Feminist

Feminist Criminology, 2006

This article draws on existing feminist theoretical concepts to develop a Black feminist criminology (BFC), using intimate partner abuse against African American women to examine this pioneering approach. BFC expands on feminist criminology and is grounded firmly in Black feminist theory and critical race feminist theory. BFC recognizes a significant connection between intimate partner abuse against women and structural, cultural, and familial influences. It is argued that BFC aids in a more precise explanation of how Black women experience and respond to intimate partner abuse and how the crime-processing system responds to battered Black women.

IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 2023

Considering that Criminology has been around for more than two hundred years, feminist criminology, which emerged in the 1960s, is relatively recent. This work intends to highlight gaps that still exist on theory and research on gender, crime, and justice, pointing out four key priorities for criminological theory and research on gender. The methodology used for this investigation is a wide range of articles on the subject, that are focused on the criminological research in the English-speaking world, predominantly in the United Kingdom. The results show a need for criminological research with more emphasis on intersectionality, violence against women in politics, crimes against women in rural settings and the need for an awakening to gender criminological studies that address the queer community

Criminology, 1989

Feminist research has expanded beyond its origins in Women's Studies to influence the more traditionally bounded academic disciplines. Criminology has not been immune to these excursions. This paper presents an overview of feminist theory/methods and its applications within select areas of crime and justice studies. Points of intra-theoretical divergence as well as directions for future feminist contributions are noted. * My thanks to Kathleen Daly, Nicole Hahn Rafter, and N. Craig Smith for their insightful comments on a draft of this paper. I was assisted in my revisions by the criticisms of three anonymous reviewers. All of the above are to be commended for their assistance, but none is responsible for the ideas and arguments contained herein. 1. This is not to suggest that biological reductionism is absent in studiedtheories of male criminality. Such explanations of male crime abound (e.g., Wilson and Herrnstein, 1985). However, with the demise of phrenology, social factors replaced biology as key CRIMINOLOGY VOLUME 27 NUMBER 4 1989 605 606 SIMPSON seemed-whether good or bad-could never be like a man. These observations are not new, but they reflect a different voice, a feminist voice, that has been added to the criminological discourse. The purpose of this review essay is to introduce feminist criminology and its intellectual parent, feminism, to the uninitiated reader. It would be presumptuous to suggest that all relevant studies and arguments about gender and crime are included here. Such an extensive review is more appropriate for a book, and depending on the topic, it has likely already been done and done well (e.g., Eaton,

Race and Justice, 2022

The phrase "the personal is political" is commonly associated with 1970s feminists, for whom it denoted the relationship between personal experiences and broad systems of inequality. However, considering bell hooks' argument that feminists have lost the power analysis fundamental to the relationship between the personal and the political, we assess the relevance of the notion the 'personal is political,' to our work as feminist criminologists. Building on hooks' insight, we argue there is a need to take up an intersectional and anti-racist feminist praxis that centers multiple forms of oppression in scholarship and seeks greater accountability for sexism, racism, and transphobia both within and beyond academic spaces. We elaborate our ideas by, first, outlining the intellectual history and evolution of feminist criminology. Second, we examine how the relationship between the personal and political figures in the work of minoritized scholars. Third, we discuss the necessary discomforts associated with working towards an intersectional and antiracist feminist criminology.

The SAGE Handbook of Criminological Theory, 2010

This essay examines the connection between violence and masculinity that leads men to appoint themselves the protectors of racialized communities and that constitutes its own interracial brotherhood linking lawbreakers and law enforcers. Feminists are familiar with the concept of "gender violence, " but this term is usually used to denote violence by men against women. Yet exploration of the violence in the criminal justice system begins to reveal the extent to which masculine identity is shaped by relations of repulsion and desire between men. Indeed, this community of violence extends to state actors within the criminal justice system, most notably the police. Disrupting the cycle of gender violence both inside and outside the state is a race issue and a gender issue, as well as a criminal justice issue.

This essay examines the connection between violence and masculinity that leads men to appoint themselves the protectors of racialized communities and that constitutes its own interracial brotherhood linking lawbreakers and law enforcers. Feminists are familiar with the concept of "gender violence, " but this term is usually used to denote violence by men against women. Yet exploration of the violence in the criminal justice system begins to reveal the extent to which masculine identity is shaped by relations of repulsion and desire between men. Indeed, this community of violence extends to state actors within the criminal justice system, most notably the police. Disrupting the cycle of gender violence both inside and outside the state is a race issue and a gender issue, as well as a criminal justice issue.

Feminist Criminology, 2008

Anti-Feminist Backlash and Gender-Relevant Crime Initiatives in the Global Context A s we move further into the new millennium, feminist criminologists have found themselves in the midst of a volatile and politicized challenge, the challenge of sustaining the gains of second wave feminism in the face of neoconservative politics and the strength of global capitalism. From the 1990s onward, a body of research has emerged on ways feminist successes appear to be ricocheting back with an ever meaner or harsher twist. One example is the changed landscape of crime and justice for women in the United States-where women are treated "equally" to their male counterparts in the criminal justice system, no matter how (in)appropriate and (ir)rational such equal treatment is-a development Chesney-Lind (2006) poignantly named "vengeful equity" in her contribution to the inaugural issue of Feminist Criminology. A second example is the ways an Internet-linked international men's rights movement is reshaping domestic violence and family law discourse and policy to constitute men as equally or indeed more victimized than women in domestic "conflict," resulting in increases in dual-arrests and the erosion of funding for women's anti-domestic violence advocacy and services in Canada and other jurisdictions (Mann, 2008; Miller & Meloy, 2006). These are but two examples of antifeminist backlash and the very real impacts this backlash is having on policies relevant to female victimization and offending in jurisdictions across the globe. From America to Australia,

During the 1970s the feminist movement broke a long-lasting silence by bringing up issues related to the victimization of women. At the same time, feminist criminology emerged, introducing issues of female victimization into criminological discussion. This, in sequence, led to the development of strong, politically activists views that influenced law making and courtroom dynamics. The work by feminist criminologists has been decisive in framing women’s victimization as a legitimate social problem, and in making substantial changes in the criminal justice system. This essay will critically evaluate the contribution of feminist perspectives to victimology and the subsequent development of criminal justice policies.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 1993

While preparing this special issue of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, we heard a disturbing rumor that some members of the American Society of Criminology had approached the ASC Executive Board about producing a special issue devoted to gender. When informed of the forthcoming publication of a special issue of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology devoted to gender, crime, and criminal justice, these ASC members replied, "Quantitative research on gender doesn't count." Why shouldn't it count? Because quantitative analysis and the study of gender are currently considered to be an oxymoron? As admitted "unreconstructed positivists" (Menkel-Meadow and Diamond, 1991, p. 233)--an epistemological position some view as inherently incapable of producing worthwhile insights into gender and crime--we challenge this view and attempt to show in this special issue the gains that can be made from doing good quantitative research on gender.

The Journal of Human Justice, 1991

Although the notion of taking gender into account in social analyses has been around for some time,for the large part it has not been taken seriously by criminologists. In this article, Laberge shows how the neglect of women's criminality has been to the detriment of criminological inquiry. Through an examination of the questions usually asked about women in contact with the penal system, the author takes us beyond an "additive" approach to explaining crime. Reorganizing these questions, she outlines a number of analytical distinctions that will transform our understanding of criminalized women, specifically, and criminological inquiry, generally.

Sex Roles, 2012

In The Gender of Crime, Dana Britton offers a critical and thought-provoking examination of how criminology as a discipline has largely ignored the intersections of various social inequalities in individuals' likelihood of engaging in crime or being victimized. Focusing exclusively on U.S. society throughout the text, she also explores the role that the policies and practices of the criminal justice system (CJS) play in further perpetuating these inequalities. While the title of the book suggests that one will read about the ways in which the commission and punishment of crime is gendered, it is rather deceptive, as Britton convincingly argues that the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality are all integral to the daily functioning of our CJS. Although she does generally concentrate on the role of gender in crime, Britton also successfully shows how crime and the operations of the CJS have been deeply influenced by and continue to reinforce the social constructions of gender, race, class, sexuality, and their associated inequalities.

Decolonization of criminology and justice, 2022

In this article, we examine the existing policy and academic literature on punitive responses to gender-based and family violence, focusing, in particular, on women's police stations. Specialist women's police stations have been a feature of policing in Argentina, Brazil, and other South American as well as Central American countries since the late 1980s. They are considered to be a phenomenon of 'the global South', having also been set up in some African and Asian countries including Sierra Leone and India. In this article, we critique research on women's police stations as well as the public discourse within which women's police stations are being proposed as a solution to domestic violence-looking at questions of research design, methodology, empiricism, ethics, and criminological claims to knowledge or 'truth'. We reflect on the significant dangers posed by the potential transfer of women's police stations to the Australian context, especially for sovereign Indigenous women and girls. Finally, we critique what we see as deep-seated contradictions and anomalies inherent in 'southern theory' and white feminist carceralism.

In this chapter we review key contributions to the literature on gender, violence and victimization. Instead of providing an exhaustive review of the literature, we highlight key theoretical and empirical contributions that illustrate how intersections of race, gender and class shape the criminological literature on gender, violence and victimization, and the implications of “intersectionality” for helping us to better understand trends in violence and victimization among women. We begin with a discussion of Dorie Klein’s (1973) “The Etiology of Female Crime: A Review of the Literature,” which is one of the earliest and most significant reviews of the traditional criminological canon. Klein’s critique was among the first to challenge the representation of women in the traditional criminological literature. Subsequent critiques of the literature encouraged the development of gender and crime and feminist criminology as valid areas of study in the criminological literature. These critiques also paved the way for the development of Black feminist criminology (Potter, 2006), which encourages the use of an intersectional analysis to understand trends in violent offending, victimization and institutional responses to each. In contrast to the early criminological works surveyed in the first section of this chapter, recent work on gender, violence and victimization draws on an intersectional framework to explain how categorical variables like race, gender or class, pattern violence and victimization. In addition to explaining differences in patterns across and within groups, these explanations also help us to better understand how race, gender and class inform institutional responses to violence and victimization.