Feminist theories of violent behavior

Introduction Feminist theory is relatively new in criminology. It is one of the outcomes of the resurgence of feminism as a social movement during the 1970s. Feminists were critical of virtually all academic disciplines for having excluded women from research and theorizing or, if women were included, for reinforcing sexist stereotypes. Criminology was no exception. “Beginning in the mid-1970s, feminist-inspired analyses drew attention to the neglect of women and the bias in male-centered theories of crime and criminal justice” (Jurik, 1999:34), and feminist criminologists set out to rectify these oversights and errors.