Introduction

Arguably, feminist perspectives have been the most important new approaches to be introduced to criminology in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As well as challenging and changing the core of the subject, they have stimulated new areas of growth. These are not only in the conventional fields such as victimisation, but also in the study of masculinity. However, it can also be claimed that there remain major gaps in, and limitations to, theoretical contributions (Gelsthorpe 2002). The selection presented in this part of the book is intended to show some exciting possibilities for renewal and development. This is not, any more than elsewhere in this volume, an exhaustive list. Historical studies might have been included (Walker 2003; Barton 2004; and see Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe 2007) for instance. Hegemonic masculinity has already been noted as a major product of gendered approaches directly applied to criminality (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005).