...stereotypes and assumptions about females in the criminal justice system, saw feminist perspectives challenge the theories, concepts and assumptions of those involved in the study of crime (Bryant, 2014). This essay begins by firstly providing a brief description and its origins, how feminist theories causes crime, how its theory defines crime, the multiple feminist perspectives within feminism and how feminist criminology attempts to combat crime. It will then discuss the relevance and how feminist theory influences the criminal justice system, such as women’s role as professionals, as well as women as offenders and victims (Schram & Tibbetts 2013, p. 285). Finally, this essay will examine the applicability to Australian society by exploring if the suggested causes of crime apply to Australian society. It will lastly draw on the criticisms of feminist criminology and how the different types of feminist perspectives lessons the relevance of this theory in Australian society. Outlining the theory Feminist criminology first developed in the 1960’s and 1970’s which was closely associated with the emergence of the Second Wave of Feminism (White, Haines & Asquith 2012, p. 143). The Second Wave of Feminism saw the advent of many issues such as social, political and material inequalities (White, Haines & Asquith 2012, p. 143). Because men were mostly privileged as a group by society, the development of feminist criminology emphasised and raised concerns of the problem of discrimination...
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...Marxist feminist Michelle Barrett (1980) argues that the role ideology plays in convincing women that unpaid domestic labour is fulfilling is important. Barrett discusses the ideology of ‘familism’ the notion that female fulfillment lies in the family. For Marxist feminists, the cause of female oppression is rooted in capitalism. They argue that although individual men benefit from women’s subordination, the main beneficiary is capitalism. Women are an unpaid labour force, as unpaid housewives, and have been used in WW1 as a reserve army of labour. This oppression is believed to be maintained by the role women adopt within the capitalist’s system as the unpaid homemaker in the family. Women are conceived that this unpaid role is natural and normal, through the ideology of ‘familism’ that promotes female fulfillment as achieved through motherhood intimacy and sexual satisfaction. Marxist feminists believe that in order to end female subordination, we must overthrow capitalism as well as the ideology of familism. This would free the sexes from restrictive family roles and ensure that domestic labour was shared equally. Strengths of Marxist feminists include the fact that they have demonstrated the power of structural factors, such as capitalism and ideology in constructing an explanation for women’s subordination. However, Marxist feminists have been criticised for failing to explain women’s subordination in non-capitalist societies. Marxist feminism also places insufficient emphasis...
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...Feminist Movement Firstly, we would like to talk about the causes and the beginning of feminist movement. the About two centuries ago, human society has many changes and movements; the occurrence of human right and its acceptability, the attention of the importance of democracy, the change of production to industry, instead of agriculture, and the advance of technology. These changes and movements cause some women getting the chance of education as same as almost men, and make women working outdoor instead of doing household work. These phenomena cause people questioning about the original belief that proposes women are inferior to men, and the difference between men and women is natural matter which is unchangeable. People tried to find the reason why this belief occurred and has still endured for a long time. In addition, there is a social movement which tried to change this belief, including the condition of the inequality between men and women. This social movement is called feminism. This social phenomenon began, in 19th century, in the western side of the world, because women didn’t accept the original culture, their role in society, the inequality of gender, and the oppression of men. However, this contradiction in terms of gender has been argued up to the beginning of 20th century. Feminism has rapidly grown since the last forty years of 20th century. People become awakened to study about women in several measurements, especially in the study of the relationship...
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...Name Course Tutor Date Feminist Social Theory. The feminist social theory calls for equality for both genders- men and women. It entails studying gender inequality, the roles of women in the society, their experiences, duties and their contribution in fields such as, among others, sociology, and literature. The theory has been studied examined and expanded by several analysts such as sociologist Dorothy Smith, Patricia Hill Collins and Judith Butler. They all have their distinct views regarding the topic. Their conclusions also contain differences as well as similarities. First, Dorothy Smith is a Canadian sociologist who involves neo-Marxist and phenomenological concepts and ideas in her work. She employs institutional ethnography approach that she sees as a way of acquiring knowledge of the way relations of ruling work from the perspective of the people upon which they work. Dorothy Smith is famous for coming up with the standpoint theory that states that the position held by an individual in the society affects what he or she knows. She argues that nobody is in a position to possess the complete knowledge and that two people cannot share a similar standpoint. She urges us to recognize our perspective and investigate it. Smith points out that the position of men is favored whereas that of women is ignored. She also claims that the post of the white male upper class is given more emphasis than that of the rest of the world. She employs the concept of bifurcated consciousness...
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...------------------------------------------------- Feminist Stances on Rape ------------------------------------------------- Causes, Activism and Prevention [Author] Abstract Understanding the many different studies and work done by feminists regarding rape and sexual violence. Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………….3 Anti-Rape Movement………………………………………………4 Feminist Perspective…………………………..…………………..7 Amelioration Vs. Backlash……………………………………...9 Conclusion………………………………………………………….…11 Bibliography……………………………………………….…………12 Introduction The definition of rape has been something of dispute for the last number of years. Rape usually is understood to involve some sort of sexual penetration of a person by force or without consent. Rape is committed more by males, usually on a female. In the last three decades, feminist have worked and studied rape with the collective agenda to work towards changing rape in a social and legal manor. Feminist thought and activism have challenges the myth that rape is rape, showing that it is a common experience among girls and women. Although feminists have different theories on why rape occurs, and how to eliminate it, they share the notion that rape is wrong and work towards learning and teaching about rape prevention. This paper will touch on the anti-rape movement, the feminist perspective, and different hypothesis in learning about the different feminist theories of rape. Anti-Rape Movement Feminists have been working for decades towards raising...
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...The objective of this paper is to evaluate why women are committing crime by using Marxist Feminist Theory. Marxist theory was that women commit crime due to capitalism and because of capitalism women feel oppressed and unequal in society. Marxist Feminist Theory Marxist Feminist theory is laid out by Friedrich Engels. Engels explains that a woman's subordinate role is not due to her biological disposition , but to her social relations. A big part of a woman's subordination is the role of a man in society and how a man controls the labor of woman and their sexual life in the home. Woman have to be subordinate in their families and must be submissive to their husbands. Gender oppression and class oppression and the relationship between and man and women in society is similar to Marxist feminist view on a capitalist society. In a capitalist society a woman' s subordinate role comes from class oppression because it is in the interest of the ruling class. Men and women are divided and different privileges while men get paid for their jobs women do not get paid for theirs( childrearing, cleaning, cooking, etc..). Men are taught by society to become dominant to the roles that have been handed to them. Understanding Why Women Commit Crime Woman murder rates have rose by eleven percent a year since the seventies. What started at six thousand in the seventies jumped to seventy-five thousand and this number is increasing. Some possible explanations for these crimes can be poverty...
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...sacrificing? Has she not greater endurance? Has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If non violence is the law of our being, the future is with women. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than women?’’ Mahatma Gandhi- Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, 1960 Feminist legal theory Women have been the core of discussions on the gender topic and still are, the question is if they will always be, when the ‘gender’ topic is discussed. This has happened and is happening due to the apprehension of the much imperative role that women are playing in society. The need to have women on a level playing ground as their male counterparts in the shaping of society has not been an easier task for the feminist theorists and still isn’t. Though, the little achievement seen today can’t just be swept under the carpet and be ignored to be. Feminist theorists have over the years championed for women’s rights through such paradigms as-sex/gender equality, public/private sphere of the women, and equality/difference between men and women. Still today with a slight vary from the patriarchal world, they can be said to be only ‘consciousness-raising’. The real triumph, according to feminists is yet to be achieved. The statements made by Mahatma Gandhi are yet to be realised fully while others have been realised in society. Violence against women in marital marriage has been dealt with, this has happened through the realisation that ‘marital rape’ actually...
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...Selena is a film that positively shows the colorful life of one of the most revered musical icons in Mexican-American history. The casting of Jennifer Lopez, while originally contested, promoted an empowering feminist identity. The film also explores the role of the Latina body, sexuality, and family values in popular culture and society. Real Women Have Curves showcases a young Latina girl combining her two cultures: she respects her Latino elders by taking care of her family and working for her sister, but she embraces her American culture by taking charge of her sexual freedom, thinking positively about her body, and pursuing a college education. Even though her mother may not understand or agree with her decisions, Ana does not let this...
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...Feminist Theories and Uttar Predash Sociology 100 McLaughlin Thesis In the world, men and women are treated differently. Men and women have different roles and responsibilities, relations, and identities. Men are perceived as the dominant and in-charge person of the two. Men are usually the head of household and make the important decisions for the family. Women are perceived as the submissive person and are under-appreciated. Many women realized this and began to stand and fight against the stereotypical view of women. From this, the feminist theory derived. The feminist theory is a generalized, wide-ranging system of ideas about social life and human experience developed from a woman-center perspective. The feminist theory has four main subgroups, consisting of gender difference, gender inequality, gender oppression, and structural oppression. These theories are evident in the world, especially in the small Himalayan village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh described by Manjari Mehta in “Our Lives Are No Different From That of Our Buffaloes.” Feminist Theories Gender difference is a theory of feminism that argues that women’s perspectives of most situations are different from that of men’s perspectives of the same situation. Gender difference strives to answer the question “And what about the women?” by simply trying to show that women’s location in and experience of situations are different from that of men. Gender difference can be broken down into...
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...validity of women. Most advocates of Feminism have become Feminist critics. Feminist critics are more “concerned with the ways in which literature [, or roles in society,] reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (The OWL at Purdue 2010). Feminist critics call their practice, reading through “Feminist Lens”, which is the idea of reading literature and “striving to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in male writing about women” (Richter 2016). The Feminist lens are feminist critics way to expose the negative perceptions of women that is expressed by...
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...Assess feminist views on the role and function of religion (33 marks) Feminists regard religion as a main component in the perpetuation of patriarchy in contemporary society, it perpetuates oppressive gender roles, marginalises women and ensures male domination is retained. In terms of the structure of religious organisations, feminists point to the fact that they are male dominated, even though women often make up more of the attendees, often men will occupy the more central and sacred positions in places of worship. This reinforces the subordination of women, and their exclusion from sacred practices mirrors their continued exclusion from high ranking careers, specifically in politics, via the glass ceiling effect. Armstrong identifies women’s exclusion from priesthood in most traditional religions as undeniable evidence of marginalisation, such as in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church. This argument is credible, the marginalisation of women is rife in religion, Islam for example, in which female Muslims are not allowed to touch the Quran whilst on their period. Holm describes this as the devaluation of women in contemporary religion. Disregarding the blatant sexism in religious structures, feminists point to the patriarchy reinforced by monotheistic religious texts, Judaism and Islam for example. The sacred texts, The Bible, Torah and Koran for example, are all written by men, featuring male gods and male prophets. On top of this male domination, the female sex is...
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...known but it was also where I would escape. My mother was dealing with illness at that time, until I was about 11 but life couldn’t stop; my friends at schools were mostly boys and, as I grew up, I was more familiar with soccer and kickboxing than classical dancing. Soccer in France is mostly for boys anyway and since there was no girls’ team, that’s where I ended up, and I loved it. I felt more familiar around boys because they weren’t complicated. I didn’t mind bruises or being sweaty or even fighting, it was what I was made of. Being a girl and girl’s values was totally foreign to me. Until that time where a teenager becomes a young woman, I tried to discover my real identity and what I believed in, which is when I started reading some feminist novels and related myself to them. I believe that feminism is not only a movement; it can also be a certain kind of identity. My country has always been known to be faithful to our equality values that funded our republic. Some actions has been taken, on our territory and were directed towards women of all age and all the social categories that needed their rights protected. When the law passed in 2010 forbidding the hiding of the face in public spaces. I believe it is a law that preserves women’s dignity because this practice ends up for some of them as a constraint. The way women emancipated themselves and took a significant role in...
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...I haven’t always identified as a feminist, I previously conflated feminism with misandry, and that prevented me from embracing the term. After researching the topic I realized it was about the equity of the sexes, and any political or social actions based in that belief. I realized I wanted to be a feminist, but I wasn’t sure how to as the only ideas I had of what a feminist should be like were based upon stereotypes. Do I have to stop shaving and throw away my bras? Do I need to become an extrovert? I have decided is that being a feminist woman consists of knowing yourself, being excepting of individual differences and practicing female solidarity. No one can tell you how to identify. For example I remember being in middle school when...
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...Feminist Theories Liberal / Reformist Feminism * Concerned with civil rights and freedom of individuals * They believe that all human beings should have equal rights * Reformism is the progress towards equal rights and freedoms through gradual reforms * They feel that laws against sex discrimination will lead towards a rise in equal rights * Also they feel that changes in culture will help equality, e.g. stereotypes being abolished Sex and Gender * Like Ann Oakley liberal feminists find a difference between sex and gender; * Sex refers to biological differences * Gender refers to culturally constructed differences between masculine and feminine roles * While sex differences are fixed, gender is different for different cultures, this is the part Liberal feminists want to change * Want to promote equality in education and the media * Take political action to introduce anti-discriminatory laws * Liberal feminist criticise the Funtionalist views of Parsons, regarding the Instrumental and Expressive roles * They feel that men and women are equally capable of performing either role, however society is constructed to tell us which role to adhere to * Liberal feminists do have a consensus view on society – they accept that there are conflicts between men and women but argue that it’s a product of outdated attitudes Evaluation of liberal feminism * Experiments conducted by liberal feminists have produced evidence legitimising...
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...These unrealistic expectations of women set by society have had a profound effect on women. The feminist movement urges women to dismiss these expectations and for women to just be themselves. Feminism is needed in order to get rid of the ridiculous expectations of women in society such as “effortless perfection” in order for women to be truly successful in society. Every movement has opposition and feminism definitely has its opponents. One of the biggest arguments against feminism is that women already have equal rights so feminism is no longer needed. One of the reasons women actually do not have equal rights still today is because the Equal Rights Amendment has still yet to be passed. This amendment would make it illegal to discriminate in the work force on the basis of sex (King). Another argument against feminism is that feminists are deemed angry and aggressive. Yes, feminists do get angry sometimes, but it is because many of the inequalities that women go through are rough and painful. It is also a common misconception that men cannot be feminists. This is untrue because the ideals of feminism are not only for women but also for men. Once again feminism is not about women being better than men;...
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