03 Section B Option 1, Key question 3 - Feminist explanations of crime (part 5)

Putting gender into explanations of crime

Feminist criminology examines how relations between genders shape crime and the ways societies define and respond to it. Gender means socially organised expectations, identities and relations associated with being a woman, man or another gender. It is different from assuming that a biological characteristic directly causes a particular offence.

An influential feminist criticism is that criminology was often male-centred: studies of boys and men were used to construct supposedly general theories, while women's experiences were overlooked or fitted into those theories afterwards. In The deviance of women: a critique and an enquiry, first published in 1968, Frances Heidensohn challenged both this neglect and stereotyped explanations of women. Her article is a critical examination of existing theories and evidence, rather than a new representative survey. Its question is useful: a general explanation should explain differences between groups as well as behaviour within them. The accessible reprint of Heidensohn's article preserves that argument.

Consider a theory that explains street robbery through pressure to obtain money and status. If women also experience poverty, the theory still needs to explain why exposure to the same broad pressure might produce different actions. A feminist explanation investigates differences in supervision, caring responsibilities, access to criminal networks and the meanings attached to toughness or respectability. It does not simply add “women are socialised differently” without explaining the process.

Feminism contains different emphases. Liberal feminist approaches examine unequal opportunities and discriminatory treatment, asking how greater equality could change them. Radical feminist approaches place male domination and violence against women at the centre of analysis. Marxist or socialist feminist approaches connect gendered power to class exploitation and material disadvantage. These are starting points for investigation, rather than three interchangeable explanations of every offence.

Keep three questions separate. What behaviour occurs? What is reported and officially recorded? How do agencies respond to those brought before them? A lower conviction count could reflect behaviour, visibility, reporting or decisions within the justice system. Evidence about one stage cannot automatically settle every other stage.

Heidensohn and gendered social control

Gendered social control can help explain conformity by restricting opportunities for offending and increasing the costs of breaking expectations. Social control means the processes that encourage conformity, including informal pressures from other people and formal action by institutions.

In Women and Crime (1985), Heidensohn developed an account of women's control which includes domestic life, public space and employment. The question becomes why so many women conform, rather than only why a minority offend. The publisher's account of her social-control chapter in the revised 1996 edition distinguishes institutional control, social bonds and situations. Her approach is a theoretical synthesis, not one experiment demonstrating a fixed effect for all women.

At home, expectations that women perform domestic work and care for others can reduce time, independent movement and contact with potential offending groups. Dependence on a partner's income can make the loss of a relationship especially costly. In an abusive relationship, threats and violence may enforce obedience. Explaining these controls is not approving them: low offending produced through coercion is not evidence of a fair social order.

In public, the possibility of harassment or violence and judgements about sexual respectability can restrict where women feel able to go. A young woman may avoid a late-night setting because she anticipates danger or condemnation. This can reduce exposure to some street offending opportunities even where no police officer directly controls her conduct. Restrictions depend on place, age and resources; women do not all experience public space identically.

At work, supervision and unequal access to authority can restrict opportunities for particular offences. Someone without control of company accounts has fewer opportunities for a large corporate fraud. This is an opportunity argument: it does not imply that women cannot commit fraud, or that every occupational difference results from direct male commands. The WJEC teaching summary of Heidensohn also highlights caring constraints and the sanction of being judged unfeminine.

An original illustration makes the reasoning clearer. Two young people have similar motives to join friends outside at night. One must provide evening care and faces sanctions for leaving; the other has no such restrictions. Different exposure to a particular opportunity can produce different behaviour despite similar motives. This explains a possible mechanism, not the size of an actual population difference.

The account has limits. Controls vary between households and over time, and people resist them. Domestic confinement can coexist with offences committed at home. Abuse can also create pressures to escape which contribute to offending. Therefore, “more control means less crime” is too simple unless the kind of control, offence and circumstances are specified.

Carlen and the class and gender deals

Pat Carlen connects some women's offending to the failure of the rewards that are supposed to make conformity worthwhile. Her Women, Crime and Poverty (1988) used in-depth, unstructured interviews with 39 women, mostly working class, who had criminal convictions. The interviews explored their lives and understandings, rather than measuring a representative national offending rate. This design and argument are corroborated by the official study summary and Ruth Allan's contemporary academic review.

Carlen identifies two deals, meaning social promises rather than literal contracts signed by women. The class deal promises material rewards from legitimate work: accepting employment and its discipline should provide a tolerable standard of living and access to consumer goods. The gender deal promises emotional and material rewards from conventional family relationships in return for women's domestic labour and care. Both can encourage conformity by giving someone something valued to protect.

For women experiencing poverty, insecure work, exclusion from employment or damaging family relationships, those rewards may be absent or appear illusory. The cost of losing conventional respectability can then seem smaller, while the gains from an offence may seem more significant. Offending becomes an intelligible option within constrained circumstances. Calling the choice rational in this sense means explaining it from the actor's situation; it neither makes the act morally right nor assumes perfect calculation.

Take this original illustration. A woman works irregular hours but still cannot meet basic costs. Her partner takes her earnings and offers neither security nor support. The class deal lacks credibility because legitimate work has not delivered an adequate livelihood. The gender deal lacks credibility because domestic conformity has not delivered the promised relationship rewards. Theft may become more attractive as a way to obtain resources. It remains one possible response: other people seek support, resist collectively or continue to conform under similar conditions.

This develops a useful distinction from Heidensohn. One explanation emphasises the controls that can sustain conformity; the other explores circumstances in which promised rewards cease to bind. Carlen links class and gender rather than treating poverty alone or women's oppression alone as sufficient. The interviews also allow women to describe their own decisions, instead of the researcher simply assuming their motives.

However, accounts given after convictions may be affected by memory or the wish to make sense of a difficult history. A small group selected for offending cannot show how common the same experiences are among women who do not offend, establish a national causal effect, or explain affluent corporate offenders. The evidence can illuminate a pathway without proving that failed deals inevitably produce crime.

Messerschmidt and doing masculinity

Gendered explanations can investigate men's offending as well as women's experiences. Masculinities are socially constructed ways of being and presenting oneself as a man; the plural matters because they vary within and between settings. A society's dominant, culturally valued form is often called hegemonic masculinity. It is an ideal associated with authority and legitimacy, rather than a description of every man or necessarily the most common behaviour.

In Masculinities and Crime (1993), James Messerschmidt argued that gender is accomplished through social action under particular structural conditions. People can demonstrate masculinity through work, sport, care, relationships or other lawful activities. In some situations, offending may become a resource for demonstrating toughness, control or success. The theory makes gender something to explain, rather than treating men as naturally criminal. The publisher's account of Messerschmidt's later structured-action work stresses the interaction of gender, class and racialised social relations.