Introduction

This chapter critically considers the ways that the changing values of feminism have impacted upon its contribution to criminology. It draws upon Becker's (1967) suggestion, revisited by Morris, Woodward and Peters (1998) and, more recently, by Liebling (2001) and Cohen (2011), that researchers should ask themselves whose ‘side’ they are taking when they conduct research. The question of ‘sides’, who takes them and when, forms the central theme of the chapter, as it mirrors the concerns raised by both modernist and postmodernist feminist researchers. These concerns relate not only to the value bases of research (Roman and Apple, 1990; Oakley, 2000; Noddings, 2003), but also to the practice of power that underpins research and theory generation (Wolf, 1992; Davis, 2008).

This chapter interrogates five value-related tensions that affect feminist criminology today. Inherent within these tensions are concerns about what and how to research and theorise women's criminality and fears regarding the dangers of essentialising female lawbreaking. There are calls for a feminist criminology that can challenge not only sexism, but also other discriminatory practices within the criminal justice system. Chesney-Lind (2006) and Burgess-Proctor (2006), among others, have argued that although age, class, sex, race and gender have been applied to understanding crime, such theorising has failed adequately to explore the impact of these minoritising factors intersecting. The chapter closes by considering how the values within feminism and the intersectional influences and contributions that age, class, sex, sexuality, race and gender have upon crime can contribute to the future developments of criminological theorising.

Feminist criminology: introducing five value-based tensions

Feminist criminology is one of many approaches to researching and theorising crime and criminal justice. It is concerned with attending to the complex interplay of social, structural and individual factors that constitute and reconstitute gender, gender relations and those who commit crime (Miller and Mullens, 2009). While feminist criminology contains many different strands or standpoints (Hartsock, 1983; Harding, 1986, Heckman 1997), these cohere around a number of central tenets that place gender and gender relations at the heart of their theorising. They critique traditional systems of knowledge generation as biased towards male experience (Spender, 1981) and seek to explore and theorise women's experience in its own right, rather than as a deviation from a male ‘norm’ (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988).