keeps getting incarcerated. She does not have the appropriate strategies to facilitate her criminal activities, and this is the reason why she keeps being incarcerated. Suzie has a stronger state of mind, and she can handle different pressures of life even better than men.  She makes decisions about criminal activities that enable her to make a living even though she ends up in incarceration. Suzie manages to trick men in, such as the older adult who was her business partner. Susie gave Doug a drug overdose that led to his death. She was left with an inheritance of $6,000.

The feminist perspective and criminology place greater emphasis on the roles of women and men that result in the different pathways towards deviance, crime, and even victimization that the criminological theories overlook (Hall & Winlow, 2015). In the case of Susie, she was raised in an orphanage after the death of her parents, and therefore, life has not been easy for her. She got married and had two kids, and the marriage did not work out, and thus she was forced to give out one of her children for adoption and the other one to relatives. She also attempted to start a brothel, which did not work since she was arrested. She has been trying out venturing in economic activities, which has proven to be futile.   She has been incarcerated at different times because of the economic activities that she engages in. Therefore, the difficult economic times, in this case, have made Susie engage in criminal activities to make ends meets. She understands very well that engaging in crime is punishable by a jail term with regard to the magnitude, but she is willing to risk it all for the sake of earning an income. The deviance behavior that Susie has developed is because of the jail terms that she has been experiencing, making her become even more aggressive.  The society at this time did not tolerate any criminal activities done by women, and this is the reason why Susie keeps being incarcerated because of defying from the norms. She is supposed to be a good mother and a wife, but she gave up all that to search for better economic activities.  Susie does not care about the repercussions of engaging in crime because she knows that at the end of the day, she will be jailed because she does not behave per the societal values and beliefs, and she does not also adhere to the roles of women in the society.

Women, according to the feminist perspective, are supposed to be good mothers and wives, and those who deviate from the same are considered to have a mental illness (DeKeseredy, 2015). Women are not expected to indulge in crime, and when they do, they are considered to be mad. The weakness of compliance is considered to be against the set standards in society. In the conventional patriarchal society, women’s place is considered to be home because it is believed to expose them to criminal activities because of the domesticity routine (Wonders & Danner, 2015). In this case, Susie does not have a family, and therefore, this is what makes her indulge in crime more often. She is an industrious woman, and she seizes every opportunity that comes her way. The feminist perspective of criminology intends to look at what motivates women to engage in crime.

Conclusion

The feminist perspective and victimology explain that lack of economic opportunities is what makes women engage in crime. In the traditional patriarchal society, the place of women is at home because it lessens their chances of committing a crime.  In the case of Susie, she does not have any family to take care of since she divorced and gave her two children away. Therefore, she easily engages in crime because she does not have any motivation to keep her away from it. Susie has also experienced tough economic times since the death of her parents, and getting better income is what motivates her to engage in crime.

References

DeKeseredy, W. S. (2015). New Directions in Feminist Understandings of Rural Crime. Journal of rural studies, 39, 180-187.

Hall, S., & Winlow, S. (2015). Revitalizing Criminological Theory:: Towards a new Ultra-Realism. Routledge.

Moghadam, V. M. (2015). Transnational Feminist Activism and Movement Building. In The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements.

Panfil, V. R., & Miller, J. (2015). Feminist and Queer Perspectives on Qualitative Methods. Routledge handbook of qualitative criminology, 32-48.

Wonders, N. A., & Danner, M. J. (2015). Gendering Climate Change: A Feminist Criminological Perspective. Critical Criminology, 23(4), 401-416.