Читать книгу The Invisible Woman - Joanne Belknap - Страница 34

A. K. Cohen’s TST-based (mis)portrayal of delinquent girls was reaffirmed in Cloward and Ohlin’s (1960) book Delinquency and Opportunity, but with a different twist in their version of strain theory, which they called opportunity theory (OT). Like Cohen’s TST, Cloward and Ohlin’s OT assumed delinquent boys, but not delinquent girls, had unequal legal opportunities to attain the American dream; girls encountered only frivolous concerns, such as finding boyfriends. Cloward and Ohlin’s “twist” on TST is that in addition to unequal legal opportunities, youths (and adults) also have varied access to learn delinquent and criminal behaviors, and access to learn delinquency/criminality assists one in becoming delinquent/criminal.

Bottcher’s (1995, 2001) data on the siblings of incarcerated boys provide some support for OT, mostly concerning boys’ greater opportunities to commit crimes. The girls and boys were similarly barred by class from legal means to reach social and economic success, but girls’ freedom was limited relative to boys’ in their demands to care for younger children. Because the boys could take part in more activities, meet more people, and cover wider geographical areas, they were more likely than the girls were to report conflict, peer pressure, and delinquency at younger ages (Bottcher, 1995, pp. 53–54).² Similar to the case with TST, little research has been conducted on OT in the current century, and when it is, it rarely addresses gender. An exception is Becker and McCorkel’s (2011) study of over 16 million crime incidents reported to the police, which found support for OT. They stress “that gender is a crucial intervening variable shaping both [OT’s] social location and social relationships…. Even within shared social locations, gender moderates access to social networks and this, in turn, influences access to licit and illicit opportunities” (p. 102).

²Bottcher’s (1995) study provides information relevant to many theories and will be further cited.