Chapter 8 Test Bank Docx Feminist and Critical Criminologies

8

Feminist and Critical Criminologies

CHAPTER OUTLINE

This chapter explores various approaches described as “leftist, liberal, and committed to social change.” Theories are grouped as feminist and critical.

8.1 Feminist Criminologies

Feminism is used broadly to refer to the conscious recognition that women are discriminated against and the need for social change to end gender subordination. Daly and Chesney-Lind outline five core elements that distinguish feminist theories:

1. Gender is not a natural fact, but a complex social construction.

2. Gender relations order social life and social institutions in fundamental ways.

3. Constructions of masculinity and femininity are not symmetrical, but are based on organizing principles of men’s dominance over women.

4. Systems of knowledge reflect male dominance and the production of knowledge is gendered.

5. Women should be at the center of intellectual inquiry, not peripheral or invisible in scholarship.

Feminist criminology is divided into two phases: the late 1960s to the mid-1980s and the late 1980s to the present.

The First Phase

The first phase critiqued criminology for ignoring gender and/or misrepresenting women; explored women as offenders, victims, and criminal justice system workers; and used liberal, Marxist, radical, and social feminist theory to explain male and female criminal involvement.

Liberal feminism has roots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ideals of liberty and equality. Thus publications as diverse as Wollstonecraft’s (1792) A Vindication of the Rights of Women, J. S. Mills’ (1851) The Subjection of Women, Ms. magazine, and pamphlets from the National Organization for Women (NOW) trace women’s subordination to gender discrimination that blocks women from full participation in mainstream institutions. Gender inequality is also linked to gender socialization. Girls are socialized to be sensitive, passive, dependent, and nurturing—traits defined as inferior to the self-confidence, independence, competitiveness, and aggression that comprises masculine socialization. Gender differences in criminality reflect these patterns. Liberal feminist “opportunity theory” (Simon, 1975; Figueira-McDonough, 1980) thus argue that women’s and men’s criminal behavior will converge as women’s increased participation in paid labor creates more criminal opportunities for women. Others (Oakley, 1972; Adler, 1975) note that crime is “masculine.” Thus as gender differences decrease in modern life, women will commit more violent crime as women become more like men. With a similar emphasis on the gendered meaning of crime, Rosenblum (1975) argued that prostitution is a consequence of gender socialization and cultural objectification of women.

Marxist feminists argue that women’s gendered oppression stems from the fundamental class oppression of the working class by the capitalist class. As private property evolved, women were relegated to the “domestic sphere,” whereas men were shuttled into paid industrial labor. Sexism is a result of capitalist relations that structure women’s position and thus women’s crime. Both crime type (shoplifting, prostitution) and mode (fewer guns, more kitchen knives, and other household implements) reflect women’s oppression in capitalism. The Schwendingers (1983) linked rape and other male violence against women to male authority based on men’s control of the production system.

Radical feminists argue that patriarchy is the root cause of all social relations and inequality. Thus (1) women were, historically, the first oppressed group; (2) women’s oppression is the most widespread, existing in virtually every known society; and (3) women’s oppression is the deepest and the hardest to eradicate. According to MacKinnon (1984), control of women’s sexuality is central to patriarchal society as the means by which paternity can be enforced and compulsory heterosexuality can be regulated. Brownmiller’s (1975) analysis linked male domination to biology. Others rejected this determinism but noted power is maintained over women’s sexuality through male violence—rape, wife beating, incestuous assault, sexual harassment, and pornography. Stanko thus writes, “To be a woman—in most societies, in most eras—is to experience physical and/or sexual terrorism at the hands of men.”

According to socialist feminists class and gender inequality co-reproduce domination. In modern society these forms of domination interact and support each other. The interaction between patriarchy and capitalism must be understood to fully grasp the contemporary problems of crime. Messerschmidt (1986) noted how capitalist patriarchy structures crime. Those most powerful in both gender and class systems of inequality commit the most crime—not the disadvantaged as commonly supposed. Crime, therefore, is related to the opportunities that a gender or class position allows. Men in upper-class positions commit the most damaging crimes (e.g., white-collar and political crimes). The lower classes, women, and minorities commit relatively less damaging crime.

The Second Phase

Some contemporary feminist criminology theorizes how women are constructed by legal discourse. Other work focuses on the “real lives” of women to show how their problems and their responses to these problems impact their involvement in crime as perpetrators or victims. Smart (1998) argues that legal language and symbolism construct women as distinct from men, and construct “types” of women such as the prostitute and the bad mother. Laws related to abortion, infanticide, and age of consent create an inevitable link between sex and reproduction for girls and women. Chesney-Lind’s research (1995; Chesney-Lind and Pasko 2012) explores the everyday realities of delinquent girls. Her research shows that girls who have been physically or sexually victimized are more likely to be involved in criminal activities. This is especially the case for girls victimized by family members. Such girls are more likely to run away and join gangs.

Since the 1990s feminist criminologists have applied these themes to boys and men. Legal discourse constructs types of males such as the lawyer, the dangerous male child, the mass murderer, and fathers. Messerschmidt’s research examines the role of masculinities in the perpetuation of crime at every level—from white-collar crime to street crime. His analysis of Malcolm X’s life illustrates that crime is often a means of “doing masculinity” and is based on the specific context of one’s life. This and other work by feminist criminologists demonstrates two tendencies: postmodern work investigates how men and boys are constructed by discourse, whereas other efforts explore men as active agents who construct masculinities and crime in particular social contexts. Mullins (2006) explores how particular tavern and street milieu structure masculine interaction. His relational approach considers types of masculinities (hegemonic street, punk) in relation to femininities, documenting that much public violence among men results from masculine challenges. The men in the study also shifted between “street” masculinity and “protective” masculinity when interacting with female family members. Because gender is not biologically given, some girls and women engage in “masculine” criminal activity. Jody Miller (2001, 2002) showed that some gang girls embrace a masculine identity. Messerschmidt’s (2012) life history research similarly found that the criminality of some girls is in part a rejection of femininity.

Evaluation of Feminist Criminologies

Liberal feminist criminology is often criticized because it does not “explain the emergence of gender inequality,” but it relies on the simplistic approach of “gender role socialization.” Furthermore, research evidence does not support the liberal feminist claim that women are committing more crimes because they have more workplace opportunities to do so. Women’s crimes tend to be nonoccupational theft, such as larceny and minor fraud, and most female property offenders are adolescents with little or no access to the labor market. Liberal feminists do not account for women’s subordinate positions in the division of labor. Anthropological research does not support the radical feminist assumption of universal female subordination. Marxist and radical feminist criminology have been criticized for reducing human interaction to class relations or biological differences between men and women. In addition, neither Marxist, radical, nor socialist feminist criminology has adequately explained what “patriarchy” is, how it can be defined, and how to adequately move beyond it. Even so, feminist criminology continues to flourish. Second-phase feminist work is very promising. It continues the critique of “malestream” criminology, shows both theoretical and methodological diversity, studies masculinities, and embraces a social justice perspective.

8.2 Critical Criminologies

All critical criminologies begin with a rejection of inequality. Although the following four critical perspectives differ in many ways, they share common concerns: the legalistic definition of crime; the linear and positivist emphasis on “causation”; increasing punitive responses to conventional crime, while dismissing the larger issues of political and white-collar crime; the targeting of specific groups for stricter control, especially based on race, class, and gender; and the continued and often systematic practices of racism, sexism, and classism.

Constitutive Criminology

Constitutive criminology is a postmodernist reaction to scientific rationalism and positivist certainty of the Enlightenment that studies “how crime is constituted by public discourse.” It includes three key ideas: (1) the centrality of language in shaping reality and interaction; (2) because language structures thought, knowledge is partial and truth is provisional; and (3) deconstruction reveals how some claims to truth are privileged whereas others are dismissed or ignored. Self-consciously political, this approach attempts to deconstruct the rhetoric of domination seen in the dominant ideology of crime and its control. For example, Henry and Milovanovic point out that crime is not simply what criminal law says it is. Some people are preoccupied with power and control to the point that they dehumanize others. As part of their policy to curb crime they call for “replacement discourses” regarding crime, harm, and “liberating life narratives” in the media.

Cultural Criminology

Cultural criminology emerged in a 1995 collection of essays edited by Ferrell and Sanders. The text focused on “living-at-the-edge” practices such as motorcycling, anti-abortion violence, and base-jumping (Figure 8.1). The immediacy and risk-taking of such “edgework” seeks to alleviate the boredom and drudgery of late modernity; edgework relieves the boredom of young offenders. More recently Ferrell, Hayward, and Young (2008) harshly criticized mainstream criminology’s emphasis on quantitative survey research and professional pressures to secure grants and produce relatively meaningless research given that IRBs make research with live subjects very difficult. This intensely political work seeks to revitalize criminology through a return to Chicago School empiricism, the study of meaning as seen in works of phenomenology and labeling theory, and analysis of culture and subcultures. For example, they note that the meanings of physical violence are fluid. “Bloody knuckles and swollen lips” might be domestic violence, offered on pay per view, or exist on the front lines of terror and war. We must, then, understand the cultures and politics of violence. Young’s (2007) The Vertigo of Late Modernity links Mertonian strain theory with ethnography and analysis of globalization. By “vertigo” Young means the “malaise of late modernity” (insecurity, insubstantiality, uncertainty, hints of chaos, and fear of falling) that leads to obsessions with rules, decreased tolerance of deviance, and increasingly punitive responses to crime. In Young’s view, armed robbery and drug use provide moments of control in an otherwise commodified and chaotic world. Overall, cultural criminology is an innovative critique of quantitative mainstream criminology.

Critical Humanist Criminologies

Critical humanist criminologies focus on humanizing the criminal justice system. Peacemaking criminology developed from humanism, feminism, nonviolence, left realism, and a broader concern for social justice. As Pepinsky and Quinney note, it is based on “a reverence for life, for the connectedness of all beings,” it seeks more humane responses to crime, such as mediation, conflict resolution, and reconciliation. The focus of peacemaking criminology is to reduce human suffering—especially that which results from poverty, sexism, and racial injustice—and thereby reduce crime. Remembering that all perpetrators and victims are fundamentally human, the peacemaking perspective interjects a “compassionate discourse” into criminal justice where the essence of humanity overrides the appearance of humanity. Quinney notes that the current strategy of the criminal justice system emphasizes overpowering the disenfranchised to control them. This use of force is “negative peace,” which only begets more violence. In contrast, “positive peace” is achieved when the community is free of poverty, inequality, racism, and alienation. Fuller’s Peacemaking Pyramid Paradigm includes six items to consider when devising criminal justice solutions: nonviolence; social justice; inclusion; correct means (e.g., due process); ascertainable criteria (to ensure that all understand the proceedings); and the categorical imperative that crime responses reflect social justice, respect, and dignity.

Ex-cons who have become sociologists and criminologists are the major adherents of convict criminology. As insiders, they are critical of the immense size of the U.S. prison system and its physically and psychically violent practices, especially as occurs in supermax prisons. Other leftist, humanist approaches include abolitionism (focus on the faulty logic of incarceration as a crime solution), anarchism (focus on the state as the source of most social ills, including crime), restorative justice (focus on bringing offenders and victims together via reintegrative shaming), and human rights. Stanley Cohen’s Center for Human Rights at the London School of Economics exemplifies the latter. Foci include mental hospital patients and incarcerated prisoners, underprivileged youth, and victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Green Criminology

Green criminology reappraises traditional ideas about crime and injurious behavior to include concern with the environment and nonhuman animals. This draws attention to the ways societies, corporations, and governments harm the earth and its species. Four sources of “green harms” are (1) global warming and air pollution, (2) deforestation and related harms, (3) water pollution, and (4) harms against humans and other animals. Examples of green crimes include the Inuit charge that the U.S. government has criminally violated their human rights by failing to curb carbon emissions and greenhouse gases, environmental destruction and resource use, trade in natural resources and ozone-depleting substances, hazardous waste dumping, and oil spills such as BP’s Deepwater Horizon debacle in 2010. Green studies document environmental victimization of the poor and forcible removal of indigenous people from land that is then exploited for military or agricultural purposes. The recent (2013) IPCC report notes the unequivocal finding that climate change is the result of human activity such as deforestation and the emission of greenhouse gases. Box 8.3 summarizes the proposed Ecocide Act. Criminologists have been slow to study animal abuse: human actions that result in the pain, suffering, or death of other animals. Animal abuse may be physical, emotional, or psychological. Specieism—practices and ideologies that legitimate human exploitation of nonhuman animals—is often central to animal abuse. The text problematizes the human-animal distinction and notes that specieist language intertwines with sexism, as when women are called bitches, chicks, foxes, cows, and fresh meat. Inaccurate description of animal-related categories and practices (e.g., fisheries and harvesting) facilitates animal commodification. Based in utilitarianism and liberal rights theory, the animal rights movement has achieved legislative protections for animals in agribusiness, labs and research, zoos, and aquariums. One-on-one animal cruelty, such as that which occurs in families is important, but far more animal abuse occurs in “socially acceptable” institutional contexts such as vivisection and slaughterhouses (Box 8.4, “Slaughterhouse Work”). Human workers in these environments experience emotional problems such as desensitization and increased aggression toward themselves and others.

Evaluation of Critical Criminologies

Despite their differences, the four perspectives of the chapter overlap, united by opposition to inequality and rejection of state-defined notions of “harm.” Constitutive criminology might have run its course, but it provides useful insights. Cultural criminology has bloomed, but some feminists point out that some of the acts it focuses on—base-jumping, for example—are mostly available to white males. A feminist cultural criminology may be emerging. Others point out that cultural criminology pays insufficient attention to the deleterious effects of capitalism on racial minorities and the poor. Peace criminology and convict criminology are perhaps better described as critical approaches to the criminal justice system than criminologies per se. Both have produced insightful critiques but have yet to create a practical blueprint for reform. This is also true of abolitionist and anarchist criminology, and the restorative justice movement. Green criminology’s insights from the environmental and animal rights movements might provide correctives to the mainstream criminology neglect of environmental concerns and animal rights. Promising links between green and cultural criminology now exist. Differences between critical and mainstream criminology, as well as possibilities for reconciliation and advancement, are the topic of Robert Agnew’s (2011) Toward a Unified Criminology.

CLASS EXERCISES

1. For one class period, have students leave the room and go out in search of “signs of sexism” in the modern world. They should come back to class with concrete evidence of sexism (newspaper ads, magazine covers, etc.). Have them present their findings to the group and explain, using one of the feminist theories, how this is evidence of sexism and which feminist approach best suits their analytical needs.

2. Have each student pick an article about crime from the newspaper, television, or online. Have them explain in writing how the crime would be explained from two of the theoretical perspectives in this chapter. The students could also be divided in small groups in class using the same article and assign each group a theoretical perspective.

3. The text describes four different types of critical criminologies. Divide the class into four groups and have each group thoroughly analyze the same crime from each perspective.

4. Give each student a copy of the most recent law that defines a new crime in your state. Using the summary of the law, have groups in your class analyze the new law in relationship to the newest theories in crime discussed in this chapter.

5. Ask male students what sorts of things they do everyday to prevent rape. Tell them to feel free to offer their tactics without raising their hands or waiting to be called on. The typical result is confusion and silence. Then ask the same question of women. The sheer volume of responses helps male students see their gender privilege (i.e., taking for granted their right to bodily integrity in private and public settings). As discussion slows it also helpful to invite men to share instances where women appeared to fear them.

6. Watch an episode of Orange is the New Black in class, and then have students discuss the content and connect it to course themes. How might feminist criminologists analyze the show? What insights from left realism might be applicable? Does the show support the claim of peacemaking criminologists that prison reflects and perpetuates race and class inequality? If possible, gradually nudge students toward consideration of possible ideological effects of the show (e.g., does the commodification of imprisonment distract us from the brutality and misery of actual prison life?)

TEST BANK FOR CHAPTER 8

Multiple-Choice Questions

1. Feminism refers to a belief that women are

a. discriminated against and that should be changed.

b. superior to men.

c. subject to other women’s control of them.

d. most effective when they are being feminine.

2. Which of the following is NOT a core element of feminist thought?

a. Gender is not a natural fact, but a complex social, historical, and cultural product.

b. Gender is a biologically determined reality in all cultures.

c. Gender relations order social life and social institutions in fundamental ways.

d. Systems of knowledge reflect men’s views of the natural and social world and the production of knowledge is gendered.

3. From a liberal feminist approach, gender role socialization indicates that men are to be aggressive and dominant, and women are to be

a. equally aggressive and dominant.

b. passive and subservient.

c. aggressive and subservient.

d. passive and dominant.

4. Marxist feminist criminologists see violence against women as an expression of male dominance, exacerbated by

a. racial inequality.

b. class inequality.

c. gender inequality.

d. private property production.

5. According to radical feminist perspectives

a. women were, historically, the first oppressed group.

b. women’s oppression is the most widespread, existing in all societies.

c. women’s oppression is the deepest and hardest form of oppression to eradicate.

d. all of the above.

6. According to Brownmiller’s perspective, men are __________ and women are __________.

a. natural predators, natural prey

b. biologically atavistic, biologically advanced

c. psychologically superior, psychologically inferior

d. intellectually inferior, intellectually superior

7. The socialist feminist approach indicates that capitalism and patriarchy

a. are in conflict with each other.

b. coexist and work together to maintain class and gender power relations.

c. struggle to overtake each other.

d. coexist and work together to release the oppressed from their grasp.

8. Overall, socialist feminists argue that crime is related to the opportunities that gender and class positions allow, and they attempt a simultaneous explanation of

a. gender and class patterns of crime.

b. conventional crime and street crime.

c. violence by women and violence against women.

d. none of the above.

9. Contemporary feminist criminology develops research that focuses on the everyday lived realities of

a. women’s lives.

b. both women’s and men’s lives.

c. men’s lives.

d. victim’s lives.

10. Which of the following is NOT a critique of feminist criminology?

a. Feminist criminology does not study men and boys.

b. Some feminist criminology reduces all inequality to gender inequality.

c. Feminist criminology does not explore links between gender inequality and the economy.

d. Although feminist criminology explores women’s crime, it does not address the criminal activities of girls.

11. Which of the following is a FALSE statement about female gang activity?

a. Girls and women are not allowed to join male gangs.

b. Some female gang members reject femininity.

c. Female gang members are more likely than male gang members to have been physically and/or sexually victimized.

d. Some female gang members identify with males and masculinity.

12. Which of the following is an important insight about criminal masculinity?

a. Public male violence is generally not supported by other men as a means of settling disputes.

b. “Street” men perform different types of masculinities depending on social context.

c. Because gender is not biological, girls and women can exhibit masculinity.

d. Both b and c are correct.

13. Which criminological theory redefines crime as “the power to create harm (pain) in any context” and attempts to uncover the ideology and dogma in public crime discourse?

a. feminist criminology

b. cultural criminology

c. constitutive criminology

d. green criminology

14. Which criminological theory has analyzed acts such as base-jumping and anti-abortion violence as attempts to escape drudgery and boredom?

a. feminist criminology

b. cultural criminology

c. constitutive criminology

d. green criminology

15. Which criminological theory addresses human exploitation of and cruelty toward animals?

a. feminist criminology

b. cultural criminology

c. constitutive criminology

d. green criminology

16. Critical criminological perspectives have developed from which of the following prior perspectives?

a. radical

b. feminist

c. conflict

d. all of the above

17. Critical criminologists share the perspective that __________ are the root causes of crime.

a. poverty, sexism, and racism

b. poverty, social disorganization, and anomie

c. poor social bonding and low self-control

d. power-control imbalances and poverty

18. Peacemaking criminology is a mixture of

a. diplomacy and force.

b. feminism and authoritarianism.

c. humanism, feminism, and nonviolence.

d. diplomacy and negotiation.

19. The key policies of peacemaking criminology would be

a. responsiveness and reconciliation.

b. conflict resolution, harmony, and community.

c. litigation and legal victories.

d. both a and b.

20. According to peacemaking criminology, negative peace is that which

a. establishes order through the use of force and diplomatic negotiation.

b. establishes order through the use of force or the threat of force.

c. exists when sources of crime, such as poverty, inequality, racism, and alienation have been eliminated.

d. exists when sources of crime, such as poverty, equality, and racial harmony have been established.

21. According to peacemaking criminology, positive peace is that which

a. establishes order through the use of force and diplomatic negotiation.

b. establishes order through the use of force or the threat of force.

c. exists when sources of crime, such as poverty, inequality, racism, and alienation have been eliminated.

d. exists when sources of crime, such as poverty, equality, and racial harmony have been established.

22. Constitutive criminology challenges the __________ in “modernist” criminology.

a. status quo

b. ideological domination

c. godlessness of the modern age

d. causation and rationality

23. Which theory attempts to humanize the institutions of criminal justice?

a. constitutive criminology

b. postmodern theory

c. constitutive criminology

d. peacemaking criminology

24. Which of the following theorists is associated with peacemaking criminology?

a. Chesney-Lind

b. Messerschmidt

c. Quinney

d. Marx

25. Which of the following is most likely to argue that the criminal justice system is a source of violence?

a. feminist criminology

b. constitutive criminology

c. peacemaking criminology

d. green criminology

26. Liberal feminist criminologists argue that women’s increased involvement in crime results from

a. the cumulative effects of generations of male domination.

b. women’s increased educational opportunities.

c. women’s increased participation in the paid labor force.

d. male violence against women.

27. Which of the following links gender inequality to increased female criminality?

a. opportunity theory

b. the progression thesis

c. the emancipation hypothesis

d. female masculinization

28. Illegal seizure of indigenous land is a concern of which theory?

a. feminist criminology

b. constitutive criminology

c. peacemaking criminology

d. green criminology

29. According to green criminologists, animal abuse that occurs in __________ is far more serious than that which occurs in __________.

a. families, corporations

b. public contexts, private locations

c. institutional contexts, families

d. developing nations, overdeveloped nations

30. Practices and ideologies that promote the exploitation of animals for the satisfaction of human needs are called

a. Darwinism.

b. humanism.

c. specieism.

d. consumerism.

31. Which of the following has charged the U.S. government with human rights violations due to its failure to curb carbon emissions and greenhouse gases?

a. Brazil

b. Inuit Eskimos

c. African Americans

d. Cuba

32. Mediation, reconciliation, and conflict resolution are responses to crime urged by

a. conflict theory.

b. green criminology.

c. feminist criminology.

d. peacemaking criminology.

33. Which theory points to restorative justice and constructive shaming as responses to crime?

a. conflict theory

b. critical humanism

c. feminist criminology

d. green criminology

34. Which of the following is an aspect of social justice?

a. an end to poverty

b. an end to racism

c. an end to sexism

d. all of the above

35. Which of the following is NOT part of Fuller’s Peacemaking Pyramid Paradigm?

a. nonviolence

b. social justice

c. elimination of racial profiling

d. elimination of homophobia

36. Which of the following is NOT considered a critical humanist criminology?

a. peacemaking criminology

b. feminist criminology

c. convict criminology

d. anarchist criminology

37. How many tons of oil has spilled worldwide since the Exxon Valdez debacle?

a. Less than 100,000.

b. 1 billion.

c. At least 1.1 million.

d. More than 3 million.

38. When did the Exxon Valdez run aground?

a. 1977

b. 1989

c. 1993

d. 1999

39. Where was the first U.S. supermax prison located?

a. Jackson, Mississippi

b. Upstate New York

c. At the former Alcatraz prison site

d. Marion, Illinois

40. What is “vertigo” according to Jock Young?

a. The malaise of late modernity.

b. Confusion generated by rapid upward mobility.

c. Frustration and fear resulting from the 2008 crisis in the system of global capital.

d. The feeling one gets when base-jumping.

41. When was the first phase of feminist criminology?

a. 1950s–1960s

b. Late 1960s–mid-1980s

c. 1970s

d. Late 1980s–early 1990s

42. Which of the following is a type of animal abuse?

a. Actions that cause physical harm.

b. Actions that cause animals to suffer emotionally.

c. Psychological manipulation of animals.

d. All of the above.

43. Which form of animal abuse causes animals’ the most suffering?

a. One-on-one abuse of pets in families.

b. Rape and sexual assault of animals.

c. Animal abuse that coexists with child abuse.

d. Systematic and socially acceptable abuse such as slaughterhouses.

44. Agnew’s Toward a Unified Criminology attempts to address tensions between

a. critical and mainstream criminology.

b. peacemaking and feminist criminology.

c. feminist and cultural criminology.

d. convict and green criminology.

True or False

1. _____ Feminist criminologists believe that male dominance results in greater protection and security for women throughout the world.

2. _____ Socialist feminist criminologists believe that capitalism and patriarchy interact in specific ways, generating patterns of criminal behavior based on gender and class.

3. _____ Critical criminologists view the causes of crime as poverty, inequality, racism, sexism, and alienation.

4. _____ The best predictor of crime is poverty.

5. _____ Feminist criminology explores the impact of masculinities and femininities on the everyday lived realities of crime for men, women, boys, and girls.

6. _____ The new theories in feminism and criminology show that there are no longer gender differences in crime.

7. _____ According to feminist theories, the major cause of low self-control is ineffective childrearing.

8. _____ The first phase of feminist criminology theorized women and girls as “effects of discourse.”

9. _____ According to feminists, male violence against women helps maintain gender inequality.

10. ____ Male feminist criminologists have documented that female feminists have greatly overstated the amount of male violence against women.

11.____ According to cultural criminology, violence can have multiple and conflicting meanings.

12.____ Modernity and globalization are related to the sense of vertigo.

13.____ In their critique of criminology, cultural criminologists call for a return to rigorous quantitative research.

14. ____ Convict criminology draws attention to the centrality of language in constructing our sense of the “crime problem.”

15.____ Socialist feminists point to gender socialization “poisoned” by capitalism as a source of women’s increased criminality.

16.____ Animal abuse only refers to physical harm and suffering.

17.____ Former prisoners who have become sociologists and criminologists are the driving force behind convict criminology.

18.____ Slaughterhouses are a systematic yet socially acceptable form of animal abuse.

Essay Questions

1. Write a short essay that explains what “feminist” means in the broad sense. In the course of your answer name and briefly explain three of the five core feminist foundational beliefs.

Required content:

1. Feminism commonly refers to those who maintain that women are discriminated against and who seek to end gender inequality

Any three of the following:

1. Gender is a social, cultural, and historical phenomenon rather than a natural fact.
2. Gender shapes social relations in fundamental ways.
3. Masculinity and femininity are constructed in a hierarchical manner. The asymmetry underpins male “superiority” and political-economic dominance of men over women.
4. Knowledge is androcentric.
5. Women should be at the center of research and scholarship rather than the periphery.

Additional content:

1. Despite the shared core of ideas there are many different types of feminism.
2. Feminist criminology developed in two phases: the 1970s–1980s and the late 1980s to the present.
3. Recently feminist criminology has expanded to include the study of masculinities.

2. Explain the major differences among liberal, radical, and Marxist feminism.

Required content:

1. Liberal feminism explores how gender equality and gender socialization shape women’s criminal activities.
2. Marxist feminism builds on Marx and Engels, noting that gender inequality flows out of class inequality, both of which shape crime.
3. Radical feminism argues that men’s power over and domination of women is the root cause of inequality.

Additional content:

1. Liberal feminists note that until the 1970s women’s opportunities for crime were limited.
2. Liberal feminists show how gender role socialization, especially masculinity, is linked to crime.
3. Marxist feminists point out that similar class pressures generate women’s and men’s property crime, but their actual crimes are gendered. For example, women are less likely to use guns and more likely to use kitchen tools as weapons.
4. Radical feminists such as MacKinnon argue that men’s control over women’s sexuality is a central dynamic of gender oppression.
5. Radical feminists draw attention to the basic structures of social reality as a system of male domination.

3. Many different forms of criminology are classified together as “critical” criminologies. What is the common theme that unites the critical criminologies despite their differences? How does the core concern of critical criminology take form in the various critical approaches?

Required content:

1. The core concern of critical criminologies is inequality and its relation to crime.
2. Peacemaking criminology explores how the criminal justice system is an expression of and contributor to social inequality.
3. Green criminology explores how relations of inequality are related to problems such as climate change, seizure of indigenous lands, and assorted harms to animals and the earth.
4. Convict criminology studies how the prison system is based on inequality and causes misery for prisoners.

Additional content:

1. Peacemaking distinguishes between positive and negative peace. The former is the absence of inequality that generates crime.
2. Other humanist approaches in criminology share the critical concern with inequality: abolitionism, anarchism, human rights, and restorative justice.
3. Speciesism often underpins animal abuse.
4. Many convict criminologists are former prisoners.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

Bomb It: A Graffiti Documentary (2007): Useful for discussing cultural criminology.

Chapkis, Wendy. 1997. Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor. New York: Routledge. Chapter 1 provides a nice summary of the differences between various forms of feminist inquiry.

DeKeseredy, Walter S. 2011. Contemporary Critical Criminology. New York: Routledge. This short book provides an accessible introduction to critical criminology.

George, Erin. 2010. A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women. New York: Oxford. This memoir provides an insider view of prison. It illustrates how feminist and convict criminological concerns might dovetail and provides a corrective for the popular show Orange Is the New Black.

Odem, Mary E. 1995. Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885–1920. Berkeley: University of California.

Renzetti, Claire, and Lynne Goodstein, eds. 2001. Women, Crime, and Criminal Justice: Original Feminist Readings. Los Angeles: Roxbury. The various chapters focus on different concerns (e.g., female juvenile delinquency, domestic violence and battering, rape). Chapters may be used on their own, but collectively they provide students with a solid overview of feminist work in criminology.

Renzetti, Claire, Lynne Goodstein, and Susan L. Miller, eds. 2006. Rethinking Gender, Crime, and Justice: Feminist Readings. Los Angeles: Roxbury.

Schaffner, Laurie. 2006. Girls in Trouble with the Law. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers.

Thelma and Louise (2003): Drama. Provides a useful jumping-off point for considering how women’s attempts to escape male violence are criminalized.