Living in an interval which acquired totally dismissed women and the analysis of woman deviance (prior to 1960s), Professor Frances Heidensohn saw, as other criminologists, the immediate need for research and review on the deviant female. As "a pioneer of feminist perspectives in criminology", Heidensohn's work provided the "too much man's land" of criminology and exactly how women have been unfairly cared for and neglected in previous studies. Heidensohn is considered to be always a revolutionist in this field of criminology credited to her pre-feminist work (Heidensohn 1968 and 1970) on the invisibleness and silence surrounding the feminine offender. Throughout her work and intensive research on a number of different writers and criminologists, she pressured the lack of attention on gender proportions and the tendency to over-sexualise women offences. Clearly upset of this position quo, she described also the need of taking into account autobiographical activities of girl offenders, who are the actual objects of the review. Frances Heidensohn; a teacher in the Team of Sociology at London University of Economics, by her inspection on the analysis of gender in the context of criminal offense, could be thought to have placed the foundations for next decades studies on feminist perspectives in criminology. Her biggest question make was why the section of women and criminal offenses has been buried for such a long time and why there has been a failure to look at such an important issue. The majority of her literature and articles try to provide adequate aetiologies to all these question marks. Fortunately, things changed since the 1960s and feminism criminology originated. As Heidensohn advised in a metaphorical way, "Just like a clothing collection of new interesting clothes, a whole treasure generated in criminology. It provides us a great deal more to enrich our knowledge of women and criminal offense. But there is much more available too. " In other words, Professor Heidensohn presented that even thought feminist criminology has been developed you may still find many gaps plus much more to be done. Thus, Heidensohn lighted the path towards understanding of female criminology.
In the field of criminological research & most sociological research and writing, analyses of unlawful women cannot be found prior to the 1960s. But even "where they are considered, they are subject to marginalising and distorting treatment" as Oakley known in 1982 or in the same way as Klein recommended "female criminality has often finished up as footnote to works on men that purport to be works on criminality generally". This insufficient interest really was unusual in Heidensohn's eyes. As Frances Heidensohn mentioned in an important early on article on deviance, "virtually no serious scholarship has been performed to describe the remarkable difference between male and female lawbreaking. " Hence, this status quo, which was much more anticipated to male dominance, impelled her to get started on an intensive research on the subject to provide sufficient answers to all or any these questions raised. What was central to her work was the amnesia and overlook of ladies in earlier studies in criminology and the fact that "even where women were recognised, these were depicted in conditions of stereotypes and predicated on their supposed natural and psychological nature". Her major discussion which she highlights in all of her books, articles is the necessity of discovering gender in terms of understanding criminal offenses.
Her talk was worried about personal encounters and autobiographies of women offenders with regards to the courts, the law and the authorities. She strongly stressed that at all levels women have been treated differently than men and occasionally harsher. Under the provisions of unlawful laws, women are theoretically add up to men. Conversely, she underlined that oftentimes the laws on prostitution, for case, prejudice against women and generally there is propensity to over-sexualise female criminal offenses. Frances Heidensohn objected this attitude towards feminine crime. Prostitution "was seen only as intimate deviance rather than as the logical choice for some women who need the financial support for themselves and their children (Heidensohn, 1968, p. 168) ". Klein also shared this thoughts and opinions. Furthermore, criminal laws and attorneys tended to use stereotype notions of just what a "proper" woman is and will and dual assumptions such as virgin and whore were made when dealing with feminine offenders. Yet, Heidensohn didn't criticise that and she recognized that "one cannot divorce regulations and legal professional from the society in which they operate with its enormous cultural heritage and traditions". Although she have dispute about the "too much men's world" that existed, truly frustrated by the domination of men in administration as well as in the draft of legislation because of the implications that acquired on female offenders. Further, the courts even though women determined fewer and less serious offences than men, were often harsher with women. Regarding to Frances Heidensohn, there were several reasons that discussed this stance by the courts. One of the strongest arguments that she made was that feminine criminals were regarded as "doubly-deviant". Women criminals were very exceptional phenomena, a fact that biased the behaviour of the courts towards them. As Heidensohn possessed pointed out in another of her earliest presumptions, "Women defendants therefore seem to be stranger and therefore less comprehensible than men: they offend both against society's behavioural guidelines about property, taking in, or assault and also resistant to the most fundamental norms which govern sex-role behaviour" (Heidensohn, 1970, p. 134). In other words, if they have been morally wrong, they will be punished more; "Courts and other firms treat women as deviant double over: they have broken criminal regulation and social expectations of proper feminine behaviour. " Furthermore, the whole courtroom method is something "particularly bewildering, alien and unfair" to feminine offenders.
While doing her research, Frances Heidensohn offered a great focus on the stereotype notions and the interpersonal expectations that the culture held for legal women. In patriarchal societies, women were regarded as a "way to obtain disorder". Moral beliefs and accepted social benchmarks, especially in past intervals, rendered women subject to stricter rules. Additionally, the witch image as well as that of the whore seemed to be the main element portrayals of the deviant women. The stereotype of witchcraft, which has always been linked to women, gave the thought of "deviant women as especially evil, depraved and monstrous". Alternatively, the propensity to sexualise the feminine offences portrayed them as whores. Teacher Heidensohn argued that no such notions can be found, equivalent to male deviants. On the other hand, male deviants "either get public approval-boys will be boys, - or are in least more positively portrayed". She extended her debate and she strongly criticized the role the mass media possessed overplayed in developing these ideas; male offenders in books, films were presented as heroes, something that affected the public reaction and view.
In looking at traditional criminology and "classical" criminological authors, Heidensohn noticed that feminine criminality was dependant on their biology and mindset. Lombroso; the "father of criminology", and Ferrero's research, which centered on the meditation of the skulls, bones and appearance of female criminals, came to the conclusion that women deviants could be recognized by their physical appearance and they got virtually identical characteristics to male deviants. Women criminals "like their masculine counterparts, experienced certain allegedly atavistic features, notably unfeminine features and built and dark masculine locks. " On top of that, they said that legal women are unnatural. Following these lines, Teacher Heidensohn found herself unlike this presumption. She argued that "his evaluation of photos of 'fallen women' is as objective as adjudication in a beauty contest. " Furthermore, Lombroso and Ferrero's ideas didn't provide us an sufficient and precise knowledge of female criminal offense. "What they do show us was the attempt to rationalise and justify the position quo, the prevailing position of women and the double standard of morals of the day. " Thus they didn't draw away from the stereotype notions and the dual assumptions about women (good or bad, normal or abnormal).
"Deviant Women's activities" was a central method utilized by Frances Heidensohn and feminist writers towards the knowledge of female delinquency; concentration on the "researched" and their activities. Even though this strategy received much criticism (Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002), Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe argued that "close reading of feminist conversations ultimately disclose no fixed 'absolutes' beyond the need for level of sensitivity in the study job, for personal reflexivity and determination to help make the research highly relevant to women. " This methodology vested women the to speak for themselves, their experience, their feelings and thoughts. The technique of viewing the entire world through women's sight was successful in making women obvious in criminology and also created a"women's world" too. The focus on women's experiences led to some crucial trends in female criminology and feminist efforts to criminology. 'Feminism standpoitism' as Harding sets it (1987) reflected the concept of viewing the entire world through women's eye and "encouraged both theoretical and personal reflexivity with regards to knowledge and the process of knowledge development through research. " However, the key aspect of focusing on the experiences of woman criminals was that it rendered gender as the foundation of understanding and interpreting criminal offense and social carry out rather than simply as a statistical variable.
As a synopsis of her analysis, Frances Heidensohn argued that "what seems to be needed in the analysis of feminine deviance is an accident programme of research which telescopes years of equivalent studies of males. " Also, she was regular using what Mannheim advised, who kept that "an objective and scientific approach should make an effort to treat female crime as a subject in its own right. " She therefore concluded in her book on 'Women and Offense' that in order to gain understanding on women and offense other analyses such as family life, position and communal control of women, male dominance should be studied into account. Arguably, she supported that could not be achieved through feminist criminology or sociology of deviance.
Frances Heidensohn's observations have not been subject to too much criticism as Lombroso's or other criminologist's theories. However, some items that she performed make were subject to debate and disapproval. Allison Morris was one particular who contravened with a few of her presumptions. Her enantiosis was essentially on the fact that the legal justice system is "a peculiarly alien an unfamiliar world" limited to women. Morrison centered on the belief that criminal law is 'sexist' in the treatment of deviant young girls and women and she continued to say that "such factors as contest, family circumstances and commitments, types of offence and past record all clearly mediate the treatment of both feminine and male defendants and could be that some of these factors are as important as gender, or even more so. " Indeed, Heidensohn relied on this assumption; that love-making is the most important aspect and that it's not only women who are being deprived in the unlawful justice system. However, what Morrison highly argued was Heidensohn's failure to recognize other groups of individuals who could be cured unfairly under the criminal system or the court could be biased against them and to whom the whole process might be new and alien. Such groups of people, as Morris implies could be for young dark and working -class men or minorities. Finally, she remarked that "it is wrong to provide women's experiences in the criminal justice system as a unitary experience. We know that dark women are over-represented inside our prisons. We have to be able to take into account this. " In my own personal view Morrison made a complete disclosure of the reality; that minorities or dark-colored people or people of different social specifications, could also be treated unfairly in courtroom or could be subject to discriminatory wrongs. She made an extremely strong discussion which did consider and tried to defend other sociable and powerless organizations and not only women, something that Heidensohn failed to do. Moreover, that might be the foundation for other perceptions that Heidensohn provided. This is actually the one of monetary rationality or that of stigma. As a result it is not only women who can be encouraged by the monetary must commit a offense; people of a 'lower school' can commit offences as a result of poverty; or it isn't only women who fear the thought of being stigmatised by their offences. Carlen Pat also argued as of this part that this stance might lead to race or school conflicts. Finally, in general Carlen suggested that no feminism theory can offer aetiologies to three major issues relating to feminine delinquency; "that women's crimes are in the primary, the offences of the powerless; that ladies in prison are disproportionately from ethic minority communities; and that a majority of ladies in prison have been in poverty for vast majority of these lives. "
Synoptically, Frances Heidensohn's contribution to criminology was substantial with regards to female offenders. It could be said as having two attributes of a gold coin. Her research together with that of other feminist criminologists illuminated the path towards understanding of the feminine deviance. However, even though they shed some light onto it you may still find some dark aspects. As Frances Heidensohn pointed out, the analysis of feminine deviance has still a long way to go. The most important drawback that I can identify in her work was the lack of consideration of other factors that could play a valid role in the field of understanding crime such as race, class, nationality, era and other interpersonal characteristics somewhat than only focusing on gender dimensions and providing privileges and then women.
