ABSTRACT
Feminist criminological theories propose that criminal justice decisions reflect this inherent male dominance and function to support patriarchy by discriminating against women and reinforcing traditional sex and family roles. Feminism means many different things to different people, but at its core, if people go back to its origins in the late eighteenth century, it was primarily a social movement for the emancipation of women and in its early stages proponents were mainly isolated voices advocating ‘women’s rights’ in a clearly unequal world. Feminism is regularly declared to be dead but it can be argued that such widespread negativity is unwarranted. Criminology has traditionally been one of the most androcentric fields of study in the social sciences. Feminist criminologists nevertheless quickly became disenchanted with what they increasingly saw as the overly idealistic and still male-centred focus of radical criminology. A major thrust of feminist criminology has been the critique of the development of mainstream theories based on research with boys&men.
