ABSTRACT
Gender has been described by early feminist criminologists as the attribute most correlated with criminal behavior, meaning crime has been committed by one group (males) at much higher levels than another (females). Developing from a conflict theoretical approach and inspired specifically by the second wave feminist movement (dubbed the “women’s liberation movement” in the 1970s), the role of gender became a focus of many areas of social life, including crime and deviance. Freda Adler and Rita James Simon were pioneers in this new focus, followed by Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind, among others. Later the gender focus was moved into the study of “masculinities” by James Messerschmidt. A note on the terminology is in order: in sociological thought, the concept of sex refers to a person’s biological classification as male or female, while the concept of gender refers to the prescribed role expectations based on sex. The term sex, however, also refers to an activity, comprised of various behaviors considered to be both “normal” and “deviant”. Additionally, more recent understandings point to the role of identity formation attributed to sex and sexuality. To avoid confusion, the term gender is used in this section.
