“Taking a Position and Staying Grounded”

Abstract

This article is a biography of Karlene Faith, one of Canada's leading feminist scholars/activists. It describes: her childhood; high school life; college years; early intellectual influences; how she came to criminology; her entrance into the academy; her important contributions to feminism, criminology, and criminal justice; her future plans; and her love of music. Thanks to Karlene Faith and other feminist academic activists, gender is now a major component of much of the criminological work being done in North America today, and many people became empowered due to her commitment, dedication, and effort.     

EDITORIAL

Abstract

Jane Addams (1860-1935), founder of Hull House in Chicago, was a social worker, sociologist, criminologist, feminist, and pacifist. She dedicated her life to caring for the underprivileged and oppressed and to fighting for the rights of workers, women, and children. This paper examines her life and seeks to demonstrate her many contributions to sociology, criminology, and society. Among her pioneer works in criminology that have not been recognized are the ecological maps of Chicago that preceded Park's and Burgess' concentric zone theory, social justice issues such as child labor, compulsory education, and juvenile offenders. She also was a peace activist during World War I and many of her ideas and concepts are found in the peacemaking writings of current criminologists.     

Feminist Perspectives on Female Offending

Abstract

This paper explores new approaches in theorizing about delinquent girls that overcome the shortcomings of traditional theories. Organized under the broad framework of feminist perspectives, recent research is reviewed for its contribution to a better understanding of delinquent girls. This review suggests that acknowledging the sexism, victimization, and racism experienced by female offenders is crucial in attempts to theorize about and respond to girls' delinquency.     

Pornography: Reflections upon past and current issues

Abstract

Summary: This article reviews historical and recent - and differing - responses from feminists in the developed and in the developing worlds, to the production and use of pornographic materials. It explores some of the possible reasons for changes in feminist analyses and posits future directions for feminist responses to pornographic materials, based on recent contributions to the debates.     

The law and the sublime: Rethinking the self and its boundaries

Christine Battersby has argued that it is Kant (and not Descartes) who provides the paradigm model of what it is to be a self in modernity. The Kantian self is established in opposition to its other. The body is commonly envisaged as a container, with selfhood as something that is defended against the outside. In contrast, she proposes a feminist reworking of such a model of selfhood, applicable to both men and women, in which the self and other emerge over time through patterns of relationality. This paper introduces Battersby’s work by focusing upon her early analysis of Kantian aesthetics, in particular the sublime. The aim is to draw out some of the legal and political implications of her work, particularly with regard to the common law’s developing conception of privacy. This is carried out by distinguishing her ontological position from the psychology of Carol Gilligan and then by considering the overlapping concerns of Jennifer Nedelsky in the area of legal theory.

Women's Defences

ABSTRACT

This paper examines theoretical and practical problems surrounding the use of women's defences such as Battered Woman's Syndrome, Premenstrual Syndrome and Postpartum Depression. A framework for deconstructing women's defences which exposes power relationships preserved by legal discourse is offered. The central argument presented is that a contextual examination which links practice to theory reveals that women's defences are not necessarily harmful to women, but that specific feminist strategies must be developed to ensure that such defences do not replicate existing power-knowledge dynamics within legal discourse.     

Women in Crime and Justice

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon feminist research on women in crime and justice, this study examines patterns of female crime in Israel over four decades and the criminal justice response to female offenders over two decades. The data show that crime patterns of Israeli women and the criminal justice response to their transgressions show remarkable resemblance to those discerned in other western countries. The article concludes that feminist insights and explanatory mechanisms suggested in other western countries are congruent with findings about women in crime and justice in Israel.     

Women judges who judge women offenders: a Chinese case study on gender and judging

ABSTRACT

Based on an empirical study, this article examines Chinese female judges’ life experiences and worldviews by asking: are women judges feminist or pro-feminism? Given the very nature of feminism, if a large number of women judges are feminist or pro-feminism, they are likely to bring attention to women’s issues in the judiciary and the judicial process. If so, women’s equal participation in courts would make a vital difference in law and judicial production. The article first provides the context of the research on which this article is based. Next, it briefly outlines several key methodological issues. Then, it presents findings on female judges’ perceptions of women’s gender roles, their views about female offending and their awareness of feminism. Finally, it highlights the evidence presented and offers implications of the research.     

Juvenile Female Arrests

Abstract

This paper elaborates on feminist theory using Emerson's (1983) notion of holistic effects. We propose that the processing of juvenile female status offenders may vary systematically with the level of sex crimes in a community. This hypothesis is tested using a time series analysis of monthly status arrests in a Midwestern city. Our models indicate a significant increase in female status arrests at one “intervention” point, but no changes were found for male status arrest levels. We conclude that heterogeneity of processing of female offenders within single jurisdictions is an important avenue for future theoretical and empirical exploration.     

Motivating Questions and Partial Answers: A Response to Prosecuting Domestic Violence by Michelle Madden Dempsey

Michelle Madden Dempsey’s compelling book sets out a normative feminist argument as to why and when prosecutors should continue to pursue prosecutions in domestic violence cases where the victim refuses to participate in or has withdrawn their support for the prosecution. This paper will explore two of the key aspects of her argument—the centrality and definition of the concept of patriarchy, and the definition of domestic violence—before concluding with some final thoughts as to the appropriate parameters of feminist prosecutorial decision-making. The paper argues that Madden Dempsey could offer a more detailed and nuanced argument about the role that patriarchy plays, particularly its relevance in marking out appropriate cases for pursuit; and that her thesis requires a more convincing exposition of the precise reasons for offering such a narrow account of domestic violence.     

Differential Police Response to Black Battered Women

Abstract

Dorothy Bracey has spent her entire academic career at one institution located in her home town of New York City, but her intellectual pursuits have crossed many boundaries and taken her around the globe. Her scholarship and her life have been influenced by her interest in the overlap of law and justice and have led to her studies of police corruption, juvenile prostitution, the Chinese justice system and Native American legal contradictions. A woman of many interests, in addition to her work as a scholar, she has held a variety of leadership positions in both the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the American Society of Criminology and has served as the editor of two professional journals.     

Pornography and men's practices

Abstract

Summary: This article addresses the inter-relationship between pornography and sexual violence. Its particular focus is a political analysis of pornography within a context of gender politics, using concepts from feminist standpoint theory and recent theorising about men. It examines extant research concerning the effects of pornography, and critiques the predominantly positivist assumptions of such research. The article concludes with some ideas for enabling men to challenge pornography and its uses.     

Face Off: The Ironic,The Irenic and the Face Between

The formation of a school, whether feminist, critical, Marxist or other involves the establishment of a doctrine – literally a teaching – and a group of students or followers – the disciples who form the discipline. No doctrine without disciples has been the history of the schools and the formative principle of academic movements. They exist in the end to convert their students, old to young, male to female, female to male, or female to female, or any other possible combination of orientations. And conversion implies orthodoxy, institutionalization and hierarchy or at least a relation to hieros and hierarchy. This paper examines these themes in terms of the specific example of feminist legal studies and a curious recent discursive event, a polemical exchange on the identity of the movement, the face of feminist legal studies, as viewed through a eulogy and a challenge to that praise. Thanks to Richard Collier, Margaret Davies, Margaret Halliwell, Elena Loizidou, Desmond Manderson, Ngaire Naffine for correspondence, for relevant discussions, and candid responses. Especial thanks to Thanos Zartaloudis for a peculiarly detailed and hospitable reading, offered at a time when it would have been much easier, both just and more appropriate for him to say very little, almost nothing. And emotive thanks as well to Linda Mills for her customary frankness and finely honed attention.     

Problems in the pathways to judicial success: women in the legal profession in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This paper considers women’s representation in the under-explored context of the judiciary in Northern Ireland. Previous research into the experiences of women practitioners in the legal profession in Northern Ireland has indicated that women are discouraged from pursuing judicial careers for a variety of reasons associated with their gender. Further research into the gendered barriers these women practitioners face is required in order to assess the extent to which the same may impede their career progression. This paper uses a critical, social constructionist feminist approach to explore some of the gendered barriers influencing women’s under-representation in Northern Ireland’s judiciary. It is contended that representation can only be improved when women’s retention and progression through the ranks of the legal profession is addressed. Employing gender as a lens, this paper will analyse potential difficulties faced by the women solicitors and barristers in Northern Ireland in order to assess future judicial gender parity prospects in this jurisdiction as it is these women solicitors and barristers who form the female “talent pool” from which future members of the judiciary will be selected.     

Braving Jim Crow to Save Willie McGee: Bella Abzug,the Legal Left,and Civil Rights Innovation, 1948–1951

This article considers the role of Bella Abzug, lead counsel for Willie McGee from 1948–1951, in shaping the defense of this Cold War era Mississippi rape case. Representing McGee left an indelible mark on Abzug: she made her first trip south, wrote her first Supreme Court petition, and faced her first death threat. Participation in the Left legal bar—especially the National Lawyers Guild and Left feminist circles—shaped Abzug's legal consciousness as she redirected the McGee defense significantly in 1950. By joining race and sex, Abzug's legal argument zeroed in on the taboo of interracial sexual relations at the heart of Southern rape cases, thereby exposing the innermost sexual color line. She urged the courts and cause lawyers—albeit unsuccessfully—to pursue a more radical civil rights agenda than outlawing public segregation, as ultimately achieved in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and typically recognized in Cold War civil rights scholarship.     

Age,Role Changes and Gender Power in Family Relationships

Abstract

This article explores the effect of a prison sentence on an inmate's female partner, with particular reference to the impact on ‘older’ women. Drawing on the findings of an empirical qualitative research study and the existing literature, this article considers the gender role changes prompted by imprisonment, and the strategies utilized by women in coping with consequent strain. The gendered nature of the impact of imprisonment is explored, and the article concludes by drawing on multidisciplinary feminist perspectives in criminology and family studies to assess the centrality of institutionalized ‘traditional’ expectations of appropriate women's behavior to women's experiences of, and responses to, male imprisonment.     

Legal Feminism and Foucault – A Critique of the Expulsion of Law

Contemporary theorists have become increasingly receptive to the selective incorporation of Foucaultian theory within feminist frameworks. However, the reception of Foucault within feminist legal critique has been less enthusiastic. The most celebrated theorist to argue for the incorporation of Foucaultian insight within the feminist analysis of law is Carol Smart. While conceding the significant contribution of her work, this article will argue that her interpretation of the Foucaultian thesis on law is considerably more problematic. Illustrating the extent to which she adopts an unnecessarily pessimistic prognosis for the development of Foucault within legal analysis and reform, this article will examine an emerging counter-interpretation of Foucault that presents the possibility for a more promising application, seeking to provide a defence both of the utility of Foucault for feminist jurisprudence, and of the utility of legal reform strategies being exercised for feminist purposes.     

Katharine Bement Davis (1860-1935)

Abstract

Katharine Bement Davis is a significant figure in American criminology, homosexuality studies, penology, and several social movements, including women's suffrage, African Americans' civil rights, and the social settlement. Although Davis was a widely recognized criminologist for almost three decades, her life and career are acknowledged rarely in the annals of the profession. To address this serious omission in the history of criminology, I introduce her biography, analyze her theory and practice, and locate her in a historical context of powerful women who changed American life and politics.     

Malign Neglect or Benign Respect

Abstract

A central tenet of feminist criminological scholarship is the examination of women's experiences with crime and incarceration through their own narratives. Through semi-structured interviews with thirty jailed women, this article examines carceral conditions through the critical lens of the female inmate. Highlighted in this article is the availability and quality of health care in a detention center in Arizona. The findings indicate a contentious duality, exposing both heinous neglect and benign solicitude in the care delivered to jailed women. This duality is situated within the dismal health care system available to indigent women in the region.