The Exclusion of Women from Criminal Studies During the Victorian Era in England - Dissertation Example

?The Exclusion of Women from Criminal Studies During the Victorian Era in England Part I My dissertation explores and analyses the neglect of women in crime and criminality studies during the Victorian Era in England. It is hypothesized women were neglected crime and criminality studies during Victorian England because it was consistent with existing attitudes toward and treatment of women in a Victorian society characterized by a patriarchal order. In substantiating this hypothesis, my dissertation analyses and explores the attitude toward women and the treatment of women in crime policies and practices and criminal studies. More broadly, my dissertation also examines the treatment of and attitude toward women in Victorian society as a whole. In introducing the topic, its importance, the methodology for conducting the study, the first part of my dissertation explains that crime and criminality was first introduced during the Victorian Era. Previously crime was attributed to either the forces of nature, the devil or the supernatural. Thus the Victorian Era is presented as an important milestone in crime and criminality studies as it rejected previous explanations of crime and offending. The first part of my dissertation therefore introduces the reader to the fact that as criminologists turned attention to crime and offending, women were not factored in and when they were, it was by attributed to factors that supported concepts and attitudes relative to the idealization of women during the Victorian Era. The first part of my dissertation touches on the prevailing school of thought influencing crime and criminality studies and the rather dismissive approach to female offending. Cesare Lombroso, a 19th century criminologists is introduced as the father of criminology. It is revealed that Lombroso influenced much of the criminology studies and he in turn was influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution, arguing that crime was biological in nature (Tibbets 2011, p. 80). The first part of my dissertation thus sets the conceptual framework for conducting the study. It is essentially revealed that Lombroso’s work during the 19th century set the bar for the neglect of women in crime and criminality studies. For Lombroso, women crime was unnatural for women and women who offended were either masculine or mentally deficient. Even the occasional normal women who committed crimes were described by Lombroso as essentially male-like. Based on this conceptual framework, the remainder of the dissertation seeks to explain why women were neglected in Victorian Era crime and criminality studies. Women were regulated so as to keep them at home and out of the work place. Part II This part of my dissertation focuses on the role and treatment of women in Victorian England and explains that the laws, practices and policies of Victorian England commanded that women were both domestic and subordinate. Shanley (1993) informs that these practices and laws were calculated to ensure that women remained at home “bearing and raising children” (p. 79). Women were thus categorized and relegated to a purely biological function connected to their “sexual and reproductive capacities” (Shanley 1993, pp. 79-80). This part of my dissertation looks more directly at the laws that marginalized women based on this prevailing view of women. The laws examined are the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 in which men could obtain a divorce on the grounds of adultery per se, but a woman had to prove cruelty or desertion together with adultery. Thus men and women were treated quite differently with men receiving greater rights and authority than women. Other 19th century laws reflecting the gender differentiations were the Contagious Diseases Acts, Infant Life Protection Act and the Factory Acts. These Acts are examined as a means of substantiating the claim that women were subjected to a prescribed domestic role and segregated from men and the public life. Part II of my dissertation examines the influence of science and nature during the Victorian Era and how these influential concepts dictated and justified a natural order that divided the Victorian Era into two spheres: private (female) and public (male). Victorian scientists were keen to articulate the differences between the genders both physically and mentally. These characterizations would shape and direct the segregation of women and men into these separate spheres. In other words, this part of my dissertation establishes that there was a scientific justification for the marginalization of women in Victorian England (Cott 1978). Part II of my dissertation thus sets out that a woman’s worth and value was ultimately tied to that of a man and thus marriage was perhaps the most valuable attribute of Victorian women. According to Mitchell (1996) “marriage was inevitably presented as woman’s natural destiny” (p. 269). Religion and nature commanded that a “woman’s place was in the home as moral and spiritual guardian” (Gordon and Nair 2003, p. 133). Thus a woman was warned to remain at home and to “fulfil the duties for which God and nature intended” (Gordon and Nair 2003, p. 133). At the same time the father was the head of the household and the woman was expected to adhere to and obey his authority (Perkin 1995). Essentially, this part of my dissertation focuses on the economic and social pressures on women to conform to the prescribed roles dictated by Victorian society. A detailed examination of the consequences for women who did not or could not marry and who had to work to support their families is conducted. The attitudes toward these women as non-conventional, mentally deranged, fallen or man-like are examined as a means of setting the background for a corresponding treatment of women in crime and criminality studies. Specific attention is turned to the “Cult of True Womanhood” which idealized women as submissive, merciful, suffering and gentile (Brannon 2011, p. 47). My dissertation turns specific attention to the women who did not live up to this idealization of women and how they were neglected and mistreated by Victorian society. Part III. Part III of my dissertation examines the trends in female offending during the Victorian Era. Zedner’s (1994) observation is instructive and forms a conceptual framework for this part of my dissertation. According to Zedner (1994) because women were regarded as purer and more moral naturally than their male counterparts, women who departed from this perception of femininity by participating in crime they were regarded as the “negation or femininity” and as a result would be demonized and characterized as “monster” (pp. 11-12). Zedner (1994) also informs that because crime was largely seen as masculine in nature there was a tendency to deny as far as possible that women could commit criminal offences. Judges were predisposed to take into account a large variety of mitigating circumstances when women were convicted in their courts and typically handed down far lighter sentences than they would hand down for a man in a similar position (Parolin 2010). This part of the dissertation directs attention to the prevailing view that women who committed crimes were regarded by society as fallen women or women who did not live up to the prescription for femininity. In deed women who committed crimes were put in the same category as women who were widowed, unmarried, drank, prostituted and worked (Logan 1998). This part of the dissertation looks at female offending trends and responses to them. Women were treated differently according to class by the criminal justice system and society. For instance a poor women who committed a theft was either greedy or did so out of want created by poverty. Middle class women were hardly ever regarded as criminally responsible. Her behaviour was largely dismissed as absented mindedness or some other innocent explanation was offered (Whitlock 2005). Other crime statistics of the Victorian Era are examined for the purpose of demonstrating that the criminal justice system and society were hesitant to hold women accountable for serious crimes such as murder and typically commuted a female’s death conviction to a life sentence. A trend emerges which demonstrates that women were treated far more leniently than men. Part IV Part IV of my dissertation examines the treatment of women by crime and criminality studies during the Victorian Era and connects this treatment to the general treatment and attitudes toward women during that era. Although it is generally believed that women were neglected by crime and criminality studies because they commit so few crimes when compared to men, a different reason is attributed to the Victorian Era’s neglect of women in crime and criminality studies. Part IV of my dissertation thus establishes that the same scientific influences that preordained a woman’s submissive and domestic spheres of existence, influenced crime and criminality studies. What emerged was a prevailing view that women who offended were “mad” as opposed to bad” (Lacey 2008). Thus these classes of offenders were outside the scope of crime and criminality studies. Women were passive and therefore did not have the aggressive fortitude necessary for committing crimes. Other explanations were offered. This is demonstrated by an examination of the studies conducted by Lombroso and other Victorian criminologists. Lombroso resorted to biology and dismissed female offenders are either mad or male-like. L.O. Pike pointed out both social and biological differences in the sexes. According to Pike (1876), the physically weaker sex is “less prone to all those actions which are now styled criminal (p. 526). Victorian Sociologist Owen also refers to female offending as a destruction of the woman’s own nature. This part of my dissertation examines these studies in detail as a means of both demonstrating the neglect of women in crime and criminality studies and how they reflect a general prescription of Victorian England relative to the role of women in society. Essentially it is revealed that women were neglected in crime studies because they were either diagnosed as male-like or insane. Part V: This part of my dissertation analyses and ties together the information and data recorded in the previous parts of the dissertation. By tying this data and information together the hypothesis is substantiated: women were neglected in crime and criminality studies in the Victorian Era in England because female offending was inconsistent with the idealization of femininity and the cult of true womanhood. Read More