www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199249374/ Feminism and Criminology LORAINE
GELSTHORPE
INTRODUCTION
Feminists
engaging with
criminology in the twenty-first century might be forgiven for looking
back with
a certain envy at the diversity of the
projects outlined by their predecessors.[1]
These predecessors set out to question some of the gender-blind
assumptions
within criminology and to create a space for women's voices and
experiences. It might be
supposed that
today there are few silences left to articulate and that the 'classic
masculine
discourse' of criminology (Collier, 1998) has been well and truly (if
paradoxically) 'penetrated' by feminism.
This is not the case. Doubts
are
still expressed in conference halls, institutional corridors and class
rooms
(if not in academic papers) as to whether there is such a thing as feminist
criminology, let alone its present, past
and future. But reports of its death or
non-existence have been greatly exaggerated.
The chief aim of this chapter is to alert readers to key
precepts and
issues which are relevant to an understanding of the importance of
feminist
contributions to criminology and to reflect on their overall
relationship.
This chapter thus
offers an
overview of the critical insights provided or prompted by feminism
which might
be said to have transgressed both the theory and politics of research
and
action in criminology. But, first,
what
is meant by 'feminism and criminology'?
In 1988, Allison Morris and I attempted to describe
something of the
relationship between feminism and criminology by reviewing early
feminist
achievements to address criminologists' 'amnesia' of women and by
giving
something of an overview of the impact or potential impact of feminism
on the
broad parameters of criminology (Gelsthorpe and Morris, 1988). But we recorded then, as I reiterate now,
that any discussion of the relationship between feminism and
criminology would
need to recognise complexities in the relationship. For there is no one
feminism and no one criminology. Despite some serious doubts as to
whether a
single feminist criminology could exist because it could not do justice
to the
differences and tensions that exist within the field, we acknowledged,
however,
that it was still possible to talk of feminist criminologies or, better
still,
of feminist perspectives in criminology.
Yet it is
important to speak
of different feminist perspectives, and of different criminologies. The chapters in this text provide ample
evidence of this. There is no one
relationship,
but a myriad of relationships between feminism and criminology.
Moreover, the
criminology of the 1970s, which prompted Carol Smart's 1976 critical
text Women, Crime and Criminology , one of
the first openly feminist critiques of criminology in ‘Criminology and the sociology
of
deviance must become more than the study of men and crime if it is to
play any
significant part in the development of our understanding of crime, law
and the
criminal process and play any role in the transformation of existing
social
practices’ (Smart, 1976:185). Her concern was
that criminology, even in its more radical
form, would be 'unmoved' by feminist critiques.
By 1990, she viewed criminology as the
'atavistic man' in intellectual endeavours and wished to abandon it
because she
could not see what it had to offer feminism.
But whereas the abandonment of criminology once seemed a
logical
response to criminological intransigence, there is arguably good reason
to
pause before pursuing this option given recent signs of critical
thinking in
criminology.
There have been
several serious explorations of the
relationship between feminism and criminology over the years (Daly and
Chesney-Lind, 1988; Gelsthorpe and Morris, 1990; Morris and Gelsthorpe,
1991;
Heidensohn, 1997; A. Young, 1994; Rafter and Heidensohn, 1995, and
Naffine,
1995; 1997). A key question which
has
perplexed some of these writers is whether key substantive and
political and
epistemological and methodological feminist make what might be
described as the
'criminological project' untenable in and of itself (see also
Heidensohn, this
volume). So,
what is it about feminist work that might make criminological work
untenable? When we speak of
feminism, we are not speaking of something which
is obvious or can be taken for granted (Delmar, 1986).
In a powerful exposition of feminist
thinking, Rosemarie Tong (1989)
illuminates some of the key differences between different feminist
perspectives. Whilst her catalogue
of
feminisms and history of feminist thought is not the only one that
might be
produced (see Oakley, 1981, and Evans, 1995, for example), Tong (1989)
identifies and elaborates six main kinds of feminism: •Liberal
feminism
- this involves a
commitment to reforms concerning equal civil rights,
equality of opportunity and the recognition of women's rights in
welfare,
health, employment and education; •Marxist
feminism - this
involves describing the material basis of women's oppression and the
relationship between the modes of production and women's status, and
applying
theories of women and class to the role of the family. •Socialist
feminism
- this involves beliefs that women
are treated as second-class citizens in patriarchal capitalism and that
we need
to transform the ownership of the means of production and
women’s social experience because the roots of women's oppression
lie in the total economic system of capitalism. As Walklate (2001)
describes,
socialist feminism is an outgrowth of Marxist feminist dissatisfaction
with the
gender-blind concept of class. •Existential
feminism - Existentialism is a
philosophical theory which argues that individuals are free and
responsible
agents able to transcend their social roles and determine their own
development. Feminist
Existentialism
is perhaps epitomised by Simone de Beauvoir's (1949) The
Second Sex in which she
argues that women are oppressed because they are 'Other' to man's
'Self', and
that as 'Other' they are 'not man'. Man
is taken to be the 'Self', the free, self- determining agent who
defines his
own existence, whilst woman remains the 'Other', the object, whose
meaning is
determined by what she is not. •Psychoanalytical
feminism - Psychoanalysis
was invented by Freud (see
Strachey 1953-74) to refer to his theory of the psyche and the methods
and
techniques he applied to understanding it.
Whilst psychoanalysis has come under attack because of its
seemingly
inherent sexism (emphasising biology over social relations and taking
masculine
characteristics as the norm), a feminist psychoanalysis has been
developed to
show how prevailing norms of gender are imposed and structure the human
mind. Feminist psychoanalysis is
sometimes referred to as gender theory. •Postmodern
feminism. - drawing
on the general features of postmodernism as a major cultural phenomenon in the arts,
architecture, philosophy and economics, and
inter alia rejecting
the idea of single explanations or
philosophies, feminist postmodernism involves opposition to
essentialism (the
belief that differences between men and women are innate - rather than
socially/experientially constructed)[2],
and a belief in more plural kinds of knowledge.
Some of the roots of postmodern feminism
are found in the work of Derrida (1978, 1981), Lacan (1995) and Simone
de
Beavoir (1949), whose critical exploration of women as the 'Other' has
been
turned on its head so that the condition of 'Otherness' is celebrated
in all
its diverse forms. Emphasis on the
positive side of 'Otherness' is a major theme in the associated
deconstructionist approaches and in the celebration of a plurality of
knowledges. 'Otherness' thus symbolises
plurality, diversity, difference and openness.
The so-called rationality and objectivity of contemporary
science also
comes under attack in feminist postmodernism
(Harding, 1986; Benhabib, 1992), and there are attempts to
create fluid,
open terms and language which more closely reflect women's experiences.
There
is a further dimension to feminist postmodernism here in the creation
of a new
language, ecriture feminine
(Cixous, 1976; Irigaray, 1977).[3]
To these types of
feminism I would add Black feminist thought which
consists of ideas produced by Black women that clarify a standpoint of
and for
Black women. It is assumed
that Black
women possess a unique standpoint on, and experiences of, historical
and
material conditions (Lorde, 1984;
Hill-Collins, 2002). It
is
further claimed that Black women's experiences uniquely provide an
'outsider-within' perspective on self,
family
and society which in turn serves to establish a distinctive standpoint
vis a
vis sociology's paradigmatic facts and theories. It is also
important to acknowledge the notion of 'global'
feminisms, by which we must recognise similarities and differences
between
feminisms in the West, East, North and South, and the differential
attention
given to class, racial, ethnic and imperial tensions in different
economic,
technological, sexual, reproductive, ecological and political contexts
(Bulbeck, 1998; Smith, 2000). This
is
particularly important if we wish to understand something of
international
feminist perspectives in criminology and accommodate difference and
diversity
away from westernised concepts of crime and justice.
There are many
sophisticated explorations of the different
feminist positions, detailed exploration of which lies beyond the scope
of this
chapter (see Carrington, 1994; Evans, 1995; Daly 1997; and Jackson and
Scott,
2002). These different positions
collectively illustrate men's material interest in the domination of
women and
the different ways in which men construct a variety of institutional
arrangements to sustain this domination. Feminists argue the case for
the
economy to be fully transformed and aim to 'make visible the invisible'
by
bringing into focus the gender structure of society (Rowbotham, 1973;
Mitchell,
1984; Mitchell and Oakley, 1986; Humm, 1992; 1995).
Feminists have challenged the political,
ontological, and epistemological assumptions that underlie patriarchal
discourses
as well as their theoretical contents. They have developed both an
anti-sexist
stance, and a stance which involves the construction of alternative
models,
methods, procedures, discourses and so on.
Put simply, feminists have a normative commitment to
revealing, and
attempting to negate, the subordination of women by men.
Such summaries do
not do justice to the concepts and
theories involved in feminisms, but they illustrate some of the key
challenges
to criminology. There are crucial
theoretical, conceptual and methodological distinctions within these
feminist
perspectives and such ideas are not mutually exclusive (see, for
example Hirsch
and Keller, 1990); different theorists subscribe to different strands
of
thought within each group of theories.
Equally, the various feminisms are not always rigorously
discrete. But
from the summaries it is possible to see how feminist challenges to
criminology
have been informed in a multiplicity of ways.
I will elaborate some of these challenges later in the
chapter. [1] It is important to recognise some of the early work which challenged criminology. The work of Marie Andree Bertrand (1969) and Frances Heidensohn (1968; 1970), for example, drew attention both to the neglect of women in the study of crime and to the tendency to distort images and understandings of female offenders in the work which did manage to feature women in any shape or form. Whilst this early work might be described as pre-feminist, it is perhaps no less important than the work of Carol Smart (1976) and others which is more self-consciously feminist in intent. [2] To expand, essentialism is a form of analysis in which social phenomena are understood not in terms of the specific conditions of their existence, but in terms of some presumed essence or interest (Hindess, 1977). [3] Postmodern feminism is perhaps perceived to have the most difficult relationship with the broad project of feminism (Tong, 1989; Nicholson, 1990; Carrington, 1994; 1998), largely because of beliefs that feminism itself may be misconceived in assuming that it is possible to provide overarching explanations for women's oppression and identify steps towards its resolution. At the same time, it is arguable that feminist criminologists have at been open to debates in this area and that this has been important in terms of developing the epistemological project that I have mentioned. |