Читать книгу The Invisible Woman - Joanne Belknap - Страница 41

Hagan and colleagues (Hagan, Gillis, & Simpson, 1985; Hagan, Simpson, & Gillis, 1987) built on SCT with the development of power-control theory (PCT), one of the first theories to explicitly include gender. PCT joins class theory with research on gender and family relationships, focusing on power relations in two loci: the home and workplace. PCT posits that gender power positions in the workplace impact gender power relations in the home, such that the control of youths is gender-determined, and then, so is delinquency (Hagan et al., 1987, p. 183). Thus, PCT asserts that the gender power makeup in the parents’ relationship influences their children’s delinquent behavior in gendered ways: In homes where there is less sexism in the parents’ roles (usually meaning the mother works outside the home), there should be fewer gender differences between sons’ and daughters’ delinquent behaviors. An assumption of this theory is that daughters from egalitarian homes are socialized, like their brothers, to engage in risk-taking behaviors, and because risk-taking behavior is associated with delinquency, girls from the more egalitarian homes will be more delinquent than their “sisters” from traditional, patriarchal homes. Consistent with PCT, Hagan and colleagues (1987) found a greater gender difference in delinquency rates in patriarchal homes, where the mother has a lower status than the father, than in egalitarian homes, where parents have equivalent status, or where the mother is the only parent. Hagan (1989) later categorized parental controls into relational (the quality of the parent–child bond) and instrumental (parents’ degree of surveillance and supervision).

Bottcher (2001) criticizes PCT for “the unsubstantiated assumption that parental power structures and control practices are key sites for the reproduction of gender as it relates to delinquency” (p. 896). Another clear limitation of PCT is the considerable number of families that are headed by a single parent or where the mother’s employment status is higher than the father’s or the father is unemployed (Uggen, 2000). Finally, PCT has been criticized for being tested largely on overall delinquency or crime rates, without addressing specific crimes where it may be more or less likely to be confirmed (Hirtenlehner, Blackwell, Leitgoeb, & Bacher, 2014), and for often leaving out such important structural factors as race (e.g., De Coster, 2012; D. Eitle, Niedrist, & Eitle, 2014; T. M. Eitle & Eitle, 2015) and class (De Coster, 2012; Gault-Sherman, 2013; Hirtenlehner et al., 2014). Leaving out race denies the significance of racial profiling and other forms of criminal legal system racism, and leaving out class denies the very real advantages of hiring lawyers, paying bail, and so on. Given the high correlation between race and class, including a class measure might be most important in property and sex work PCT applications, where people are sometimes engaging in these activities for survival.

Scholars’ assessments of PCT studies overall report less than resounding support, calling them “inconsistent” (Kruttschnitt, 1996), “modest” (Bottcher, 2001), “mixed” (T. M. Eitle & Eitle, 2015; Hirtenlehner et al., 2014), and “undecided” (Schulze & Bryan, 2017). Hirtenlehner and colleagues (2014) note that PCT research has found “has found more support generated for the ‘control’ than for the ‘power’” variables; whether a family is patriarchal or egalitarian “has found less support across tests of PCT” (p. 44). However, PCT has been confirmed in some research (e.g., Blackwell & Reed, 2003; D. Eitle et al., 2014; T. M. Eitle & Eitle, 2015; Hagan, Boehnke, & Merkens, 2004; McCarthy, Hagan, & Woodward, 1999; Wang, 2019), but one of these studies found that while girls from more egalitarian homes were more delinquent than girls from more patriarchal homes (as hypothesized), boys from more egalitarian homes were less delinquent than boys from more patriarchal homes (McCarthy et al., 1999). Another study found that while higher parental controls led to lower criminal aspirations for girls and boys, there was no significant gender difference in the effect of parental controls within either the less or more patriarchal families (Blackwell & Piquero, 2005, p. 13). Blackwell (2000) incorporated perceived threats of the informal sanctions of shame and embarrassment into the PCT model and found, as expected, that gender differences in the perceived threat of legal sanctions were greater for those raised in more patriarchal homes, with girls perceiving a higher threat from legal sanctions than boys did. Another study reported that PCT variables (e.g., mothers’ monitoring of youths) do not help explain gender differences in youths’ self-reported victimizations, but these variables do help explain gender differences in youths’ self-reported delinquency in the more patriarchal households, but the power-control variables mediate the relationship between gender and delinquency in the less patriarchal households (Blackwell, Sellers, & Schlaupitz, 2002).

Blackwell (2003) tested both SBT and PCT, finding (1) only in more patriarchal households do girls report higher levels of maternal control than boys, and in these homes, white youths reported lower levels of maternal control than did young people of Color; (2) there were no gender differences in either maternal or paternal controls in the less patriarchal homes; (3) there were no gender differences in youths reporting being emotionally attached to their parents; (4) regardless of the type of home (more or less patriarchal), girls were no more committed than boys to conventional norms; and (5) in more patriarchal homes, girls were more involved than boys in conventional activities (but there was no such gender difference in less patriarchal homes).

Another study found, however, that although both maternal and paternal support were effective in reducing delinquency, girls were more affected by maternal support and boys were more affected by paternal support (G. D. Hill & Atkinson, 1988). Similarly, one study found that youths’ conflicts with their fathers, although related to both girls’ and boys’ delinquency, had a greater impact on the boys’ delinquency, whereas youths’ conflicts with their mothers caused more delinquency only among girls (Liu, 2004). A related study reported that girls’ delinquency was more influenced than boys’ by family risk factors (e.g., marital discord, marital instability, and discipline), but the gender stereotypes did not always fit (Dornfeld & Kruttschnitt, 1992). A study with a more detailed measure of parents’ power structure did not find that parents’ relative equality affected the daughters’ or sons’ delinquency rates; rather, these rates were related to the family’s social class and the negative sanctions from the father (Morash & Chesney-Lind, 1991). Another replication found no class-gender variations, yet gender differences were related to race, with fewer gender differences among African American than white youths. The explanation offered for this difference was that “white families may be more ‘patriarchal’ than black families” (G. F. Jensen & Thompson, 1990, p. 1016). However, a more recent test of PCT using only youths from single-mother households found sons commit more delinquency than daughters in both white and Black families, even after controlling for maternal monitoring of the youths (Mack & Leiber, 2005). A large PCT study found parental bond consistently serves to temper the gender gap in crimes and across different classes of young people (Gault-Sherman, 2013).

A study that did not set out to test Hagan’s PCT reported findings that are consistent in a general way with this theory. Bottcher’s (1995) interviews with sisters and brothers of incarcerated boys suggest that girls have stronger informal social controls than boys in their families and are more aggressively controlled by social service and law enforcement professionals. She pointed out that in contrast to Hagan’s theory, both the girls and the boys in her study reported that the increased familial control of girls is due to the effort to monitor the girls’ (and not the boys’) sexual activities. She concluded that, for the high-risk youths in her study, the parental control cited by Hagan “is a very limited component of the social control that gender encompasses” (Bottcher, 1995, p. 53). Similarly, a longitudinal study of 1,000 Minnesota youths collected data not only on parents’ employment but also on the youths’ employment under the assumption that boys who are given more freedom to work outside the home are also provided more access to offending (Uggen, 2000). This study reported that fathers’ authority positions in the workplace increased the likelihood of arrests for sons but decreased it for daughters, whereas mothers’ workplace authority increased the arrest likelihood for daughters but decreased it for sons. Additionally, regarding the youths’ own employment in the workforce, having more workplace power and control increased boys’ but decreased girls’ likelihood of arrest (Uggen, 2000).

D. Eitle, Eitle, and Niedrist were the first to apply PCT to Indigenous youths, noting its relevance given that Indigenous families have historically been more egalitarian than other racial groups in the United States, particularly prior to colonization (D. Eitle et al., 2014; T. M. Eitle & Eitle, 2015, p. 689). Using National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data, controlling for youths in two-parent families, they found considerable support for PCT among Indigenous youths (D. Eitle et al., 2014), more so than for white youths (T. M. Eitle & Eitle, 2015). Eitle et al. (2014) applied PCT to Indigenous youths for self-reported general, property, and violent delinquency. Findings included that Indigenous girls reported lower mother and father relational controls than Indigenous boys, for which PCT would suggest that their offending should be similar. However, only violent delinquent acts were higher for boys. In boy-only multivariate models, support was found for PCT only for property crimes, and it was far more limited even then. Girl-only models found PCT support: Girls’ affective bond to fathers and being in patriarchal families reduced their likelihood of committing general, property, and violent delinquent behaviors. Having a grandparent living in the home decreased girls’ (but not boys’) proclivity for violent delinquency, which the authors claim is consistent with PCT regarding more (grand)parental control. Father control deterred both boys’ and girls’ property offending (and living in poverty only impacted boys’ property offending). Finally, Eitle et al.’s (2014) comparison with similarly situated white youths found whether a family was patriarchal or egalitarian was never related to girls’ or boys’ general, violent, or property offending; mother relational bonds was a robust predictor for girls’ and boys’ offending, and a grandparent residing in the home had no impact on any white youths’ self-reported general, property, or violent offending.

T. M. Eitle and Eitle (2015) applied PCT to Indigenous youths (with some comparisons to white youths) for substance use. First, among Indigenous youths, gender was a greater predictor of substance use in patriarchal than in egalitarian families (there was little gender gap in substance use in egalitarian families). Second, Indigenous girls raised in egalitarian families reported more alcohol problems than boys in such homes. Third, parental controls suppress (but do not erase) the gender–substance use association. Fourth, and inconsistent with PCT, among these Indigenous youths, fathers’ (and not mothers’) relational control predicted girls’ (and not boys’) substance use—demonstrating the important roles fathers can play in their daughters’ as well as sons’ desistance from crime. Finally, T. M. Eitle and Eitle found support for PCT for alcohol consumption, marijuana consumption, and alcohol problems, for Indigenous but not white youths, suggesting PCT is better suited to explaining the delinquent behavior of Indigenous compared with white youths, at least for substance use.

Notably, some politicians, popular media, and researchers have blamed women’s work outside the home as a cause of delinquency. (Also recall K. J. Cook’s [2016] criticism of GTC, linking “ineffective child-rearing” with mothers, particularly poor and/or single mothers [p. 338].) However, careful research in this area finds no link between mothers’ employment and their children’s delinquency (Broidy, 1995; De Coster, 2012; Vander Ven, 2003). De Coster’s (2012) analysis of U.S. data, comparing mothers who work outside the home with stay-at-home mothers, found huge variation within each group regarding their parenting behaviors. Mothers’ employment status was found related to their children’s delinquency when they were incongruent with their ideologies: Mothers who think it is inappropriate for mothers to work, but do work, and mothers who think it is appropriate for mothers to work but do not, are more likely to have delinquent children than mothers whose work status is congruent with their beliefs about whether it is “appropriate” for women to work (De Coster, 2012). A study using an extensive longitudinal data set of youths found the only instances where women’s work could be linked in any fashion to their children’s delinquency was when their work was coercive, they relied on welfare, and the family income was low, suggesting that “more children will be better off as women gain increased access to educational advancement, job training, and opportunities for stable, well-paying employment” (Vander Ven, 2003, p. 133).

Schulze and Bryan’s (2017) intersectional and comprehensive PCT study of both status offenses and total offenses, appropriately and uniquely includes schools as a separate source of power and control in youths’ lives. Their predominantly African American and poor sample was “composed entirely of juvenile offenders … arguably the most vulnerable among the juvenile population who are also subjected to the most systemic control” (p. 73). Whether the young adult was in a single-mother-parent, single-father-parent, or two-parent family was unrelated to being charged with a status offense or “total offenses,” but young adults with “other” guardianship (e.g., foster home, residential care) or homelessness were more at risk of having status offenses. The only exception was when single-parent-mother was analyzed by race: In direct contrast to PCT, they found “single-mother-headed household” was a protective factor for girls against being charged with status (but not total) offenses. Family “dysfunction” and high scores on psychological symptoms affected girls and boys the same, increasing their likelihood of both status and overall offenses. Parent/guardian criminality did not impact children’s status or total offenses, while sibling criminality impacted both girls’ and boys’ total offending. Parent employment (at least one working parent) reduced youths’ likelihood of total offenses. Schulze and Bryan (2017) concluded that PCT research must address “systemic processes directly” and “be cognizant of the fact that the modern family structure is dynamic,” lessening “its predictive value to delinquency, especially if examined in isolation from other, known correlates that also operate as patriarchal controls” (p. 92).

Finally, Hagan and his colleagues (2004) reported the support for PCT is so strong that “male subcultural delinquents” may be “the social dinosaurs of a passing, more patriarchal era” (p. 659). Yet the reviewed research testing PCT is not very convincing, and the accounts of gender comparisons reported in Chapter 4 do not indicate that male subcultural delinquents are becoming social dinosaurs.