Crime and Justice Atlas

How Justice Is Served
Criminology Theories and Schools

Feminist Criminology

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A school of criminology, developed from the late 1960s into the 1970s and associated principally with Meda Chesney-Lind, holding that mainstream criminology had historically ignored or misrepresented women both as offenders and as victims. It centers gender as a core analytic category, and its early advocates for women's equality were met, in Chesney-Lind's own account, by threatening images meant to discourage the movement.

Facts
Core ClaimSourced to the subject's own account
Mainstream criminology historically ignored or misrepresented women as both offenders and victims; feminist criminology centers gender as a core analytic category, examining how patriarchy and gendered social control shape women's pathways into crime and their treatment by the justice system. 1
Standing CritiqueSourced to the subject's own account
The standpoint epistemology underlying much of the school has itself been criticized for overgeneralizing women's experience, treating results drawn from some women as though true of all women. 1
Disputed
Origin Year
1976 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountThe school developed gradually across the late 1960s and 1970s rather than on one founding date; 1976 marks Carol Smart's Women, Crime and Criminology, a landmark work of the movement rather than its sole origin.
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Feminist criminology shares critical criminology's structural, radical lineage, while its own literature also documents tension with a critical and Marxist criminology that was largely silent on gender.

Developed By

Sources
1. Wikipedia: Feminist School of Criminology
History section
Quote, History section
threatening those who aspire for equality with the images of the witch, the bitch, and the whore.
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1. Wikipedia: Feminist School of Criminology
Standpoint epistemology section
Quote, Standpoint epistemology section
Standpoint epistemologies have been criticized for overgeneralizing women, accepting the above results as true for all women.
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