Women's Criminality in Europe, 1600-1914

Description

"Research on gender and crime has never been as dynamic and innovative as it is today. There are indeed good reasons for historians and criminologists to pay attention to gender in their examinations on crime. First, the inclusion of gender as a category of analysis of crime has sharpened our understanding of men's and women's criminality in various ways: the motivations behind criminal action, the organization of crime, the prosecution of offenders and finally, the representation of crime. Secondly, criminal behaviour is strongly influenced by the socio-economic circumstances in which men and women live(d) and gender expectations. Such gender expectations resulted in a general bias towards women and crime; women were deemed less likely to commit crime or only "typically female" crimes such as moral offences, witchcraft and infanticide. These biases caused gendered prosecution patterns in the past, as well as incorrect assumptions by those studying crime in the modern era. As contemporaries' views on criminality were gendered, early research from historians and criminologists initially followed a similar path. When scholars eventually turned towards the subject of criminality in relation to women, they often relayed the dominant views on women's victimisation, passivity and innocence.1 Certain academic publications in criminology still claim that we are currently experiencing 'seismic historical changes' with regards to female crime rates.2 Accepting women as potential criminals, researching the role of gender as influence in criminal behaviour and not being reluctant to highlight the limitations of this category of analysis are necessary steps in history and criminology to understand women's criminality"--

Subjects