Feminist criminology is a social and political movement and is a theoretical approach which did not arise up until the 19th century and continues to develop within modern criminology. However Marxism and functionalism was first introduced within criminology during the 18th century which was the most dominant perspective and a positivist approach to crime. During the 18th century criminological thought was gender biased as most theorists where males studying male crime therefore creating a masculinity criminology. Criminology focused on male crime causing female crime to be predominantly ignored within the history of criminology. There are many types of theories …show more content…
Male dominance causes the oppression of women which leads to rebellious behaviour therefore motivating female criminality. Carlen (1988) contributes to the advantage of a female perspective suggesting that female criminality is influenced by male dominance and class inequality. Working class women commit crime due to the disadvantages outweighing the advantages. Women are expected to conform to the gendered roles and to behave in a social acceptable …show more content…
Criminology is viewed as a male science creating a masculinity approach to crime and a positivist approach. Feminist criminology has a different epistemology to masculinity criminology. Females prefer to acquire knowledge through qualitative research whereas male criminologists are more positivistic and acquire their research through quantitative research. Females adopt a more ethnographic point of view when studying crime. They covet an experiential knowledge to achieve a more clear focus on women’s experiences. Their ethnomethodology was promoted within feminism to attack the positivism as the dominant methodology. Female research is mainly concerned with women as perpetrators or crime, victims of crime and women within the criminal justice