The Invisible Woman. Joanne Belknap
12), and court work (i.e., lawyers and judges) (Chapter 13). The book closes with Section V, a summary of advances that have been accomplished in gender and crime (Chapter 14).
Diversity Among Women and Girls
As stated in the first paragraph, understanding the effects of sexism cannot be conducted in a vacuum because sexism is not experienced the same by everyone. Rather, gender intersects with such characteristics as race/ethnicity, class, sexuality/sexual identity, (dis)ability, nationality, immigration status, age, and so on. Significantly, gender role stereotypes, experiences, and opportunities vary for women and girls of different classes, races/ethnicities, (dis)abilities, sexualities, religions and nationalities (e.g., Arnold, 1990; Bachman, Zaykowski, Lanier, Poteyeva, & Kallmyer, 2010; Belknap, 2010; Belknap, Holsinger, & Little, 2012; Brennan, 2002; Burgess-Proctor, 2006; Chigwada-Bailey, 1997; C. F. Collins, 1997; P. H. Collins & Bilge, 2016; Corliss, Cochran, Mays, Greenland, & Seeman, 2009; Dorr, 2004; Garfield, 2005; Jones, 2010, 2018; Scherer & Reyns, 2019). Historically, feminist scholarship has focused too strongly on the lives and experiences of white, straight, middle-class women and girls, with missing, inadequate, or sometimes, offensive assessments of race/racism, class/classism, sexuality/homophobia, and other marginalizing characteristics. Significantly, research consistently documents how the greater the matrix of oppression (the more oppressed groups one is a member), the more marginalized and discriminated against the individual (P. H. Collins & Bilge, 2016; Richie, 2012). Although the term intersectional feminism is more recent, the meaning has been promoted by women of Color from across the globe since at least the 1800s (P. H. Collins & Bilge, 2016; Roberts & Connell, 2016).
In 1988, African American feminist scholar D. K. King published her classic article, “Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness,” to address African American women’s multiple jeopardies (marginalizations) in terms of race, gender, and typically class, but also how African American women become invisible under “African American” when “male” is assumed, and under “women” when “white” is assumed. In 1990 African American legal scholar A. P. Harris defined multiple consciousness as a “process in which propositions are constantly put forth, challenged, and subverted” (p. 584). This challenge and subversion, according to Harris (1990), is due to the phenomenon of gender essentialism, whereby women’s experiences are “isolated and described independently of race, class, sexual orientation, and other realities of experience” (p. 585). Around the same time, Asian American legal scholar Matsuda (1989) described how law school typically trains in bifurcated thinking, by separating what one believes is relevant from what one’s legal training has taught is relevant. This requires a “shifting” between one’s lived experiences “and the white consciousness required for survival in elite educational institutions” (p. 8). Matsuda closed with this directive:
I cannot pretend that I, as a Japanese American, truly know the pain of, say, my Native American sister. But I can pledge to educate myself so that I do not receive her pain in ignorance. And I can say as an American, I am choosing as my heritage the 200 years of struggle by poor and working people, by Native Americans, by women, by people of color, for dignified lives in this nation. I can claim as my own the Constitution my father fought for at Anzio, the Constitution that I swore to uphold and defend when I was admitted to the bar. It was not written for me, but I can make it my own, using my chosen consciousness as a woman and person of color to give substance to those tantalizing words “equality” and “liberty.” (p. 10)
More recently, Lopez and Pasko (2017) describe the invisibility of Latinas in criminology research: Latinx people “have historically been classified as White people” in official U.S. data, and Latinas’ experiences in the CLS are often “blurred with those of Latino boys and men” (p. 196).
This book makes visible women and girl victims, women and girl defendants/offenders, and women working in the criminal legal system (CLS), acknowledging that women and girls’ experiences are not identical but are impacted by their race, class, sexual identity, national origin, and other personal and potentially marginalizing and privileging characteristics. Many of these have been long-ignored/invisible. Although there is significant scholarship and awareness needed in many areas of criminology, fortunately there is increasing research on LGBTQI+, Indigenous (e.g., Morris & Wood, 2010), Latinx individuals (Flores, Camacho, & Santos, 2017; Lopez, 2017; Lopez & Pasko, 2017), and people with disabilities (Scherer & Reyns, 2019). Notably, queer criminology is an essential and growing subfield within criminology (Ball, 2016; Buist & Lenning, 2016; Panfil, 2017; D. Peterson & Panfil, 2014; E. S. Peterson & Skinner, 2019; Wodda & Panfil, 2018; Woods, 2017).
A crucial concept in this analysis is the Global South. Global South is a shift from using terms such as Third World, Underdeveloped, or Developing countries to broadly refer to geographic regions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Replacing the prior labels for the Global North (previously referred to as Developed and First World nations) and Global South “marks a shift from a focus on development or cultural difference toward an emphasis on geopolitical power relations” (Dados & Connell, 2012, p. 12). Significantly, “colonization itself was a gender-structured process, colonial societies were strongly gendered in new ways and postcolonial societies to have produced new configurations of gender relations” (Roberts & Connell, 2016, p. 137). Moreover, racism, nationalism, and “deeply troubling expressions of violent masculinity” are embedded in many criminological theories from the Global North, at the same time that they fail to address the present criminogenic impact from the “violence of coloniality itself” (Carrington & Hogg, 2017, p. 181). In 1998, Indigenous scholar and criminologist L. Ross (1998) wrote that Native American “loss of sovereignty is implicitly tied to Native criminality in complex, historical ways” (p. 2). In sum, there is a presumptuousness when scholars of the Global North, particularly in the United States, where most criminological theories have been developed, assume that their theories should apply world-wide (Belknap, 2016; Carrington & Hogg, 2017; Liu, 2009; Suzuki, Pai, & Islam, 2018).
In addition to using Global South/North as terms for the nation inequities described earlier, I will largely use Indigenous and Native American somewhat interchangeably but will not use “Indian” to refer to Indigenous peoples in the United States (unless quoting someone who uses this term). Similarly, “Hispanic” is an offensive identifier to many given “its association with Spain, the nation that oppressed their ancestors in Mexico and Central and South America” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017, p. 69). Thus, consistent with others and the cumbersomeness of using Latina/Latino/Latinas/Latinos, “Latinx” is used to comprise all of these. Some people decry this is being too “PC” (politically correct). I contend it is important not to continue troubling labels that are offensive to the people being labeled, and that people should have the right to identify themselves rather than continue labels started by colonists or other outsiders. This is not perfect (i.e., Latinx); not everyone who is Latinx prefers this term. At the writing of this edition of this book, however, it is arguably the most respectful and accurate term.
What Is Feminism?
Feminism and feminists recognize that gender inequalities exist in society and value change that enhances gender equality. African American feminist hooks (1984) defines feminism simply as “the struggle to end sexist oppression” (p. 26). She compares patriarchy to racism and other forms of oppression and points out that for sexism to end, racism and other forms of oppression cannot remain intact. Feminism, therefore, is part of the larger movement to end domination in all of its forms (hooks, 1990). “The aim of feminism is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It [feminism] does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform in a meaningful way all our lives” (hooks, 1984, p. 26) The need for feminism, then, arises from the desire to create a world without gender and other forms of oppression.
Unfortunately, a number of myths have damaged the concept of feminism as a legitimate issue and approach. The media and politicians