ABSTRACT
In this chapter I shall attempt to reconstruct and analyse the history of certain developments in criminology in the twentieth century. I consider these to have been important and influential developments and they involve my own work and that of a range of respected colleagues. Yet it is not easy to give this narrative a title, nor label the developments in a neat, defining way. One such heading might be “feminist criminology”, although I and many others should prefer “feminist perspectives in criminology” (Gelsthorpe and Morris 1990; Rafter and Heidensohn 1995). These names can give rise to problems for the approaches and aspects of the criminological enterprise which they affect. Several writers have suggested that such a title is an oxymoron (Stanko, 1993) or that no good scholarly work can proceed under such a superscription (Smart, 1990).
