Читать книгу The Invisible Woman - Joanne Belknap - Страница 11

The more stigmatized their social position, the easier it is to victimize them. The further a woman’s sexuality, age, class, criminal background, and race are from hegemonic norms, the more likely it is that they will be harmed—and the more likely that their harm will not be taken seriously by their community, by anti-violence programs, or by the general public.

—Richie (2012, pp. 15–16)

This book presents the current state of women, girls, gender, and justice, in criminology (the study of crime), focusing on the United States. To understand this requires two approaches. First, it is necessary to comprehend historical developments of the status of women and girls in the home, society, and the workplace. Second, sexism does not occur in a vacuum; rather it intersects with race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, immigration and nation status, and so on. Therefore, it is vital to use an intersectional approach to examine the impacts of gender (P. H. Collins & Bilge, 2016; Potter, 2015). To this end, this book includes relevant historical factors, many with lasting legacies, and addresses criminology through a gendered and intersectional lens.

In addition to reporting the challenging state of justice in the past and present United States, this book also identifies successes and progress in theories, research, policies, and practice. Given that a larger portion of this book is more about the injustice than justice experienced by crime victims, defendants/offenders, and workers, the term criminal legal system is used in lieu of what many people refer to as the criminal justice system. In sum, most of this book reports on the unjust processing of girl and women victims and defendants/offenders, and the challenges of women working in the criminal legal system as police, jail/prison staff, lawyers, and judges. However, advances in society, criminology, the criminal legal system, and justice will also be identified. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce readers to this book and to expose them to an overview of the important concepts and phenomena necessary to understand gender and crime. These significant concepts include a presentation of women and girls’ invisibility in criminology and criminal legal system studies and society, relevant concepts and definitions, and an understanding of how the images of women and girls in society have affected their experiences as victims, offenders, and professionals working in the criminal legal system.

The bulk of The Invisible Woman is the three sections between the first and last chapters: offending (Section II), victimization (Section III), and criminal legal system workers (Section IV). The offending section, Section II, includes chapters on criminology theories (Chapters 2 and 3), gender patterns in offending and being labeled “offender” (Chapter 4), gendered contexts in offending (Chapter 5), gender differences in how the criminal legal system (CLS) processes offenders (Chapter 6), and gender differences in punishing and incarcerating offenders (Chapter 7). Section III, the victim section, is on gender-based abuses. Gender-based abuses (GBAs) are abuses committed disproportionately against women, girls, queer (LGBTQI+) and gender-nonconforming individuals. Chapter 8 introduces GBAs, Chapter 9 focuses on sexual victimizations (e.g., rape and sexual harassment), and Chapter 10 is on intimate partner abuse (also known as intimate partner violence and “domestic violence”) and stalking. Section IV is on women workers in the criminal legal system (CLS), with chapters devoted specifically to jail/prison work (Chapter 11), police work (Chapter 12), and court work (i.e., lawyers and judges) (Chapter 13). The book closes with Section V, a summary of advances that have been accomplished in gender and crime (Chapter 14).