ABSTRACT
Broadly defi ned, feminism is a set of theories and strategies for social change that take gender as their central focus. In common with Marxism, feminism is both a social movement and a worldview of which criminology is but a small part. A prominent feminist theme is that women suffer oppression and discrimination in a society run for men by men who have passed laws and created customs to perpetuate their privileged position. Feminist criminologists take these core elements and apply them to criminology.
