What, if anything, has the discipline of criminology learned from the inclusion of a gendered perspective?

What, if anything, has the discipline of criminology learned from the inclusion of a gendered perspective?
Gender and Crime
Module: Soci308
Deadline: 13/01/2014
Assignment 2: 2,500 words
Word Count: 2,500
Module Leader: Dr Karen Evans
Student I.D. 200187509
What, if anything, has the discipline of criminology learned from the inclusion of a gendered perspective?
In order to whether the discipline of criminology has learned anything from the inclusion of a gendered perspective, this essay will outline historical criminological discourses, addressing key perspectives that differentiate men and women based on biological make-up. This essay will focus on early criminological theorists need to prove criminology as a science, ignoring social implications such as class, gender and ethnicity and their relativity to crime and victimisation. This essay will go on to demonstrate how the inclusion of gender has challenged classical malestream criminology by introducing subjective experience, illustrating how socially constructed ideals of masculine and feminine criminalities play a crucial role in understanding the gendered nature of crime and criminology.
The inclusion of a gendered perspective to the discipline of criminology raised many challenges in terms of understanding inequality, subordination and othering of those considered to be outside of social norms associated with the white, middle class heterosexual male ideal. One of the most salient challenges has been that of knowledge production derived from malestream perspectives. Gelsthorpe (1990) argues, that in order for criminological theory to address crime as a social phenomenon, it is necessary to deconstruct traditional knowledge production methods and methodologies in favour of a reconstructed criminology that operates inclusively of all, irrespective of gender, class or ethnicity (Gelsthorpe, 1990). Chesney Lind & Pasco (2003) claim that when classical criminology does consider female

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