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Feminism And Criminological Research

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Critically examine how contemporary feminist accounts have liberated and enlivened the discipline of criminology.
The dominant feminist view is that society is constructed entirely around the needs of men (Renzetti, 2013, p. 7). When the second wave of feminism emerged in the 1960s female academics investigated this idea by critically examining a multitude of academic disciplines, one of which was criminology (Moore, 2008, p. 48). Their aim was to expose male dominance within the system and make known the invisibility of women as both the subjects and producers of criminological research. Feminists highlighted that while previous critical criminologists had studied the rights of minority groups, the perspective of half the population still …show more content…

Their theories were heavily influenced by previous research and gave primary importance to the notion that knowledge can be learnt through experience (Moore, 2008, p. 48&49). Feminist empiricism was explored through scientific investigation as their philosophies support the positivist concept that all theories can be objectively proven with evidence (Flavin, 2001). The methodology employed emphasized the role of sensory experience in knowledge through evidence, data, and facts; their approach discounts innate ideas and inborn mental capacities due to the lack of physical proof. Prior to the introduction of feminist empiricism any research carried out was androcentric, therefore the presence of women within this type of research was revolutionary for its time (Hundleby, 2012, p. 38). Despite this, the lack of female representation caused empiricist feminists to simply view females as the absent subjects so their work aimed to insert women into the current practice to create comparable research (Hundleby, 2012, p. 28). Critics such as standpoint feminists therefore argue that adding women to current methodology was a flawed research proposal (Moore, 2008, p. 49). They state that central ideals remain androcentric and claim that feminist empiricism merely compares females to the stereotypical …show more content…

Their theory placed the female perspective at the center, by creating original academic research based on the stories of females (Moore, 2008, p. 52). The theory emerged from the Marxist argument that people from oppressed classes have special access to knowledge that is not available to those from a privileged class. American feminist theorist Sandra Harding claimed that those at the top of social hierarchies lose sight of real human relations and the true nature of social reality, thus missing critical questions about the social and natural world (Moore, 2008, p. 52). They assume that the perspective of the researcher creates biases and therefore aimed to construct knowledge from the participant’s subjective perspective. (Moore, 2008, p. 53). Resultantly, they intended to create new policies to reform criminological research and find a solution to the repression of women, rather than simply substituting them into mainstream theories (Flavin, 2001). Just like empiricist feminism, standpoint feminism investigates by practicing scientific enquiry through experience (Walklate, 2007); however rather than seeking to identify the reaction women have to patriarchal constructs, they aim to discover their opinions about the repression they experienced (Harding, 1987, p.

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Feminist criminology has been around since the late 1960's and started out centered on speculations brought upon traditional theories of crime. Most traditional theories didn't necessarily ignore women in the criminal justice system yet they generalized crime and what causes a person to turn to crime so that women who commit crimes are overlooked by the generalization. Not only are the numbers skewed when you look at gender in criminal justice offenders but there is also a certain bias in the criminal justice systems workers. In the movie Vera Drake there is a clear example of this when the investigator and the officer come into the movie. While watching you can easily assume that the female officer is treated and thought of much differently

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This book can be said to be one of the pivotal books in the introduction of a New or Alternative Research Methodology. The main aim of writing this book as Eichler puts it is to ‘break down sexism in research into manageable components, these

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Since the beginning of the mid-1800's, American females have been involved with social reform movements. This thirst for equality paved the way for many opportunities. In the process, the woman movement has pursued the same equal opportunity rights through the criminal court's system. This era simply wanted the same rights that male offenders already had. However, more than one hundred years later, history repeated itself.

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Katz eye-opening discussion reminds his audience of the despicable occurrence of the violence against women by addressing how victim blaming and the silence of others will only worsen and continue the abuse. Katz first mentions how women’s violence is not just a women's problem, it's a man's problem as well. Victims cannot be held responsible for their perpetrators doings. Victim blaming won't solve this issue, those who step up will. Often those who stand up against this abuse, commonly feminists, are often shot down.

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By the reason that women are more vulnerable to be involved in a crime rather than men. “In 35 states, women’s population numbers have fared worse than men’s, and in a few extraordinary states, women’s prison populations have even grown enough to counteract reductions in the men’s population” (Sawyer). The data demonstrate that in this century women have grown population faster than men in incarceration. Before the 1970 women were almost rare to see in prison, local jails, federal prisons or state prison, but since the 1985 the rate grew dramatically in the local jails and state prisons, the federal prisons rate doesn’t have a hilarious increasing, but its increasing little by little. The difference of gender in the correctional system isn’t like the way it was supposed to be in the past.

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Introduction: This report is set out to research whether there is a culture of misogyny within Police, and if there is, what can be done about it. To begin this report, it is necessary to explain what misogyny is, and why it is relevant. Misogyny can be described as feelings of hatred and abhorrence towards women, and or the belief that men are superior to women (Cambridge Dictionary, 2019). Misogyny is deeply relevant in today’s society, especially within the British society, who in a recent report commissioned by Nottingham Women’s Centre found that 93.7% of respondents had witnessed or experienced misogynistic behaviour in public places (Trickett and Mullany, 2018). Misogyny itself is a dramatically important issue, deriving from historical

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Feminist criminologist has striven for equality of gender in the perspective of both victim and offender to avoid the domination of one gender (Renzetti, Goodstein and Miller, 2006). One such example can be discussed in an article by Koskela (1999) where, due to the vulnerability of violence by the opposite gender at public areas of high masculinity, females avoid such areas. That is one of the ranges of the offline platform that women have been facing; fear in public domain. Fear, however, can be observed on another medium such as online space (Barak, 2005). With such limitless accessibility of unsupervised channel, as compared to offline scenarios, it appears the online platforms can provide perpetrators more information of its victim thus,

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An informative exchange of ideas on point of view passed within the feminist journal Signs in 1997. In a commentary titled ‘Truth and Method: Feminist point of view Theory Revisited’, Susan Hekman tackled many issues for point of view theory raised by genre. She remarked that ‘among younger feminist theorists, feminist point of view theory is usually regarded as a quaint relic of feminism’s less refined past’. Its inspiration, Marxism, had been discredited in each theory and apply point of view theory appeared to ‘be at odds with the issue that has dominated feminist discussion within the past decade: difference’ (Hekman

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Therefore, the criminal justice system is more assuasive towards women thus leading to female crimes being disregarded and being less likely to show up in official statistics. This creates an invalid image that exaggerates the level of gender differences in crime. There is evidence to support this claim. Results from studies

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Kareen Harboyan English 1C Professor Supekar March 15, 2018 Word Count: Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: The Marginalization of Women of Color Analyzed Through Generalization and A Feminist Lens Crenshaw's Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color expands on the multifaceted struggles of women of color and the generalizations ingrained in society that limit women of color and keep them in a box. In this text, Crenshaw builds on the concept of intersectionality which proposes that social categorizations such as gender and race are intertwined and have great influence on one another.

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Consequently, there is evidence from studies that draw conclusions that there is gender bias in sentencing for both women and men. On the surface there appears to be a degree of preferential treatment or leniency in the criminal justice system. However, there are other factors that enshroud the whole aspect of biases that include class, race and the offence in question among others. There is need for the justice system to understand female offenders in order to be able to address it effectively and avoid the perpetual claims of bias which only signifies the

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Feminist ethnography was chiefly concerned with women; it was about, by and for women. It involved giving voice to marginalized women whose experiences had rarely been represented or understood. Feminist ethnographers try to move beyond a separation of victimhood, recognizing that choice and constraint are intertwined in women’s lives. At the end of 1980s, debates emerged that feminist ethnography as a productive methodology and these debates still haunt feminist ethnography today. For example, in 1990, Lila Abu Lughod’s article entitled “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?”

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The purpose of this paper is to answer the following posed questions, the first is to describe the basis of feminist criminology. The submission of feminism to the field of criminology offers an important calculation to the most important region of the directive, control and replica of power and order in society. According to Feminist Criminology: http://www.julianhermida.com/contfeminist.htm, “The principles of governing and maintenance of rules of behavior and the interpretation of right and wrong which can be construed as our basic freedoms are defended and defined by the legal system. Feminist look to our frames of reference in regard to these belief systems.”

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