Evaluate sociological explanations of the relationship between gender and crime
(30marks)
It has been suggested that the experience of women in crime has often been neglected in
‘male stream’ sociology. However, there have been attempts to explain the different rates of
offending between men and women from a range of sociological positions. In particular,
there has been a debate over the reasons for recent increases in female offending.
Moreover, there has been a focus on the experiences of women confronted with the criminal
justice system. Nonetheless, it has been argued that gender is only one aspect of a complex
set of factors which influence male and female criminality.
Lombroso and Pollak can be seen as non-sociological attempts to explain female criminality
since they focus on explaining common ‘traits’ of criminal women. Lombroso’s 1903 study of
‘The Female Offender’ is regarded as a historic explanation due to his presentation of
women being lower on the evolutionary scale. He created a ‘masculinity hypothesis’ that
suggests the female offender has excessive male characteristics, i.e. they looked male and
thus short, dark-haired females with masculine features (eg- broad shoulder or moles) are
more likely to commit crime. In addition, when compared females to males, he viewed them
as so monotonous they could not be scientists, artists or criminals unless they display the
stereotypical masculine traits. Another historic explanation is Pollak (1950) focusing on the
opinion that menstruation, menopause and pregnancy makes women to become emotional,
sneaky and deceitful thus likely to engage in undetectable crimes through professions such
as- nursing and teaching. He also proposed that female criminals are more likely to be
subject to mental diseases like nymphomania and kleptomania.
From a sociological perspective, Parsons argues that it was which of societies role models a
child identified with that caused criminality. Males, in his opinion, are supposed to look to
their ‘work-centred father’, but if during latency years their primary role model is their ‘home-
centred’ mother they are more likely to exhibit deviant behaviour. As young men they are
then expected to have masculine traits so adopt the male role model more leading to
excessive masculinity and a negative reaction against ‘feminine’ traits. Since this is shift is
not regarded as a problem for females Parsons argues that it is then due to a problem in
socialisation or being brought up by a dominant male influence that causes female crimes.
However, Carlen offers a feminist perspective and argues that the majority of women’s
crimes are ‘crimes of the powerless’. With the female criminals that are in society, they are
powerless in terms that in their childhood, there were instances of abuse. In addition to that,
they are constantly living in bad poverty where there isn’t a lot of opportunity for changing
their situation. Carlen interviewed 39 working class women who had a variety of convictions
and for many of them, crime had become a rational choice. It was an alternate to low pay
and low status and certain types were seen as rational as they were classed as easy crimes.
Moreover, Heidensohn focuses on the issue of women and social control as she asks why
the majority of women are not criminals. The conclusion she proposes is that women are
subject to more social control, whether it’s in the family or society as a whole. For example,
there’s socialisation, domestic responsibilities and expectations from men to make women
discouraged from breaking the social norms. There are also multiple other studies that show
how women are more closely supervised, more willing to accept conventional values and
then less likely to be apart of any delinquent groups.
The social construction of female offenders in terms of the mass media may also be relevant
because female offenders are typically depicted by the mass media in a way which reflects
the ideas of wider society around acceptable femininities. Female offenders are often
