ABSTRACT
Feminist criminology's dual focus on gender and crime, it is uniquely positioned to respond to two core aspects of the current backlash political agenda: racism and sexism. Patriarchy is a system of social stratification, which means that it uses a wide array of social control policies and practices to ratify male power and to keep girls and women subordinate to men. In retrospect, the naming of the types and dimensions of female victimization had a significant impact on public policy, and it is arguably the most tangible accomplishment of both feminist criminology and grassroots feminists concerned about gender, crime, and justice. Needless to say, the focus on girls' and women's gender also highlights the fact that masculinity and crime need to be both theorized and researched. The backlash era, however, uses crime and criminal justice policies as central rather than facilitating elements of political agenda-a pattern clearly of relevance to feminist criminology.
