Gender And Crime
Examine some of the reasons why females may be less likely than males to commit crimes
(12 marks)
A number of sociologists have offered explanations as to why females may be less likely than males to commit crimes. Explanations have been offered through Merton�s Strain theory, Labelling theory, Liberal feminists, Radical feminists, Interactionist feminists, Postmodernist feminists, and Heidensohn�s explanation of social control to suggest the reasons why women are less criminally inclined.
According to Merton�s Strain theory society tends to ...
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�women have low aspirations and their goals are extremely accessible.� Though, postmodernists would argue that in this modern age, with the introduction of women�s rights and equal pay; women have become more financially focus, thus partaking in crimes such as corporate crime for financial gain. On the other hand women tend to be very successful in education because they are keen to learn, therefore, they are able to develop the means to achieve their goals. This means that women do not need to commit crime to achieve their goals.
Leonard also suggests that women who commit crime are often labelled as unfeminine. This form of labelling acts as a deterrent for some women thinking about committing crime as most women are concerned about how they are perceived by the public. Postmodernists would also comment that in this postmodern era women (particularly female teenagers) are not too concerned about how they are perceived by others as the term gender has become more fluid and ...
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changes which have occurred in women�s lives, for example, women�s greater (if unequal) access to paid employment. This suggests that liberal and radical feminist ideas only offer a partial view on crime and deviance.
Interactionist feminists reject all these explanations, seeing them as little more than a social construction. They point out that females are under-represented in the statistics and therefore the statistics do not present an accurate picture of the social distribution of criminality, which may mean that women don�t in fact commit crime less.
Interactionist feminists share Becker�s (1963) idea that the social distribution of crime and deviance is dependent on ...
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"Gender And Crime." Essayworld.com. April 27, 2011. Accessed June 23, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Gender-And-Crime/98522.
"Gender And Crime." Essayworld.com. April 27, 2011. Accessed June 23, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Gender-And-Crime/98522.
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