ABSTRACT
The primary aim of feminist theory, according to Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind (1988:490), is to draw upon women’s “ways of knowing” in contrast to criminological theory “rooted in men’s experience.” Its objective is to eliminate “androcentric science” and produce a distinctly feminist approach to crime and criminal justice. Knowledge is assumed to be determined by experiences conditioned by one’s gender (as well as one’s race, class, and ethnicity). Since criminology has been dominated by males, existing criminological theory is seriously flawed by the “masculinist” perspective. Both the questions asked and the answers given in criminology are the “product of white, economically privileged men’s experiences” (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988:506). Feminist theory is designed to counter this bias and to produce a new, deeper understanding of gender relations in society and how they affect both crime and criminal justice.
