Читать книгу The Invisible Woman - Joanne Belknap - Страница 22

Given the history of criminology as “one of the most thoroughly masculinized of all social science fields … the phrase ‘feminist criminology’ may well seem something of an oxymoron” (Britton, 2000, p. 58). Feminist criminology has been growing since the 1970s and is having an increasingly strong impact on this male-dominated field: “Feminist criminologists have been at the forefront in pointing out that when women and other marginalized groups are ignored, devalued, or misrepresented, society in general and the understanding of crime and justice in particular suffer as a result” (Flavin, 2001, p. 271). Relatedly, in 2006 H. Potter developed Black feminist criminology through her research on how “Black women experience and respond to intimate partner abuse and how the criminal legal system responds to battered Black women” (p. 106).

This chapter presented the numerous ways that women and girls’ experiences as victims, offenders, and professionals in the criminal legal system (CLS) have been made invisible. Concepts such as sex, gender, feminism, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and carceral feminism were explored. In addition to including race and class along with gender in intersectional feminist criminology, sexuality is vital, as is viewing gender past a male–female binary phenomenon. This chapter discussed the importance of including LGBTQI+ individuals in assessing gender, feminism, and crime, and not assuming a monolithic experience for women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals, and the reasons why race, class, sexual and gender, and other variables must be considered when discussing and researching women and girls’ experiences and behaviors. Thus, in addition to Musto’s (2019) recommendation to trans gender in order to successfully transform feminist theory, research, and practice, she and many others (as cited in this chapter) stress the need to resist carceral feminism. A. P. Harris (2011) summarizes much of what this chapter attempted to introduce, that is, how an intersectional analysis is necessary and the past and current challenge of revamping our criminal legal system where justice is rarely achieved for victims or offenders:

Although destructive masculinity and its prominence in the criminal justice system have seemingly not changed much in the past decade, at least two new developments have taken place. First, scholars and activists committed to ending domestic violence and violence against sexual minorities have become increasingly disenchanted with the criminal justice system, and increasingly aware of its insidious role in the decimation of poor black and brown communities. Meanwhile, racial justice scholars have become increasingly aware of the toll that destructive masculinity takes on those communities. (p. 17)