Feminist Theories of Gender & Crime (AQA A Level Sociology): Revision Note

Gender role socialisation

• Feminist criminologists have explored why women appear to commit fewer crimes than men

• Liberal feminists argue that gender role socialisation shapes the behaviour of males and females, influencing their likelihood of offending

• Smart (1976) and Oakley (2015) suggest that boys are often taught toughness, aggression, risk-taking, and individualism — traits linked to higher levels of male offending

• Messerschmidt (2000) argues that boys in the UK are socialised into a dominant hegemonic masculinity, which stresses being different from women and proving themselves as 'real men'

• Barak et al. (2001) believe that girls are more likely to be socialised into values such as care, cooperation, empathy, compassion, and conformity — traits that reduce the likelihood of offending

Evaluation of gender role socialisation theory

Strengths

• Functionalist support for gender role socialisation

  • Cohen (1955) argues that men have less of a socialising role in the nuclear family, so boys lacking a male role model may turn to all-male street gangs

  • In these groups, status is gained through toughness, risk-taking, and delinquency

• New Right support for gender role socialisation

  • New Right theorists argue that in matrifocal lone-parent families, the absence of a male role model leads boys to seek status in criminal street gangs

  • Gangs provide alternative forms of masculine identity and status

Criticism

• Too deterministic

  • Not all boys socialised into 'masculine' traits go on to commit crime, and not all girls raised with 'feminine' values avoid it

  • This view underplays free will and ignores how class, ethnicity, and social context also shape criminal behaviour

Control theory

• Heidensohn (1985) argues that women's behaviour is generally more conformist than men's because they are controlled by patriarchal structures in society

• These forms of control operate at home, at work, and in public, limiting women’s opportunities to offend

At home

• Women take the main responsibility for housework and childcare, which restricts their time and mobility, reducing their opportunities to offend and commit crimes

• Women who try to reject domestic roles may face coercion through domestic violence

• Daughters are more closely supervised than sons, often required to do more housework and less free to go out or stay out late

• As a result, they have fewer opportunities to engage in deviant behaviour on the streets

Bedroom culture

• McRobbie and Garber's (1976) study found that teenage girls in the 1970s were often part of a 'bedroom culture', socialising mainly at home with friends

• This meant fewer opportunities for delinquent behaviour, unlike boys who spent more time in public spaces (especially at night), where deviance was more likely

At work

• Women can face sexual harassment and limited promotion opportunities

• Senior roles are often held by men, reducing women’s chances of engaging in white-collar or corporate crime

In public

• Women’s freedom is restricted by the fear of male violence

• Sensationalist media reports on rape exaggerate risks (e.g., portraying the rapist as a random stranger), which can frighten women into staying indoors

• Young women also risk stigma and negative labelling if they dress or behave in ways seen as 'inappropriate'

Evaluation of control theory

Strength

• Highlights the role of patriarchy

  • Heidensohn shows how controls in the family, workplace, and public spaces reduce women’s opportunities to commit a crime

  • This helps explain gender differences in offending

Criticism

• Patriarchy can actually push women into crime

  • Women are more likely to experience poverty and marginalisation due to lone parenthood, low pay, or reliance on benefits

  • Poverty pushes some women into utilitarian crimes (e.g., theft, fraud, prostitution) to provide for themselves and their families

Class & gender deals

• Carlen (1988) conducted unstructured interviews with 39 working-class women (aged 15-46) convicted of offences such as theft, fraud, burglary, prostitution, violence and arson

• While acknowledging some middle-class female offenders, Carlen argued that most serious female offenders are working-class

• Drawing on control theory, she argued that people act rationally, conforming when they are offered a 'deal' of rewards for conformity to social norms

The deals

• Women conform because they are controlled by:

  • the promise of rewards at work if they conform to the class deal:

    • This deal offers them consumer goods and a decent standard of living if they work for a wage

  • the promise of rewards in the family if they conform to the gender deal:

    • This deal offers them material rewards (and happiness/fulfilment) from a male breadwinner and family in return for their love and domestic labour

Breakdown of the deals

• When women feel these rewards are unattainable or not worth the effort, conformity breaks down, and crime becomes a rational alternative

• Carlen argues that this was the case with the women in her study:

  • Class deal failure: Many women in the study had lived in poverty, felt powerless, and had no legitimate way to escape

    • 32 of the 39 women had always lived in poverty and saw crime as their only route out

  • Gender deal failure: Most of the women saw few rewards or had disadvantages in family life

    • Some had faced domestic violence, abuse, or time in care

• Carlen concludes that poverty and oppressive family backgrounds were the main drivers of their criminality

• Being jailed further cut off access to the class deal, making crime more attractive

Evaluation of class and gender deals

Strengths

• Supports control theory

  • Carlen’s study shows how patriarchal and class-based controls encourage conformity

  • The study also shows that when these controls break down, female offending becomes more likely

• Highlights structural inequality

  • Her research draws attention to how poverty, abuse, and marginalisation restrict women’s life chances

  • It also helps explain why working-class women are disproportionately represented among female offenders

Criticisms

• Too deterministic

  • Carlen's work may overemphasise the role of patriarchy and poverty as the causes of crime

  • Not all women in similar situations turn to offending — some show resilience and choose other paths

• Unrepresentative sample

  • Carlen’s work was based on only 39 women already in prison or on probation

  • This excludes women facing similar hardships who did not offend, making it hard to generalise findings

Liberation theory

• Adler (1975) proposed the liberation thesis — as women become more liberated from patriarchy, they gain greater opportunities in education, work, and public life

• With these opportunities, women have also taken on traditionally 'male' roles in both legitimate activity (work) and illegitimate activity (crime)

• This has produced a 'new type' of female criminal and contributed to rising female crime rates

• Evidence includes an increase in female arrests for offences once seen as 'male' (e.g., violence and fraud)

Evaluation of liberation theory

Strengths

• Official statistics support

  • The female crime rate and share of offences rose during the second half of the 20th century.

    • E.g. between the 1950s and 1990s, the female share of offences increased from 1 in 7 to 1 in 6

• Evidence to support

  • Media reports have discussed the growth of 'girl gangs'

  • Denscombe (2001) found young women were just as likely as men to take risks, wanting to be in control and to look 'hard'

Criticisms

• Timing issues

  • Female crime rates were already rising in the 1950s, before the liberation movement began in the 1960s

  • This suggests factors other than liberation (e.g., poverty, social change) may explain the increase

• Working-class offenders

  • Most female offenders are working-class, yet this group benefited least from women’s liberation, which helped middle-class women more

  • Chesney-Lind (1997) found that poor and marginalised women in the USA, not liberated ones, are more likely to commit crime

• Exaggeration

  • Adler may have overstated both the impact of women’s liberation and the extent of women’s involvement in crime

  • Female offending has increased, but women are still less likely than men to commit serious or violent offences

Official statistics & female crime

• Official statistics show women commit fewer crimes than men, but feminists argue these figures are socially constructed

• Women may be:

  • underrepresented due to leniency (chivalry thesis)

  • over-criminalised when they deviate from gender norms (e.g., 'bad mothers')

The criminalisation of females

• Heidensohn (1985) suggests that courts often punish women more harshly if they deviate from traditional gender norms (e.g., promiscuity, neglecting children)

• Walklate (2003) argues that in rape trials, women often have to prove their respectability to be believed, making the victim, not the offender, seem on trial

• Steffensmeier and Schwartz (2009) found that the female share of arrests for violence rose (from 1/5 to 1/3 between 1980–2003)

  • However, victim surveys did not show an increase in female violence, suggesting police were prosecuting women for less serious forms of violence

• Chesney-Lind (2006) argues that in cases of domestic disputes, both partners may now be arrested, meaning women (often the victims) are being labelled as violent offenders

• Worral (2004) argues that in the past, girls' misbehaviour was more likely seen as a 'welfare' issue, whereas now it has been re-labelled as criminality

Gender and victimisation

• CSEW (2012): Women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, stalking, and harassment

• Women are more likely to be victimised by an acquaintance, whereas men are by a stranger

• Women face a higher risk of intimate violence (e.g., domestic abuse, sexual assault by partners)

• Around 70% of homicide victims are male, but female victims are more likely to know their killer — in 60% of cases, this was a partner or ex-partner

• Women often have a greater fear of crime, but official surveys show they are not necessarily at higher risk than men

• Female victims of violence may be less likely to agree to be interviewed

• Victim surveys don’t always capture the severity or frequency of women’s experiences

  • Ansara & Hindin (2011) found that female victims often suffered more severe violence and coercive control

Moral panic

• Some sociologists argue that rising female convictions reflect a moral panic rather than a real increase in female offending

• Burman & Batchelor (2009) argue that the media exaggerates the threat of “girl gangs,” portraying young women as violent and out of control

• Steffensmeier et al. (2005) found that media-driven panics about girls influenced harsher sentencing decisions

• This can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy or deviance amplification spiral:

  • Media reports of girls’ behaviour lead to police and courts taking a tougher stance, resulting in more convictions, leading to more negative coverage and even harsher responses

Men & crime

• Feminists argue that while criminology has long focused on male criminality, it has often ignored the key question:

  • What is it about being male that leads men to offend?

Masculinity & crime

• Influenced by feminist and postmodernist ideas, sociologists have explored why men are more likely to commit a crime

• Messerschmidt (1993) argues that men use crime to 'accomplish masculinity' - a social construction that must be constantly demonstrated

• Different forms of masculinity exist, but hegemonic masculinity is dominant and valued

  • Traits include toughness, control, paid work, heterosexuality, and the subordination of women

• Crime and deviance can be used as resources to achieve masculinity, with class and ethnicity shaping how this plays out:

  • White middle-class youths:

    • At school, adopt an 'accommodating masculinity' (obedient to teachers)

    • Outside, boys may express masculinity through drinking and vandalism

  • White working-class youths:

    • Less chance of educational success, so show oppositional masculinity in and out of school (sexist attitudes, toughness, resisting authority)

    • E.g. Willis’ (1977) “lads” study of counter-school subcultures

  • Middle-class men:

    • May use white-collar or corporate crime to express masculinity

Postmodernity, masculinity & crime

• Globalisation shifted society from industrial to post-industrial, causing a decline in manual jobs that once defined working-class male identity

• The rise of the service sector and night-time economy (pubs, clubs, bars) created:

  • legal work opportunities (e.g., bouncers)

  • criminal opportunities (e.g., drug dealing, protection rackets)

  • a way for men to express masculinity through physicality, risk, and violence

Evaluation of men & crime

Strengths

• Provides insight

  • Messerschmidt highlights the link between masculinity and crime, showing how men use crime as a resource to prove their masculinity

  • Explains differences by class and ethnicity — e.g., working-class vs middle-class men express masculinity in different ways

• Explains change over time

  • Shows how the expression of masculinity has shifted with social change, from industrial jobs to the postmodern service economy

  • Winlow’s (2001) research supports this — bouncer culture combines legal work, criminal opportunities, and displays of toughness

Criticisms

• Descriptive, not explanatory

  • Risks a circular argument: men commit a crime to show masculinity, and we know they are masculine because they commit a crime

  • Offers a description rather than a convincing explanation of why crime happens

  Overgeneralisation

  • Messerschmidt applies masculinity to too many crimes, from joyriding to embezzlement, stretching the concept too far

  • Fails to explain why most men do not offend, despite being socialised into masculinity