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Feminist Perspectives on Crime and Deviance

Feminist criminology, stemming from the 1970s second wave feminism, offered perspectives that reshaped modern criminology. Early feminist critique highlighted the gender blind assumptions within criminology and the need to recognize male and female experiences of crime. Contributions included theories on women’s crime, control theory, poverty’s role in crime, and a focus on intersectionality. JETPACK_AI_ERROR

Feminist criminology emerged from the 1970s onwards amidst what is recognised as second wave feminism. Feminist contributions to criminology span Liberal, Marxist, Radical and Difference Feminist perspectives.

Early feminism criticised the extreme male bias in early to mid 20th century criminology. Most criminological theories from consensus theories to radical criminology focused exclusively on men, ignoring women, issues of patriarchy and gendered discourses altogether.

One key early feminist criminology text was Carol Smart’s (1976) Women, Crime and Criminology 1976.

Smart argued that the sociology of deviance had to become more than just about men if it was ever to fully understand crime. She criticised the gender blind assumptions inherent within criminology, which saw male and female experiences of crime and criminal justice as largely the same.

Smart argued criminology should focus on highlighting the similarities and differences between male and female experiences of crime and the criminal justice system and the importance of creating a space for women’s experiences and voices within criminological research and theory.

Feminist contributions to criminology can be broken down into four main categories:

An early focus on developing theories of why women do and don’t commit crime.
A focus on‘ doing gender’: how masculinity is a main driver of crime.
Criticising the Chivalry Thesis by focusing on how women are seen as doubly deviant by the criminal justice system

A later focus on intersectionality and how factors such as ethnicity and age intersect with gender resulting in diverse experience of crime and criminal justice.

These contributions throughout the 1970s and 1980s reshaped the contours of modern criminology.

The rest of this post explores some of the contributions of mainly second wave feminism to the development of criminology in the 1970s, 1980s and into the early 1990s.

Much of this involved criticising existing criminological theory and practice.

Control theory: why do women commit less crime than men?

Fracnces Heidensohn (1985) argued that male dominated patriarchal societies control women more effectively than they do men, making it more difficult for women to break the law. She developed Hirschi’s Control Theory but adapted it to focus on gender.

Control operates across three spheres:

At home
In public
At work.

Control of women at home

Being a housewife directly restricts women by limiting the opportunities for criminality. Heidensohn describes domesticity as a form of detention. The endless hours spent on housework and the constant monitoring of young children leaves very little time for illegal activities. A pervasive value system persuades women they must carry out their domestic responsibilities dutifully or they will have failed as mothers and wives. Women who challenge the traditional roles of women within the family run the risk of having them imposed by force. Heidensohn says many observers confirm that wife battering is in fact an assertion of patriarchal authority.

If they are the main or only breadwinner men may also use their financial power to control women’s behaviour. The family more closely controls daughters as well as wives. They are usually given less freedom than boys who may come and go as they please or stay out later at night, and girls are expected to spend more time doing housework.

Control of women in public

In public women are controlled by the male use of force and violence, by the idea of holding onto a good reputation and the ideology of separate spheres.

Women often choose not to go out into public places because of the fear of being attacked or raped. Heidensohn quotes the 1986 Islington crime survey which found that 54% of women but only 14% of men often or always avoided going out after dark because of fear of crime. She quotes Susan Brownmiller’s claim that rape and fear of rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. Heidensohn stops a short of endorsing this view but she does argue that the sensational reporting of rapes and the unsympathetic attitude of some police officers and judges to rape victims act as forces controlling women.

Women also tend to limit their behaviour in public Places because of the risk of being labelled unrespectable. The wrong sort of dress, demeanour, makeup and even speech can damage your women’s reputation in the eyes of men.

The ideology of separate spheres which sees women’s place as being in the home has become part of the system that subtly and sometimes brutally confines women. Women are not expected to raise their concerns in public or place them on the political agenda. If they try they may be ridiculed and told to return to where they belong in the home. such a fate befell of the Greenham Common women who during the 1980s protested about the sighting of American nuclear weapons in Britain.

Control of women at work

At work male superiors in the hierarchy usually control women and men also dominate trade unions. Women may also be intimidated by various forms of sexual harassment that discourage female employees from asserting themselves and from feeling at home. Sexual harassment ranges from whistles and cat calls and the fixing of pinups and soft p*** pictures to physical approaches and attacks which could be defined as indecent and criminal. Heidensohn quotes surveys that find that up to 60% of women have suffered some form of sexual harassment at work.

Conclusion

Heidensohn’s arguments about the causes or conformity by women fits in well with consensus views on the causes of deviance. Based on control theory, both agree the crime and deviance by women takes place when controls break down and women lose the real or imagined incentives to conform. Heidensohn suggests that some female criminals may be those who have perceived the biases of the system and decided to push against it.

For other women it is the restrictions themselves that force them into reliance upon crime. Heidensohn says women are particularly vulnerable because they are so economically exploited if they lose protection of a man and may turn to crimes such as prostitution as the only way of earning a reasonable living.

Evaluation of Heidensohn’s Control Theory

Many of her arguments are based upon generalisations, some of which do not apply to all women..

Heidensohn does not always support her claims with strong empirical evidence. Furthermore, she admits that many of the empirical tests of control theory have been carried out on juvenile offenders rather than adults.

Control theory does sometimes portray women as passive victims.

However Heidensohn does present a plausible explanation of why such a gap remains between men’s and women’s crime rates. In doing so she highlights some of the inequalities that remain between men and women. Furthermore the theory is supported by some empirical studies.

There is still some relevance today. In 2023 23% of women (compared to only 8% of men) said they had experienced sexual harassment in the previous year. 75% of those reported they’d experienced harassment in public places, 25% in the workplace. (Source: Office for National Statistics).

Pat Carlen: women crime and poverty

In 1985 Pat Carlen conducted a study with 39 women aged 15 to 46 who had been convicted of one or more crimes. She carried out lengthy and in-depth unstructured interviews with each of the women. Most were from the London area and 20 were in prison or youth custody centres at the time of interviewing. Most of the women were working-class and they had committed a range of offences. 26 had convictions for theft or handling stolen goods, 16 for fraud or similar offences, 15 for burglary, 14 for violence, 8 for arson, six for drugs offences and four for prostitution related crime.

Carlen criticised Freda Adler’s Liberation Theory. She did not believe that liberation had resulted in increased crimes by women; most of her sample had been touched little by any games that women had experienced through increasing opportunities in the job market for example.

Carlen argued that the type of working-class background of most of her sample was typical of female offenders convicted of more serious crimes. 30 members of her sample were from working-class backgrounds.

By reconstructing the lives of such women from in-depth interviewing, Carlen hoped to identify the set of circumstances that led to their involvement in crime.

Control Theory

Carlen adopted control theory as her theoretical approach. She argued that working-class women have been controlled through the promise of rewards stemming from the workplace and the family; such women are encouraged to make what she called the class deal and the gender deal.

The class deal offers material rewards such as consumer goods for those respectable working-class women who work dutifully for a wage. The gender deal offers psychological and material rewards from either the labours or the love of a male breadwinner. When these rewards are not available for women, or they have not been persuaded these rewards are real or worth sacrifices, then the deals breakdown and criminality becomes a possibility.

Factors encouraging deviance

Carlen found that the women she studied attributed their criminality to four main factors. These were drug addiction (including alcohol), the desire for excitement, being brought up in care and poverty. She placed particular emphasis on the last two factors: very often the abuse that drugs and the desire for excitement the consequence of being brought up in care will be important

In all 32 the women had always been poor, four of the remaining seven were unemployed at the time of being interviewed and only two had good jobs. 22 of the women had spent at least part of their lives in care.

Rejection of the class deal

Poverty and being brought up in care led to the women rejecting the class and gender deals. Few of the women had experience of the possible benefits of the class deal. they never had access to the consumer goods and leisure facilities which Society portrays as representing the good life.

Attempts to find a legitimate way of earning a decent living had been frustrated. For example six of the women had been through the youth training scheme but they had returned to being unemployed at the end of their training. A number had gained qualifications in prison but found them to be of no use in finding a job. Many had experience of day-to-day humiliations, delays and frustrations in trying to claim benefits. They had a strong sense of injustice, oppression and powerlessness. Crime was a way of resisting these justices and trying to solve the problems of poverty. The women had little to lose by turning to crime and potentially a good deal to gain.

Rejection of the gender deal

According to Carlen women generally are deterred from committing crime because they are brought up to see themselves as the guardians of domestic morality. They have less opportunities to commit crimes because they are more closely supervised than males first by parents, later by husbands. Patriarchal ideology promises women happiness and fulfilment from family life. For most of the women in the study though the gender deal had not been made or had been rejected. They felt they had been freed from family life or felt so closely supervised they felt oppressed by the family.

Some of the women had been sexually or physically abused by their fathers. Eight of them had been physically attacked by male partners.

For the 22 women who had been in care there had been little opportunity to acquire the psychological commitment to male related domesticity. spending time caring.

Broken attachments to friends and family had reduced some of the potential social costs of isolation that could result from crime. Some had run away from care usually with no money and some had experienced homelessness and unemployment, all of which can easily lead on to crime.

Many of the women saw crime as their only route to a decent standard of living. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Convictions and prison sentences served to restrict the women’s legal opportunities even further and make the attractions of crime greater.

West and Zimmerman: Doing gender

Feminist Criminology also engaged in a closer consideration of masculinity, and the social construction of maleness. For example West and Zimmerman (1987) in their article ‘Doing Gender’.

West and Zimmerman proposed that women and men engage in gendered practices i.e ‘do gender ‘in response to situated social hierarchies and expectations about masculinity and femininity thus contributing to the reproduction of social structure.

Messerschmidt (1993) has developed this arguing that for many men crime served as a resource for doing gender and that different crimes were useful for demonstrating masculinity depending on men’s social structural positions across axes of race and class.

Masculinity was seen as a crucial point of intersection of different forms of power stratification and identity formation . Feminist theoretical work on the social construction of gender asserted that male power was crucial in understanding crime.

Feminist Criticisms of the Chivalry Thesis

The Chivalry Thesis stated that women were treated less leniently by the police and courts than men which partially explained their lower levels of representation in the official crime statistics.

One of the first criticisms of this was put forward by Francis Heidensohn (1968). Heidensohn argued that women were treated more harshly by the criminal justice system because they were seen as doubly deviant: They had broken social norms by breaking the law and also broken the social norms of their gender, thus they received harsher punishments.

There is some evidence that this is true:

Research from 1987 found that compared to men women were more likely to be put in jail for robbery and assault compared to property crime. This suggests women are punished more harshly for being violent than men.
Research from 2018 found that mothers receive harsher penalties than fathers. This suggests women are punished more when they break the ‘good mother’ stereotype.

Carol Smart (1989) argued male offenders are sometimes treated more sympathetically than their female victims. This is particularly the case with rape trials She argued such trials ‘celebrate notions of male sexual need and female sexual capriciousness’. She quoted some historical comments by judges in rape trials as evidence:

“It is well known that women in particular and small boys are likely to be untruthful and invent stories.” Judge Sutcliffe, 1976.

“Women who say no do not always mean no. It is not just a question of how she shows and makes it clear. If she doesn’t want it she only has to keep her legs shut”. Judge Wild, 1982.

“It is the height of impudence for any girl to hitch-hike at night. That is plain, it isn’t really worth stating. She is in the true sense asking for it”. Bertrand Richards, 1982.

Sandra Walklate (2004) argued that it is the female victim who ends up on trial. Women have to establish their respectability if their evidence is to be believed.

From a feminist perspective rape trials tend to see things from the male point of view which accepts that men become unable to restrain their sexual desires once women give them any indication they may be available for sex.

Female victims of rape are portrayed as not knowing their own mind, not being able to determine whether they want sex or not.

Prison is a harsher form of punishment for women

Pat Carlen’s work revealed that prisons were outdated, outmoded and gender insensitive forms of punishment for women. She argued that women’s prisons both infantilize and medicalice their occupants. Women and girls confinement was revealed to be shaped by powerful and pervasive ideologies about femininity and the proper place of women

Intersectionality and Criminal Justice

Third wave Feminism celebrated multiple ways of ‘doing Feminism’. More focus on intersectionality and on the impact of criminal justice on those who cross identities.

Some third and fourth wave feminists criticised early feminisms as being based on the experience of white women. They sought to understand more how gender inequality intersected with cross cutting systems of oppression such as race, class, sexuality, ableism and age. (Collins and Bilge 2016)/.

An intersectional lens is now increasingly used to understand how intersecting social identities mediate crime and experiences of victimisation. And focus critically on how criminal justice systems both embody and perpetuate existing social inequalities. (Healy and Colliver 2022).

Signposting and sources

This material is part of the Crime and Deviance module, taught in the second year of A-level Sociology.

Heidensohn, Frances (1968). “The Deviance of Women: A Critique and an Enquiry”. The British Journal of Sociology. 19 (2): 160–175. doi:10.2307/588692. ISSN 0007-1315. JSTOR 588692.

Messerschmidt, J. (1993). Masculinities and crime: Critique and reconceptualization of theory . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Liebling et al (2023) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology

Part of this post was adapted from Haralambos and Holborn (2013) Sociology Themes and Perspectives 8th Edition.

Radical Feminist Perspectives on Religion

Radical Feminists emphasise the patriarchal nature of some mainstream religions such as Catholicism and Islam. They argue that such religions have developed in patriarchal societies and have been ‘hijacked’ by men. Men have interpreted religious doctrines in order to justify their positions of power.

Radical Feminists also believe that religion often serves to compensate women for their second class status within religion and society more generally. For example, by providing psychological rewards if they accept their role as mothers and limit their horizons to fulfilling that role well.

However, Radical Feminists do not necessarily see religion as inherently patriarchal. Historically, for example, Goddess religions have celebrated the creative and nurturing power of the feminine. It is really men hijacking religion and downplaying the role of women in the development of some religions over the past couple of thousand years which is the problem.

It follows that women can use religion to lead fulfilling lives, but need to fight oppression within mainstream religious organisations to do so, or even to develop their own unique, individual paths to a feminine spirituality.

Four Feminist Perspectives on Religion

The mind map below summarises the following Feminist perspectives on religion. Please click the links below for more details:

Simone de Beauvoir who developed a Marxist Feminist analysis of religion. She argued that religion oppresses women mainly through convincing them motherhood is divine.

Mary Daly focused on how Christianity has historically spread a set of patriarchal myths and promoted female subordination. For example Catholicism abolished all indigenous religions in which women had spiritual power.
Nawal el Saadawi argued that religions such as Islam were not inherently patriarchal. However when religions developed in patriarchal societies, they gradually became interpreted along patriarchal lines.
Carol P Christ – promoted a Feminist spirituality. She pointed out that the most ancient religions tended to revolve around Goddess worship. She advocates for feminist spiritualities which focus on feelings and are experiential and personal.

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Nawal El Saadawi: The Hidden Face of Eve

Feminist El Saadawi argues that neither Islam in particular or religion in general are oppressive to women, but they become so when the develop within already existing patriarchal social structures

In The Hidden Face of Eve (1980), Nawal El Saadawi considers the role of religion in perpetuating female oppression in the Arab World. She offers an Egyptian Feminist perspective on the role of religion and thus broadens our understanding away from the typically white female voices of feminism.

El Saadawi is a women’s rights activist, who has herself experienced oppression within Egypt. She has campaigned vigorously for women’s rights in the Arab world and has been imprisoned for her activism.

She was forced to undergo female circumcision as a young girl, without any warning or explanation and points out that male violence against women within the family is common in many Arab cultures. Young females are frequently the victims of violence at the hands of their fathers, uncles or brothers. In addition, women are also victims of forced prostitution and slavery which provide further evidence of patriarchal dominance of Arab men over Arab women.

However, despite the prevalence of female oppression across the Islamic world, El Saadawi does not believe that female oppression is caused by Islam.

She points out that male female oppression exists in many non-Islamic cultures and is in fact just as common in Christian cultures. A classic example of this is in the 14^th century when the Catholic Church declared that women who treated those who were ill, without special training, could be executed as witches.

(Possibly our fixation with the oppression of women in Islamic cultures is a result of a broader anti-Islamic prejudice?)

For El Saadawi, the oppression of women is caused by ‘the patriarchal system which came into being when society had reached a certain stage of development’. It just so happened that Islam developed in those areas of the world which already had extremely patriarchal social structures. Over the centuries, Islamic doctrine was thus shaped by men and reflected their interests, with women’s voices being effectively unheard in this process.

Ultimately, El Saadawi believes that where religion evolves within patriarchal cultures, men distort religion to act in their own interests and to help justify their own privilege and the oppression of women.

The Origins of Oppressive Religion

El Saadawi argues that religion became patriarchal through the misinterpretation of religious beliefs by men.

She uses the Greek myth of Isis and Osiris as an example of this in which the evil Touphoun overpowers the male Osiris. His body is cut into small pieces and dispersed in the sea, and fish eats his sexual organ.

To El Saadawi, this story clearly implies female superiority, but men have interpreted it quite differently. They have emphasised the superiority of Osiris because he was created from the head of the god Zeus, who was greater than Osiris, according to Homer and other writers, because he was more knowledgeable.

However, the above is a narrow interpretation which conveniently leaves out the next link in the ‘creation chain’: all male gods were created by or given the ability to move by the greatest deity of them all, the goddess Isis.

Similar distortions have entered the story of Adam and Eve. Males usually portray Eve as a temptress who created sin in the world. However, if we read the original story as described in the Old Testament, it is easy for us to see clearly that Eve was gifted with knowledge, intelligence and superior mental capacities, whereas Adam was only one of her instruments, utilized by her to increase her knowledge and give shape to her creativity.

Monotheistic Religions and Female Oppression

El Saadawi argues that forms of religion that were oppressive to women developed as monotheistic religions (believing in a single god). Such religions were interpreted in the context of patriarchal societies, primarily by men. For example, male representatives of early Judaism interpreted Abraham as a patriarchal figure which served to justify the patriarchal family in which wives and children came to be under the uncontested power of the father.

Islam similarly developed patriarchal doctrines because it was established in the context of a patriarchal social structure: Authority in Islamic society belonged ultimately to the political ruler (the Khalifa) or the religious leader (the Imam), and then down through a small male minority who had power due to their ownership of herds of horses, camels and sheep, and finally down to the level of the lifeworld via the male head of household.

As a result, the enforcement of many laws in Islamic culture remains highly unequal. For example:

Although the Qur’an states that both men and women can be stoned to death for adultery, this fate rarely befalls men.
Men are permitted many wives, but women are not permitted many husbands

Husbands can divorce their wives instantaneously.

Fighting back against religions which oppress women

El Saadawi concludes that female oppression is not essentially due to religion, but due to the patriarchal system that has long been dominant. She is not hostile to religion, but only to the domination of religion by patriarchal ideology.

‘The great religions of the world uphold similar principles in so far as the submission of women to men is concerned. They also agree in the attribution of masculine characteristics to their God. Islam and Christianity have both constituted important stages inn the evolution of humanity. Nevertheless, where the cause of women was concerned, they added a new load to their already heavy chains. (El Saadawi,1980.)

She believes that the only way for women to free themselves from oppression is to themselves fight for their own liberation.

Thankfully, there is a long tradition of religious radicals doing precisely this, probably the best-known example being Jesus Christ himself who El Saadawi describes as a revolutionary leader who opposed oppression. She also points out that early Christianity tended to have codes which enforced the equal treatment of men and women.

Finally, El Saadawi believes that revolutions are generally beneficial to women and so can thus be regarded as a Marxist Feminist as much as a Radical Feminist.

Sources

Adapted from Haralmabos and Holborn 8th edition 2013

Find out More

El Saadawi (2015) The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World (new edition)

Feminist Perspectives on Religion: Karen Armstrong

Feminist Karen Armstrong argued that women were central to many spiritual traditions in early history.

She pointed out that in early history, there were very few effigies of male gods, while symbolic representations of the ‘Great Mother Goddess’ were numerous. In the Middle East, Asia and Europe, for example, archaeologists have uncovered numerous symbols of the Mother Goddess. One common representation is of the mother goddess as a naked pregnant women, which seems to place fertility as central to early spirituality.

Armstrong argues that female figures began to be written out of religion with the acceptance of monotheism. She suggests that this process originated with Yahweh, the god of Abraham, and writes…

‘[this] God of Israel would later become the God of the Christians and the Muslims, who all regard themselves as the spiritual offspring of Adam, the father of all believers’.

Evaluation

This type of Feminist analysis seems to suggest that it is not necessarily religion itself that is patriarchal. Thus, unlike Marxist perspectives, we do not need to eradicate religion in order to achieve female liberation. Rather, we, need to ‘get back’ to more female centered spiritual traditions and develop a female-focused spirituality.

Mary Daly’s Perspective on Religion

Feminist Mary Daly argued that Christianity was a set of patriarchal myths. She was heavily inspired by Simon de Beavoir.

Mary Daly theorised that women were part of a ‘planetary sexual caste system’ which was patriarchal and exploitative of women. She saw this religious patriarchy as being maintained in a number of ways:

The early Catholic church systematically eliminated religions in which female gods were equal to or more powerful than male gods. It also ‘demoted’ the role of female figures in the historical record: for example, Mary Magdalene, who in reality played a large role in the spread of Christianity, is given less significance than is appropriate, according to Daly.

Churches have also tended to support a type of sex role segregation in society in which women are given a ‘derivative status’. This means that women derive their status not from their own contribution to society, but from their husband. Daly further argued that early socialisation of women into subordinate roles meant that women willingly consented to their inferior status.

Patriarchal religious ideology teaches that patriarchal religious institutions are bestowed by God. This ideology also teaches that the subordinate status of women is God’s will, and that it is virtuous for women to accept such positions.

Much like Simon de Beauvoir, Daly also believed that women encouraged false consciousness. It taught them that the way to redemption was through prayer, rather than concrete struggle against religious authorities in society.

Daly placed particular attention on the role of imagery and language in perpetuating male control and female subordination. For example God is often portrayed as male ‘ which serves to alienate women and places them in an inferior position to men.

In order to liberate themselves from religious oppression, women needed to abolish the male-centered language used by mainstream religions and replace it with a different language. Daly also believed that ultimately women needed to stop relying on ‘religion from above’, and should instead seek ‘spirituality from within’.

What is Patriarchy?

Working definition

The systematic domination of women by men in some or all of society’s spheres and institutions

Origins of the Concept

Ideas of male dominance have a very long history, with many religions presenting it as natural and necessary.

The first theoretical account of patriarchy is found in Engels theory of women’s subservience under capitalism. He argued that capitalism resulted in power being concentrated in the hands of fewer people which intensified the oppression of women as men passed on their wealth to their male heirs. (I’ve outline this theory in more detail in this post: the Marxist perspective on the family).

The main source of patriarchal theory stems from Feminism, which developed the concept in the 1960s, highlighting how the public-private divide and the norm of women being confined to the domestic sphere was the main source of male dominance and female oppression, highlighted by the famous Feminist slogan ‘the personal is the political’.

Subsequent Feminist theory and research explored how

Today, there is much disagreement over the concepts usefulness within the various different Feminist traditions (for the purposes of A-level sociology, typically divided up into Liberal, Marxist, Radical).

Meaning and Interpretation

The concept of Patriarchy forms the basis for radical forms of Feminism which has focused on how Patriarchy is reproduced in many different ways such as male violence against women, stereotypical representations in the media and even everyday sexism.

Sylvia Walby re-conceptualized Patriarchy in the 1990s, arguing that the concept failed to take account of increasing gender equality, but that it should still remain central to Feminist analysis, suggesting that there are six structures of patriarchy: Paid Work, Household Production, Culture, Sexuality, Violence and the State.

Walby also argued that analysis should distinguish between public and private forms of patriarchy.

Critical Points

The concept of patriarchy has been criticized from both outside and within Feminism.

The concept itself has been criticized as being too abstract: it is difficult to pin it down and find specific mechanisms through which it operates.

Many Feminists argue that Patriarchy exists in all cultures, and thus the concept itself is too general to be useful, as it fails to take account of how other factors such as class and ethnicity combine to oppress different women in different ways.

Black Feminists have criticized the (mainly) white radical Feminist critique of the family as patriarchal as many black women see the family as a bulwark against white racism in society.

Postmodern Feminism criticizes the concept as it rests on the binary distinction between men and women, the existence of which is open to question today.

Continued Relevance

Much contemporary research focuses on discourse and how language can reproduce patriarchy. For example Case and Lippard (2009) analysed jokes, arguing they can perpetuate patriarchal relations, although Feminists have developed their own ‘counter-jokes’ to combat these – they conclude that humor can act as a powerful ideological weapon.

Feminist Theory for A Level Sociology: An Introduction

This is a very brief introduction for first year A-level Sociology Students…

Inequality between men and women is the most significant form of inequality

Anthropological evidence demonstrates that inequalities between men and women exist in every single society in human history, and in most of these societies women have an inferior social status to men. Feminism exists to rectify the Systematic injustices that women experience because of their sex

Gender norms are Socially Constructed,

They are not determined by biology and thus gender norms can be changed

Feminism is a set of ideas which criticises the discrimination experienced by women based on their gender. Remember, there are few biological differences between men and women at birth, but the social norms associated with being a “women” result in discrimination against females. Children are taught “gender norms” from a young age i.e. what it means to be a “women” in terms of dress, language, expectations, roles within the family, how they relate to men etc. Gender norms are learned in the family, but reinforced in the school, at work and through the media.

Note, boys also learn gender norms e.g. assertiveness, confidence etc, but more importantly for feminism they also learn the behaviour they expect from a “women” based on female gender norms. Many boys will grow up watching gender norms being played out in the family and will therefore replicate the same roles with their own partners.

Patriarchy is one of the main causes of female disadvantage

‘Patriarchy refers to a society in which there are unequal power relations between women and men whereby women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed’ (London Feminist Network)

NB – the idea of ‘structure’ is central to the concept of Patriarchy – Women are inferior because men are superior – For example, women end up staying at home looking after the kids BECAUSE it is assumed that men are the breadwinners, thus men are the ones who go out to work. Similarly, women dress up in high heels, make up and short skirts BECAUSE they have internalised the idea that that’s what they need to do to attract men. The idea behind patriarchy is that men gain and women lose from socially constructed gender differences.

Feminism is a political movement

Feminists emphasise the importance of political activism in order challenge gender inequalities. Feminism exists to rectify the Systematic injustices that women experience because of their sex. There is a lot of disagreement within Feminism over how to achieve this – strategies vary from doing research to highlight the extent of gender inequality, to having consciousness raising sessions with groups of women and men, to working with governments to create social policies, to more radical strategies such as political lesbianism.

Feminist Theory: A Criticism of Previous Sociological Explanations Gender inequality

Feminist theory arose as a reaction to the sexist, biological explanations for gender inequalities such as those of Talcott Parsons. Feminism actually sees sociology itself as sexist as all previous theories: Functionalism, Marxism and Interactionism have failed to adequately explain gender differences in modern society. Feminism is a huge body of theory. Below it is simplified into four main perspectives: Radical Feminism, Marxist Feminism, Liberal Feminism and Difference Feminism

This material is a basic introduction to Feminism, designed to be delivered as part of an introduction to sociology, early on in an A-level course.

For the much fuller version at A2 you might like this post: Feminist Theory: A Summary for A-level Sociology

Feminist Theory: A Summary for A-Level Sociology

This post summarises the differences between Liberal, Marxist, Radical and Difference (Postmodern) Feminists. It covers what they believe the causes of gender inequalities to be and what should be done to tackle these inequalities and male power in society.

This post summarises the key ideas of Radical, Liberal, Marxist and Difference Feminisms and includes criticisms of each perspective.

Introduction – Feminism: The Basics

Inequality between men and women is universal and the most significant form of inequality.
Gender norms are socially constructed not determined by biology and can thus be changed.

Patriarchy is the main cause of gender inequality: women are subordinate because men have more power.
Feminism is a political movement; it exists to rectify sexual inequalities, although strategies for social change vary enormously.
There are four types of Feminism – Radical, Marxist, Liberal, and Difference.

Radical Feminism

Society is patriarchal – it is dominated and ruled by men – men are the ruling class, and women the subject class.
Blames the exploitation of women on men. It is primarily men who have benefitted from the subordination of women. Women are ‘an oppressed group.
Rape, violence and pornography are methods through which men have secured and maintained their power over women. Andrea Dworkin (1981)

Radical feminists have often been actively involved in setting up and running refuges for women who are the victims of male violence.
Rosemarie Tong (1998) distinguishes between two groups of radical feminist:
Radical-libertarian feminists believe that it is both possible and desirable for gender differences to be eradicated, or at least greatly reduced, and aim for a state of androgyny in which men and women are not significantly different.

Radical-cultural feminists believe in the superiority of the feminine. According to Tong radical cultural feminists celebrate characteristics associated with femininity such as emotion, and are hostile to those characteristics associated with masculinity such as hierarchy.
Some alternatives suggested by Radical Feminists include separatism – women only communes, and Matrifocal households. Some also practise political Lesbianism and political celibacy as they view heterosexual relationships as “sleeping with the enemy.”

Criticisms of Radical Feminism

The concept of patriarchy has been criticised for ignoring variations in the experience of oppression.

It focuses too much on the negative experiences of women, failing to recognise that some women can have happy marriages for example.
It tends to portray women as universally good and men as universally bad, It has been accused of man hating, not trusting all men.

Marxist Feminism

Capitalism rather than patriarchy is the principal source of women’s oppression, and capitalists are the main beneficiaries.

The disadvantaged position of women is because of the emergence of private property and the fact that women do not own the means of production.
Under Capitalism the nuclear family becomes even more oppressive to women and women’s subordination plays a number of important functions for capitalism:
(1) Women reproduce the labour force for free (socialisation is done for free)

(2) Women absorb anger – women keep the husbands going.
(3) Because the husband has to support his wife and children, he is more dependent on his job and less likely to demand wage increases.
The traditional nuclear family also performs the function of ‘ideological conditioning’ – it teaches the ideas that the Capitalist class require for their future workers to be passive.

Marxist Feminists are more sensitive to differences between women who belong to the ruling class and proletarian families. They believe there is considerable scope for co-operation between working class women and men to work together for social change.
The primary goal is the eradication of capitalism. In a communist society gender inequalities should disappear.

Criticisms of Marxist Feminism

Radical Feminists – ignores other sources of inequality such as sexual violence.

Patriarchal systems existed before capitalism, in tribal societies for example.
The experience of women has not been particularly happy under communism.

Liberal Feminism

Nobody benefits from existing inequalities: both men and women are harmed

The explanation for gender inequality lies not so much in structures and institutions of society but in its culture and values.
Socialisation into gender roles has the consequence of producing rigid, inflexible expectations of men and women.
Discrimination prevents women from having equal opportunities.

Liberal Feminists do not seek revolutionary changes: they want changes to take place within the existing structure.
The creation of equal opportunities through policy is the main aim of liberal feminists – e.g. the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act.
Liberal feminists try to eradicate sexism from the children’s books and the media.

Liberal Feminist ideas have probably had the most impact on women’s lives – e.g. mainstreaming has taken place.

Criticisms of Liberal Feminism

Based upon male assumptions and norms such as individualism and competition, and encourages women to be more like men and therefor denies the value of qualities traditionally associated with women such as empathy.
Liberalism is accused of emphasising public life at the expense of private life.

Radical and Marxist Feminists – it fails to take account of deeper structural inequalities.
Difference Feminists argue it is an ethnocentric perspective – based mostly on the experiences of middle class, educated women.

Difference Feminism/ Postmodern Feminism

Do not see women as a single homogenous group.

There are differences in the experiences of working class and middle class women, women from different backgrounds and women of different sexualities.
Criticise preceding feminist theory for claiming a ‘false universality’ (white, western heterosexual, middle class)
Criticise preceding Feminists theory of being essentialist.

Critique preceding Feminist theory as being part of the masculinist Enlightenment Project .
Postmodern Feminism is concerned with language (discourses) and the relationship between power and knowledge rather than ‘politics and opportunities’.
Helene Cixoux is an example of a postmodern/ destabilising theorist.

Criticisms of Difference Feminism

Walby argues that women are still oppressed by objective social structures, namely Patriarchy.
Dividing women into sub-groups weakens the movement for change.

Frequently Asked Questions about Feminism

What is Feminism?

Feminism is a diverse body of social theory which seeks to better understand the nature, extent and causes of gender inequalities. Some Feminists are also political activists who actively campaign for greater gender equality.

What are the main types of Feminism?

The main types of Feminism are Liberal, Marxist, Radical and Difference or Postmodern Feminisms. (Although many Feminists themselves may not recognise these ‘types’ because they oversimplify Feminist theory.

What is the main goal of Feminism?

The goals of Feminists vary from person to person but a general shared aim is to reduce the amount of sexism and gender oppression in societies.

Is Feminism still relevant today?

Yes. The majority of countries on earth still have fewer women in politics, women are still paid less than men on average, and are more likely to be subject to domestic abuse than men. And if we look at sexuality inequalities there is still overt oppression of gay and trans people in many countries.

Sources Used to Write this Post

Haralambos and Holborn (2013) – Sociology Themes and Perspectives, Eighth Edition, Collins. ISBN-10: 0007597479
Chapman et al (2016) – A Level Sociology Student Book Two [Fourth Edition] Collins. ISBN-10: 0007597495

Robb Webb et al (2016) AQA A Level Sociology Book 2, Napier Press. ISBN-10: 0954007921

A-Level Sociology Knowledge Disclaimer: This post has been written specifically for students revising for their A-level Sociology exams. The knowledge has been adapted from various A-level Sociology text books. These text books may mis-label or misunderstand aspects of Feminist theory and probably oversimplify them.

The knowledge above (labels used/ interpretations) is what students are assessed on in A-level Sociology, I make no claim that these representations are the same as the interpretations the theorists represented in said text books (and thus above) may make of their own theories. It may well be the case that for degree level students and beyond the theorists and theories above may be ‘correctly’ represented differently in those ”higher levels’ of academic realities”.

Sylvia Walby: Six Structures of Patriarchy

Wallby’s six structures of patriarchy are paid work, household production, culture, sexuality, violence and the state.

To Sylvia Walby, the concept of Patriarchy must remain central to a feminist understanding of society. She argues that there are six patriarchal structures which restrict women and maintain male domination – the existence of these structures restricts women’s freedom and life-chances compared to men.

However, she does recognise that women of different class and ethnic backroads and different sexual orientations experience these structures in different ways.

Walby also recognises that patriarchal structures can change and they can be affected by the actions of both men and women – and in more recent works she talks of ‘gender regimes’ rather than patriarchy to reflect this greater fluidity.

Six Structures of Patriarchy

Sylvia Wallby argued there were six structures of Patriarchy:

paid work

household production
culture
sexuality

violence
the state.

She developed this theory in here 1989 article: Theorising Patriarchy (1)

Paid Work

Walby believes that paid employment remains a key structure for disadvantaging women in Britain. Today, men continue to dominate the best paid jobs and women are still paid less than men, and do more part-time work. Many women choose not to work, or work part-time because of poor job opportunities.

The median gender pay gap in Britain in 2022 was still 14.3% in 2023. This is for all jobs, both full time and part time. (Source: Office for National Statistics.)

graph showing trend in the gender pay gap UK to 2023.

Household Production

According to Walby men still benefit from women’s unpaid labour. Women still do most of the housework and childcare. However, easier divorce means women are not as trapped as they once were by marriage and some black feminists see family life as less exploitative than the labour market, where there is considerable racism.

According to British Social Attitudes 40 women still do most of the cleaning, washing and ironing, men do most of the household repairs and are more likely to look after the household finances.

table showing what housework chores men and women did in 2022.

Motherhood and fatherhood also reinforce traditional gender roles at home today. When children are born, mothers are much more likely to take time off work and spend longer on childcare compared to fathers.

Culture

Walby believes that that the culture of Western societies has consistently distinguished between men and women and expected different behaviours from them, but the expected patterns of behaviour have changed. The key sign of femininity today is sexual attractiveness to men, and not just for younger women, but increasingly for older women.

Also, the increase in Pornography increases the freedom of men while threatening the freedom of women. To Walby, the ‘male gaze’, not that of women, is the viewpoint of pornography which encourages the degradation of women by men and promotes sexual violence.

Sexuality

Despite the sexual liberation of the 1960s, there is still a ‘sexual double standard’ in society – males condemn women who are sexually active as slags and those who are not as drags, which males with many sexual conquests are admired.

Walby also argues that ’heterosexuality constitutes a patriarchal structure’ – there is more pressure today for women to be heterosexually active and to service males through marrying them.

Violence

Like many other Feminists Walby sees violence against women as a form of male control of women, which is still a problem for many women today.

Official Crime Statistics show that women were three times more likely to have been a victim of sexual assault compared to men in 2022 in England and Wales.

bar chart showing that women are three times more likely to be victims of sexual assault than men.

although she concedes that it is difficult to measure how much progress has been made in this area, because of validity problems where the stats are concerned.

The state

To Walby, the state is still patriarchal, racists and capitalist. She argues that there has been little attempt to improve women’s position in the public sphere and equal opportunities legislation is rarely enforced.

The proportion of MPs has increased in substantially since New Labour came to power in 1997.

Following the 2019 general election there were 202o female MPs in the House of Commons. Following the 2024 election there were 263 female MPs, equivalent to 40% of MPs being female.

Evaluations of Theorising Patriarchy

Wallby’s six structures offer students a useful analytical tool for breaking down ‘patriarchy’ and analysing the extent to which there remains gender inequality in different spheres of society.

I also like here balance between four very specific structures – paid work, domestic division of labour, violence and politics where you can just look at more objective statistics and the two less tangible structures – sexuality and culture which would require a more interpretive, qualitative analysis (IMO).

However, while gender inequality obviously still exists in all societies, is it right to ‘hold onto’ the concept of patriarchy? From a purely campaigning and onboarding perspective it might be more attractive simply to talk about gender inequalities and oppression rather than keep on using patriarchy which makes it sound like Feminism hasn’t moved on since the 1960s.

A further problem is that in at least two of the above areas the gender gap is narrowing rapidly: in paid-work and politics, we are heading towards gender equality, even if we are not quite there yet!

Signposting and Relevance to A-level Sociology

This material will be mostly relevant to A-level sociology students in their second year of study working through the theory and methods topic.

Personally I find these six structures a great tool to use for group work – assign one structure to six different groups, get students to research evidence of inequality and oppression in each of these different structures and then report back and discuss.

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