Feminism and Criminology

• Feminism and criminology are explored

Critique of Marxism and Deviance Theories

• Marxism is observed as reductionist, with everything boiled down to economic relations
• Marxism seemingly ignores crimes of seduction
• Dismissing social consensus fails to acknowledge that some laws protect people other than the ruling class, for instance, laws against violence against women
• Agency is ignored

Why Feminism(s)?

• Gender is a central feature in how people organize throughout the world
• Feminism(s) aims at forging equal relationships, supporting the unsupported, and confronting ingrained histories
• Ahmed's (2017) definition of feminism is creating more equal relationships, advocating for the unsupported, and challenging established histories

Gender

• Gender is the pervasive structuring of human activities, practices, and social structures through differentiation
• Gender is a structure and process, not a personal trait
• Gender norms and expectations define what is socially acceptable
• Gender roles are maintained through informal and formal mechanisms of social regulation
• Deviating from gender expectations can result in reactions from verbal abuse to violence and incarceration

Gender Vertigo

• Gender vertigo describes the impact from the elimination of gender on everyone's psyche
• Riesman (1998) suggests deconstructing gender and building a society based on equality requires being dizzy for a time

First Wave Feminism

• First wave feminism occurred in the early 19th and mid-20th centuries
• It addressed women's material disadvantages compared to men
• The focus was on social, political, and economic rights, including women's suffrage
• Mary Wollstonecraft's (1792) "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" contributed to the movement

Consequences of Early Feminism

• Norms and patterns of femininity were established: women were often seen as lesser and obedient to men
• there was a continued connection of women with unpaid domestic labour
• There was a tendency to view nurturing and care-giving as biologically determined
• Access to power, prestige, and material wellbeing remained severed, despite inroads to voting and work
• Social and material dependence on family, men, and state persisted

Second Wave Feminism

• Second wave feminism occurred after World War II
• It sought to identify and eliminate sources of sexism and gender oppression, focusing on workplace, sexuality, family, and reproductive rights
• There was a distinction between liberal equality and substantive equality
• Patriarchy is a system of practices and discourses that benefit men and disadvantage women
• Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" (1949), Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" (1963), and Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth" (1991) are key texts

Liberal Feminism

• Liberal feminism started with the women's suffrage movement and is rooted in 1700s liberalism
• It assumes that human beings are rational and will correct inequalities when they know about them
• Men and women should have equal rights and opportunities because Inequality comes from the denial of equal rights
• Liberal feminism focuses on removing gender stereotyping, sexism, and discrimination, especially in education and the workplace
• Implementing new laws allows for equal opportunities in the labour force and politics
• Equal representation in public and political domain will bring equality for all women
• Women should have the right to pursue choices beyond traditional roles, and the law should reflect these changes

Marxist/Socialist Feminism

• Socialist feminism sees women's oppression coming from division of labour, work in the family, and the private sphere
• Unpaid domestic work from women fuels the labour force
• Women act as 'reserve army of labour'
• Women disproportionately experience poverty and class inequality
• Gender inequality can be decreased through equal pay for equal work and state subsidies
• Removing inequality requires eradicating male dominance in the legal system, education, family, and economy

Radical Feminism

• Radical feminism sees biological devaluation and subordination as fundamental to women's oppression
• Patriarchy is the root cause of all forms of inequality
• Women mostly occupy 'private' space so 'the personal is political'
• Radical feminism adopts gender identity politics and celebrates women's space
• Equality addresses women's lived experiences
• Criminology may be an institution of women's oppression
• Carol Smart questions the implicit assumption of criminology that women's experience as in reference to men's

Consequences of Second Wave Feminism

• Normative and gendered aspects of social world was not seen
• If women are understood and valued as women who and how do we define what it is to be a women?
• Often failed to look at multiple categories of oppression like gender, masculinity, race, sexuality, class, and ethnicity

Feminist Criminology

• The double standard results in women being punished for norm and gender violations
• Paternalism results in women being punished more harshly for the same offenses, and a wider range of crime
• There is increased pathologization and medicalization calling women mad, or sad
• Women aren't considered a security threat but the prison population for women is the fastest growing
• Women often get penalized for crimes of survival (drug mules, fraud)
• A majority of women in the system come are sexual assault and abuse survivors
• Young women are often detained for “failing"

Third Wave Feminisms

• Third wave feminism began in the 1990s influenced by postmodernism and critical theory
• It destabilizes notions of gender and sex and how diverse social locations interact
• Kimberlé Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality is used to analyze how race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and other identities shape criminalization, policing, sentencing, and victimization
• There are studies on the over-policing and under-protection of racialized and LGBTQ+ women, particularly Black and Indigenous women in North America
• Research on sex work focuses harm reduction, decriminalization, and hearing voices of sex workers