Women Who Commit Crimes

French Novelist Albert Camus wrote, “We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves”. Crimes are crimes and should not be differentiated on the basis of gender motivations since they are different for each. It was God who made the woman by nature mild, sober, soft, lovely and to be loved with little exception. Even though women are believed to be less violent than men, there are still a percentage of violent acts committed by women. This is in part to the overwhelming beliefs by society that crimes are the domain of men and women are viewed to be more nurturing in that regard. Our lives are already different at birth, as our genders determines who we are and how we are will be viewed by society. In every society our gender constructs these differences. Men have always been associated with power and wealth and women hardly a role at all. Other causes that have been affected are race, class, and sometimes-physical ability. So people believe there is an unequal distribution of wealth, power and standing in the world.
Men have always been regarded as the persons most likely to commit a violent crime. Over the past few decades we have seen this thinking change and more women have found themselves in the rising numbers of these cases. Dr. Andrew Chishom, Professor Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina wrote that in 1970 there was 6,000 women incarcerated and in the 90’s that number increased to 75,000. What are the causes of the increases in crimes being committed by women? Dr Chishom also reports that crimes historically were predominately committed by men and that women involved themselves in many kinds of crimes with them, “Women became more daring”.
In the movie Thelma & Louise, we saw varying incidents where women were treated in manners that were considered demeaning. Not to say that this would be a reason to commit a crime, but