Historically, gender has been understood as a means of distinguishing between the biological and socialised aspects of femininity and masculinity (Marecek, Crawford, & Popp, 2004). It is considered an active product of social interactions where situated conduct is managed “in light of normative conceptions of attitudes and activities appropriate for one’s sex category” (West & Zimmerman, 1987). These social and behavioural expectations exist in the form of gender roles, and are so deeply embedded into our cultural systems that they appear inherent. Femininity and masculinity are generally constructed as the polar opposite of the other; femininity is associated with non-violence, passiveness and emotions while masculinity is depicted as strength, aggression and restricted emotions (Levant & Kopecky, 1995). Non-adherence to these ideals of gender, especially in issues pertaining to sex and violence, is frowned upon as it challenges the very basis upon which gender is constructed.
However, the 21st century has seen a shift in gender roles due to factors such as changing family structures and women’s rights movements, allowing the demarcation between genders to be less distinct. With claims that discourses on female deviance remaining “curiously embedded in the Victorian age” (Jewkes, 2004), it would be worthwhile to examine if such gender expectations are still upheld today, particularly in Western media. Through an analysis of the portrayal of convicted criminal Amanda Knox in British media, this paper argues that contemporary media still conform to stereotypical construction of the female criminal as noted in established literature on feminist criminology such as “double deviance” (Heidensohn, 1989) and the more recent “mad/bad d...
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...& Honkatukia, 2002) and may deny “the offenders agency in their act” in that their offence resulted from the women’s “biological functions” (Naylor, 1995). In fact, PMS has been successfully used to absolve women from responsibility for their actions (Dalton, 1990).
Sexual deviance is consistently interlinked in contemporary literature with female criminality, where “the woman who has engaged in extramarital sex, or kinky sex, or perhaps is just ‘sexy’ is capable of any deviance” (Naylor, 1995). Surprisingly, there has been little criticism of this dichotomy in literature. Frigon (1995) offers one of the few criticisms and notes that “confining the explanations to the mad/bad dichotomy bypasses the possibility of seeing women’s powerlessness and… locates the problem at an individual level… [thus] it prevents us from looking at wider social and economic processes”.
No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality (Eitzen, Zinn, and Smith 2012). Every society treats women and men differently. Research shows that sex and gender are entirely separate concepts, yet, society lumps them together and the terms oftentimes are used interchangeably. We can distinguish that sex indicates biological differences between males and females, and gender assigns cultural and social behavior based on sex. However, everything in society is needlessly gendered; advertising, occupations, institutions. Society makes gender a huge factor that determines what roles children and adults alike fulfill. This fosters a culture where roles are pre-fabricated for us, somewhat eliminating free choice, and limiting
Walklate, S. (2001) Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice. 1st ed. Cullompton: Willan Publishing. Press. 26
are presented as rational actors who intentionally commit crimes while women are viewed as mentally unfit victims who are vulnerable to risky men and poor relationship choices. The author reports that many prison
The criminal justice system main focus has always been shifted towards male offenders and their responses to male crimes. Women and girls offending lacked attention simply because most crimes were known to be committed by males and not females. Nevertheless, towards the end of the 20th century, female incarceration tremendously took a turn for the worst, leading to more study on women/girls, women and crime offending, crimes, and the criminal justice system in regard to feminist. This increase rate of women incarceration was led in regard to “war on drugs”. It was explained that women’s and girl’s crime and deviance is trigger often by biological factors than by social or economic forces (Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988). In the late 1960s, Bertrand
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 12(1), 78. Mould, E. F. (1978). The Species of the World. Chivalry and Paternalism: Disparities in Treatment in the Criminal Justice System.
Historically, criminology was significantly ‘gender-blind’ with men constituting the majority of criminal offenders, criminal justice practitioners and criminologists to understand ‘male crimes’ (Carraine, Cox, South, Fussey, Turton, Theil & Hobbs, 2012). Consequently, women’s criminality was a greatly neglected area and women were typically seen as non-criminal. Although when women did commit crimes they were medicalised and pathologised, and sent to mental institutions not prisons (Carraine et al., 2012). Although women today are treated differently to how they were in the past, women still do get treated differently in the criminal justice system. Drawing upon social control theory, this essay argues that nature and extent of discrimination
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
Due to the previously discussed concept, women are largely discriminated against by the criminal justice system and denied their right to justice. This is specifically true of women who have been involved in prior sexual activities whether with or other than their offender. “Officials deny justice to women who have been engaged in non marital sex” , as well as those who may have been engaged in a ‘flirtatious’ relationship with their offender by directing their attention on the women’s character. If she was involved in any ‘provocative’ behaviour such as dancing near the offender, prior to the incident she is seen to have “violated traditional norms of female prudence or morality” causing the blame to shift making the victim the primary suspect.
Throughout the years it has recorded that woman now have definitely been doing crimes as much as what men have done in the past years. In an article about The Criminal Justice System and Woman both Freda Alder and Rita Simons talk about theories and facts about the woman committing crimes that we see on TV’s, newspapers, and interviews. They discuss in depth about the reasoning on why woman are now starting to do crimes and murders as bad as men have done over the past years.
This essay will explore reasons why females such as Vanessa George turn to the crime of sex offending. Demonstrating my knowledge and understanding of classical criminological theory, exploring biological theories such as penis envy and more contemporary views such as liberation theory within feminism. The essay will then go on to look at the inequalities female sex offenders face within the criminal justice system in comparison with males, using chivalry theory and evil woman theory to explain this.
Traditionally, there has been little research on or interest in the impact of female crime in modern society. In addition, juvenile crime rates are on the rise, which combine for a void of research or information on female juvenile offenders. In general, crime rates for women offenders have risen since the 1990's. Increasing numbers of young women are also offending at higher rates. In a 1996 U.S. Department of Justice Report, the number of arrests of young women had doubled between 1989 and 1993. Twenty percent of all juvenile arrests were committed by girls, an increase of 87 percent. However, according to The National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, males are far more likely to admit to criminal involvement than are females. For example, 12 percent of males and 4 percent of females reported carrying a hidden weapon other than a pocketknife in the past year (Wilson, p.150). There are several theories for this rise in crime proposed by modern feminists, including that the introduction of women into traditional male roles prompted women to commit increasingly dangerous and violent crimes. However, this paper will rely on Meda Chesney-Lind's theories from The Female Offender.
The female gender role in society has created a torturous fate for those who have failed in their role as a woman, whether as a mother, a daughter, or a wife. The restrictive nature of the role that society imposes on women causes extreme repercussions for those women who cannot fulfill their purpose as designated by society. These repercussions can be as common as being reprimanded or as severe as being berated or beaten by a husband or father. The role that women were given by society entails being a submissive homemaker who dotes on her husband and many children. The wife keeps the home impeccably neat, tends to the children and ensures their education and well-being, and acts obsequiously to do everything possible to please her husband. She must be cheerful and sweet and pretty, like a dainty little doll. The perfect woman in the eyes of society is exactly like a doll: she always smiles, always looks her best and has no feelings or opinions that she can truly call her own. She responds only to the demands of her husband and does not act or speak out of turn. A woman who speaks her mind or challenges the word of any man, especially her husband, is undesirable because she is not the obedient little doll that men cherish. Women who do not conform to the rules that society has set for them are downgraded to the only feature that differentiates them from men; their sex. Society’s women do not speak or think of sex unless their husband requires it of them. But when a woman fails to be the doll that a man desires, she is worth nothing more than a cheap sex object and she is disposed of by society.
Since the beginning of time men have played the dominant role in nearly every culture around the world. If the men were not dominant, then the women and men in the culture were equal. Never has a culture been found where women have dominated. In “Society and Sex Roles” by Ernestine Friedl, Friedl supports the previous statement and suggests that “although the degree of masculine authority may vary from one group to the next, males always have more power” (261). Friedl discusses a variety of diverse conditions that determine different degrees of male dominance focusing mainly on the distribution of resources. In The Forest People by Colin Turnbull, Turnbull describes the culture of the BaMbuti while incorporating the evident sex roles among these “people of the forest”. I believe that the sex roles of the BaMbuti depicted by Turnbull definitely follow the pattern that is the basis of Freidl’s arguments about the conditions that determine variations of male dominance. Through examples of different accounts of sex roles of the BaMbuti and by direct quotations made by Turnbull as well as members of the BaMbuti tribe, I intend on describing exactly how the sex roles of the BaMbuti follow the patterns discussed by Freidl. I also aim to depict how although women are a vital part of the BaMbuti culture and attain equality in many areas of the culture, men still obtain a certain degree of dominance.
In today’s society people are becoming more open about their gender. Celebrities are becoming trans-gendered and this is affecting society because it leaves people in confusion on if the person is male with feminine traits. This causes society to view a trans-gendered person different than others because they chose to change their gender from what they were born as at birth. Changing from male to female allows people to view that person to be weak because generally the male is the dominant sex in life. In culture women are marked by wearing dresses, their body structures and having the title “Mrs.” while men remain unmarked by their clothing and appearances.