A* student detailed notes on Gender crime

Gender and crime
SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS FOR WHY WOMEN COMMIT LESS CRIME THAN
MEN

Functionalism
Key terms
 Sex role
theory
 Differential
socialisation

 PARSONS
 Men = breadwinner + performed largely outside the home
 Boys reject feminine models of behaviour → express
tenderness, gentleness & emotion
 Boys seek to distance themselves from such models by
engaging in “compensatory compulsory masculinity”
through anti-social behaviour → can slip over into acts
of delinquency
 ∵ men = ↓ socialised role than women in the
conventional nuclear family, socialisation = ↑ difficult
for boys than girls
 Women = perform expressive role in home, where take the main
responsibility for socialising children


 COHEN
 Lack of adult male role model = boys ↑ likely to turn → all-male
street gang as a source of masculine identity
 Status = earned by acts of toughness/ risk taking/
delinquency

 EVALUATION
 WALKLATE
 Criticised sex role theory for its biological assumptions
 Assumes that because women have to biological
capacity to bear children = best suited to the
expressive role
 Based on untested biological assumptions about sex
diff.