The Invisible Woman. Joanne Belknap
to male musicians. When Becker wrote about women, it was most frequently as the wives of the men, and in these instances, these women are portrayed as boring, laughable, and “square.” Thus, whereas Becker used innovative and in-depth methods to get to know and understand the male musicians, his approach to studying the women “remained highly orthodox” (Naffine, 1996, p. 41). The women are seen only through the lens of the male musicians and are depicted as “nags” who threaten the livelihood of the band by trying to convince their husbands to get “real” jobs. When women musicians are given any attention in Becker’s analysis, it is only as sex objects, not as legitimate musicians—an all-too-familiar approach to studying nonconforming and criminal women (Naffine, 1987). In the work of Becker and many others, conforming women are portrayed as boring and spineless, whereas criminal men are seen as creative and exciting.
Advancing LT
Kenney (2002) advocates for expanding LT to include victimization of major traumas. He notes, and others have found, the many ways that familial, social, and systemic responses to victims of significant trauma often silence them and even label them as deviant (Kenney, 2002; Wortman & Lehman, 1983; Young, 1991). To this end, a study of women abused by their partners found that their help-seeking decisions are often negatively influenced by past abuse, including childhood victimizations, making it difficult to disclose or trust (Burgess-Proctor, 2011). Indeed, Schur (1984) suggests that women “do not really have to engage in specific acts to be defined and responded to as deviant. Physical appearance—and in a sense perhaps even the mere condition of ‘being’ a woman—can lead to stigmatization” (p. 190). Frigon (1995) traces the long history of punishing females (and to some degree, males) for not conforming to their “appropriate” gender roles, including the execution of hundreds of thousands of lesbians and thousands of gay men for heresy in 15th- and 16th-century France during the Roman Catholic Inquisition and the long history of executing women charged as “witches.” Thus, a distinction for the criminal woman appears to fall into “mad” (mentally ill, including the rejection of culturally prescribed gender roles) and “bad” (just pure evil) (Frigon, 1995). Words such as hysterical (notably derived from the Greek word for uterus and tied to being female) and promiscuous are rarely used to describe boys and men (i.e., restricted for labeling women and girls). This is consistent not only with Wodda and Panfil’s (2018) sex-negativity that is also sexist but has had disastrous ramifications for girls and women in the criminal legal system (described in more detail in Chapter 6).
One area that is related to LT is a growing body of incarcerated people and those advocating for them, addressing how those incarcerated with terms like “offenders” suggest that this is their defining characteristic, and moreover, they are inherently law-breakers. Consistent with LT, such a practice is criticized for resulting in the labeled individuals’ inability to view themselves as law-abiding, and thus, their ability to become law-abiding (see Willis, 2018).
A key question in the application of LT to girls and women is determining whether there are gender differences in how offenders are labeled. For example, the possibility that girls are less likely than boys to be labeled or viewed as delinquent might help explain their lower arrest rates. On the other hand, perhaps before the second wave of the women’s movement, women were more protected by chivalry (addressed in greater detail in Chapter 6), and the growing incarceration rate of women in the United States reflects a harsher labeling of girls and women since this time (Leonard, 1982). Still another possibility is that women and girls are labeled more harshly for some crimes, while men and boys are discriminated against for others. The second key question in applying LT to girls and women is the second tenet of LT. Part of this process is the finding that women and girls are more likely (than men and boys) to take on feelings of shame when they or others identify them as deviant or “offenders” (T. A. Hayes, 2000).
Gender Applications of LT
Limited criminology research has addressed whether “labeling or the consequences of being labeled” are gendered (Hassett-Walker et al., 2017). Lee, Tajima, Herrenkohl, and Hong’s (2017) excellent review of LT studies and gender notes that like most criminology, “there is limited attention to gender” (p. 99). Many LT studies have used all male samples, and LT studies that include girls rarely test for gender differences, instead using gender as a control variable. Lee and her colleagues’ careful review of LT research report inconsistent findings on whether delinquent labels are gendered, and if so, who is more impacted. Regarding the first tenet of LT, two studies using data from the large U.S. National Youth Survey found that girls are less likely to be labeled as delinquent/criminal than are boys. First, Menard and Pollock’s (2014) analysis of youth falsely accused of criminal behavior found “false accusations are not randomly distributed in the population, but fall disproportionately on the usual suspects, boys, youth of color, lower SES, and academically disadvantaged youth” (p. 389). Second, De Coster and Lutz’s (2018) analysis of these data found that girls are less likely than boys “to be labeled as trouble-makers because delinquency and rule violation are consistent with cultural definitions of masculinity but are the antithesis of femininity” (p. 628).
Some LT research specifically examining gender indicates that being labeled an offender has a more serious impact on the second tenet of LT (becoming or continuing as an offender). Chiricos, Barrick, Bales, and Bontrager’s (2007) large adult felony Florida court study found that regardless of their sentences, men reoffended more than women, but of those found guilty, women were more likely to reoffend. They conclude that the labeling has a greater impact on women than men. Conversely, Lee and colleagues’ (2017) study of Pennsylvania youth found few gender differences regarding the process or effects of labeling on subsequent adult criminal behavior (possibly due to their small sample size). However, they did find higher childhood aggression was related to higher adolescent delinquency for boys but not girls, that “boys from higher SES families were more likely to develop” delinquent attitudes (emphasis added; p. 106); in addition, the models indicated the processing of labeling was related to adult criminality for both girls and boys, but it was stronger for boys.
Alarid and Vega’s (2010) study conducted solely on convicted incarcerated women found overall support for LT, with some nuances. Prior convictions and drug use and sale involvement, but not property crime involvement, increased the likelihood these women defined themselves as “criminals.” The authors reasonably speculated that women who are also mothers (many incarcerated women) may feel less responsible for their crimes, and thus less deserving of the “criminal” identifier, if their crimes are property offenses to support their children. As expected, this study also found women with their first felony conviction were less likely than those with more felony convictions to view themselves as criminals, and many of these self-labeling criminal women had viewed themselves as criminals since they were 17. Notably, the “master identity role that was more important than any other label or role [to these women] … was a familial role as a mother (if she had children) or as a wife, sister or daughter [if she was not a mother]” (p. 721).
Developmental and Adverse Life Events Theories
The cycle of violence theory (CVT) and the pathways theory (PT) are similar in that both have a strong focus on victimizations and other adverse life events as risk factors for offending. Traditionally, and sometimes still, life course theory (LCT) research, although asking detailed accounts of childhood events, often fails to include abuse and other trauma victimizations.1 Table 3.2 summarizes and compares the traditional tenets of each of these theories (CVT, LCT, and PT). Significantly, they are changing and improving in their applications over time and are more frequently being combined, which will be presented in Chapter 13.
1 Many pathways and life course publications refer to these approaches as perspectives instead of theories. Given that substantial scholarship has confirmed these perspectives, I refer to them as theories.
Table 3.2