Gender Differences In Crime

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Crimes for many years have been exclusively common for men. Their aggression, proof of masculinity and their strain were reasons they committed crimes. Women have aggression, proof of one’s self and they too experience strains. The rise of the Women’s Movement tested why there was said to be “gender” differences when crimes were committed. Women came out of the shadows in the late 1960’s searching for equality and desperate to step out of what was “normal” for women. They wanted out of the kitchen and although there was a rise in crime, was there really a gender difference? Did Merton’s theory of anomie reject the female status? Before the Women’s movement, there was no real reason to investigate gender differences in crime. Current criminological …show more content…
Whether it was through the police, judges, politicians, presidents and legislators were mostly men. Basically making these theories one sided. It is said that women have a low level of offending but there is no true evidence that explains why women are not capable of committing crimes. Men were viewed as having more strain than women. The Strain Theory, also developed by Merton, stated how much pressure society put on individuals to live the “American Dream.” The strain of the men having to make the money to put bread on the table, were women had little to no strain cooking, cleaning and caring for children (Peck, J, 2011). Merton’s theory believed that strain led “individuals” to commit crime. “ The crime problem described by Merton is biased (Peck, J., 2011).” Based on gender and existing theories, crime can not be explained by arguing that men have more strains than women (Cullen, Agnew, Wilcox, 2014, p.330). In fact, some studies have suggested that women experience more strain than men but males and females still share an abundance of similar strains such as money, jobs, and security. With continuing studies about general strain theory, there were no clear findings that there are indeed gender differences. Making it nearly impossible to narrow down the amount of crime committed by on gender or another or that women were not capable of committing the same crimes as men. Joanne Kaufmann wrote in a scholarly journal that a study of college students of males and females exhibited the similar stress
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