ABSTRACT
Criminology’s failure to recognise gender is closely linked to its failure to recognise the experiences of crime victims. Chapter 3 outlines the emergence of victimology, before tracing the growing shift in awareness resulting from feminist research on women as the victims of male violence, focusing in particular on rape and sexual assault. As feminists increasingly sought to reflect victim/survivor voices within their writing, they challenged traditional understandings and established critical new knowledge regarding rape prevalence, victim impacts and survival narratives. The chapter briefly notes a caution regarding the risks of assuming that contemporary criminology in the era of #MeToo is gender aware, equal and reflective of victims’ concerns and perspectives.
