Marxist theory views capitalism as the basis for women's oppression. Under capitalism, men comprise the bourgeoisie class that owns the means of production, while women make up the proletariat class that must sell their labor. New forms of production allowed men to gain wealth and power, leading to the establishment of monogamous marriage and the patriarchal family structure. Marxist feminism argues that capitalism is the primary cause of women's oppression and aims to reform or abolish capitalism. Radical feminist theory views patriarchy and male domination of social roles and institutions as the fundamental cause of women's oppression. Radical feminists seek to completely eliminate patriarchy by transforming society and traditional gender roles.

1. Marxist theory on Feminism
• Capitalism is the basis for the organisation of
society (economic determinism)
• Two main classes
– Bourgeoisie (men)
• Owners of the means of production
– Proletariat (women)
• Have no choice but to sell their labour

2. Marxist theory
• The workers
transform raw
materials to make
profits.
• Profits go to the
shareowners and
directors

3. • New forms of production allowed men to
gain ‘surplus’ leading to wealth and power
• Monogamous marriage developed to allow
men to pass on property
• Sex oppression is also class
oppression

4. ‘In the great majority of cases today, at least in
the possessing classes, the husband is obliged to
earn a living and support his family, and that in
itself gives him a position of supremacy, without
any need for special legal titles and privileges.
Within the family he is the bourgeois and the wife
represents the proletariat…. With the transfer of
the means of production into common ownership,
the single family ceases to be the economic unit of
society.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origi
n-family/ch02d.htm

5. • Marriage is based on economic conditions
• Although constructed as a voluntary
contract it is coerced by the organisation
of society.
• Bourgeoisie wives are similar to
prostitutes they sell their bodies to one
man rather than many

6. Theory of Reproduction
• Women’s labour is important in two
dimensions
– Their labour in the home is necessary for
workers to be employed
– They physically give birth to the next
generation of workers

7. Reproducing the labour force
• Capitalism requires workers
•
• Women have to give birth and care for
children in order to restock the labour
force

8. Marxist feminism
• Capitalism is the primary cause of
women’s oppression
• Reforming or ending capitalism is the
primary goal

9. Radical Feminist Theory

10. Radical Feminist beliefs are based
on the idea that the main cause of
women's oppression originates
from social roles and institutional
structures being constructed from
male supremacy and patriarchy.

11. The major difference between Radical
Feminism and other branches is that they
didn't concentrate on equalizing the
distribution of power. Instead, they
focused their efforts on completely
eliminating patriarchy by transforming
the entire structure of society. More
specifically, they wanted to get rid of
traditional gender roles.

12. Radical feminism is based on charged
central beliefs:
(1) that women are absolute positive
value as women, a belief asserted
against what they claim to be
universal devaluing of women, and
(2) that women are everywhere
oppressed-violently oppressed-by the
system of patriarchy.

13.  Radical Feminist see in every
institution and in society’s most
basic structures heterosexuality,
class, caste, race, ethnicity, age, and
gender-system of oppression in
which people dominate others. Of
all these systems of domination and
subordination, the most
fundamental structure of oppression
is gender, the system of patriarchy.

14.  Through participation in patriarchy, men
learn how to hold other human being in
contempt, to see them as nonhuman, and
to control them. Within patriarchy men see
and women learn what subordination looks
like.
 Patriarchy creates guilt and repression,
sadism and masochism, manipulation and
deception, all of which drive men and
women to others tyranny.

15. Central to this analysis is the image of
patriarchy as violence practiced by men
and but male-dominated organization
against women. Violence may not
always take the form of overt physical
cruelty.

16.  It can be hidden in more complex
practices of exploitation and control:
in standards of fashion and beauty: in
tyrannical ideals of motherhood,
monogamy, chastity, and
heterosexuality: in sexual harassment
in the workplace: in the practices of
gynecology, obstetrics, and
psychotherapy: and in unpaid
household drudgery and underpaid
wage work

17. But the theme of violence as overt physical
cruelty lies at the heart of radical feminism’s
linking of patriarchy to violence: rape, sexual
abuse, enforced prostitution, spouse abuse,
incest, sexual molestation of children,
hysterectomies and other excessive surgery,
the sadism, in pornography, the historical and
cross-cultural practices of witch burning, the
stoning to death if adulteresses, the
persecutions of lesbians, female infanticide.
Chinese foot-binding, the abuse of widows,
and the practice of clitorectomy.

18. Patriarchy exists as a near-universal social form
because men can muster the most basic power
resource, physical force, to establish control.
One patriarchy is in place, the other power
resources-economic, ideological, legal, and
emotional-also can be marshaled to sustain it.
But physical violence always remains its base,
and in both interpersonal and intergroup
relations, that violence, is used to protect
patriarchy from women’s individual and
collective resistance.

19. Men create and maintain patriarchy not only
because they have the resources to do so but
because they have real interests in making
women serve as compliant tools. Women are
uniquely effective means to satisfying male
sexual desire. Their bodies are essential to the
production or the children, who satisfy both
practical, and psychoanalysts have shown,
neurotic needs for men. Women are a useful
force.

20. How is patriarchy to be defeated?
Radicals hold that this defeat must begin
with a basic reworking of women’s
consciousness so that each woman
recognizes her own value and strength;
rejects patriarchal pressures to see herself as
weak, dependent, and second-class; and
work in unity with other women, regardless
of differences among them, to establish a
broad-based sisterhood of trust, support,
appreciation and mutual defense.

21. Radical feminists, moreover, have done
significant research to support their thesis
that patriarchy ultimately rests on the
particular of violence against women. They
have a reasonable though perhaps incomplete
program for change. They have been faulted
for their exclusive focus on patriarchy. This
focus seems to simplify the realities of social
organization and social inequality and thus to
approach the issues of ameliorative change
somewhat unrealistically.

22. THANK YOU

23. Conflict Theory: Max Weber, Power & Conflict
 Max Weber had an interest in the social change
wrought by the industrial revolution and in social
conflict.
 Weber viewed the various class divisions in society as
normal, inevitable, and acceptable.
 Criminality exists in all societies and is the result of the
political struggle among different groups attempting to
promote or enhance their life chances.

24. From Individual Violators to Group Struggles
George Vold moved conflict away from an exclusive
emphasis of value and normative conflicts to include conflicts
of interest.
Social life is a continual struggle to maintain or improve
one’s own group’s interest in a constant clash of
antagonistic actions.

25. From Individual Violators to Group Struggles
Vold’s conflict theory concentrates entirely on the clash of
individuals loyally upholding their differing group interests,
and has no interest in explaining crime unrelated to group
conflict.
Conflict is a way of assuring social change, a way of
generating group solidarity, and a way of assuring social
stability.

26. The Social Reality of Crime
 The ultimate cause of crime is the law.
 Conflict criminologists differ from neo-Marxist
criminology in that it concentrates on the processes
of value conflict and lawmaking rather than on the
social structural elements underlying them.

27. The Social Reality of Crime
 Conflict theorists make no value judgment about
whether crime is socially harmful, the actions of
revolutionaries, or violations of human rights.
 Conflict theorists tend to share neo-Marxism’s fondness
for research illustrating some principle of their
perspectives rather than formulating hypotheses from it
and putting them to the test.

28. Table 6.1
Comparing Marxist and Conflict Theory on Major Concepts
Concept Marxist Conflict
Origin of conflict
The powerful oppressing the
powerless (e.g., the bourgeoisie
oppressing the proletariat under
capitalism).
It is generated by many factors
regardless of the political and
economic system.
Nature of conflict It is socially bad and must and will be
eliminated in a socialist system.
It is socially useful and necessary
and cannot be eliminated.
Major participants
in conflict
The owners of the means of
production and the workers are
engaged in the only conflict that
matters.
Conflict takes place everywhere
between all sorts of interest
groups.
Social class Only two classes defined by their
relationship to the means of
production, the bourgeoisie and
proletariat. The aristocracy and the
lumpenproletariat are parasite classes
that will be eliminated.
There are number of different
classes in society defined by their
relative wealth, status, and power.

29. Table 6.1
Comparing Marxist and Conflict Theory on Major Concepts
Concept Marxist Conflict
Concept of the law It is the tool of the ruling class that
criminalizes the activities of the workers
harmful to its interests and ignores its
own socially harmful behavior.
The law favors the powerful, but not
any one particular group. The greater
the wealth, power, and prestige a group
has, the more likely the law will favor
it.
Concept of crime Some view crime as the revolutionary
actions of the downtrodden, others view
it as the socially harmful acts of “class
traitors,” and others see it as violations
of human rights.
Conflict theorists refuse to pass moral
judgment because they view criminal
conduct as morally neutral with no
intrinsic properties that distinguish it
from conforming behavior. Crime
doesn’t exist until a powerful interest
group is able to criminalize the
activities of another less powerful
group.Cause of crime The dehumanizing conditions of
capitalism. Capitalism generates egoism
and alienates people from themselves
and from others.
The distribution of political power that
leads to some interest groups being
able to criminalize the acts of other
interest groups.
Cure for crime With the overthrow of the capitalist
mode of production, the natural goodness
As long as people have different
interests and as long as some groups

30. Postmodernist Theory
Postmodernist criminology is firmly in the
critical/radical tradition in that it views the law as an
oppressive instrument of the rich and powerful, but it
rejects the modernist view of the world.
All knowledge is socially constructed and has no
independent reality apart from the minds of those who
create it.

31. Postmodernist Theory
All worldviews are mediated by
language.
The dominant language of society
is the language of the rich and
powerful, and by virtue of
owning the dominant language
their point of view is privileged.

32. Peacemaking Criminology
 Peacemaking criminology has the philosophy of “peace
on crime.”
 Punishing criminals escalates violence.
 In place of imprisoning offenders, peacemaking
criminologists advocate restorative justice, which is
basically a system of mediation and conflict resolution.

33. Feminist Criminology
 Feminism is a set of theories & strategies for social
change that take gender as their central focus in
attempting to understand social institutions, processes,
and relationships.
 Mainstream feminism holds the view that women suffer
oppression & discrimination in a society run for men by
men who have passed laws and created customs to
perpetuate their privileged position.
 Gender & power rather than class & power.

34.  Female crime has been virtually ignored by
mainstream criminology.
 Generalizability problem: Do traditional male-
centered theories of crime apply to women?
 Gender ratio problem: What explains the universal
fact that women are far less likely than men to involve
themselves in criminal activity?
Feminist Criminology

35. The Generalizability Problem
 Anomie theory: This theory cannot be applied to women
because women are socialized to be successful in
relationships, to get married, and to raise families, not for
financial success.
 Subculture theories: This theory cannot explain why
women who have achieved their relationship goals
commit crimes.
 Differential association: This theory is better for
explaining why females commit less crime than men.

36. Labeling: The labeling perspective is not an
explanation as to why people engage in deviance in the
first place, and it lacks an analysis of the structures of
power and oppression impinging on women
Marxism: This theory neglects gender issues, plus,
working-class women experience the same capitalist
exploitation as men, but they still commit far less crime
The Generalizability Problem

37. The Gender Ratio Problem
-Mainstream feminists have asserted that if females were
socialized in the same way as males & had similar roles and
experiences, their rates of criminal offending would be
roughly the same.
-This assertion is denied by the biological sciences, as well
as by radical feminists, who view gender difference in
behavior as a function of “differentially wired brains.”

38. Masculinization & Emancipation Hypothesis:
Adler & Simon
Freda Adler attributed the rise in female crime rates in
the 1960s and 1970s to an increasing number of females
adopting “male” roles, and by doing so increasingly
masculinizing their attitudes and behavior (The
Masculinization Hypothesis).
Rita Simon claimed that increased participation in the
workforce affords women greater opportunities to
commit crime
(The Emancipation Hypothesis).

39. More recently, it has been proposed that the gender ratio
exists
1. because gender differs in exposure to delinquent peers &
that males are more influenced by delinquent peers than
females
2. because of female greater inhibitory morality.
Masculinization & Emancipation Hypothesis:
Adler & Simon

40. Female-Centered Theory:
Criminalizing Girl’s Survival & Victim Precipitated
Homicide
Rather than developing general theories of female crime,
feminist theories have developed a series of models
cataloging the responses of girls and women to situations
more or less specific to their gender that result in the
committing specific criminal acts.

41. Chesney-Lind: Girls’ victimization & their response to
it are shaped by their status in a patriarchal society in
which males dominate the family & define their daughters
& stepdaughters as sexual property.
Female-Centered Theory:
Criminalizing Girl’s Survival & Victim Precipitated
Homicide

42.  Victim-precipitated homicide, which is a homicide in
which the murder victim initiates the sequence of events
that leads to his or her death.
Female-Centered Theory:
Criminalizing Girl’s Survival & Victim Precipitated
Homicide

43. Radical Feminist Explanation
 Radical feminists argue that because the magnitude of
the gender gap varies across time and space and yet
remains constantly wide at all ties and in all places that
biological factors must play a large part.
 The root of gender ratio lies in the fundamental
differences between the genders.

44. Anne Campbell: Staying alive
hypothesis—evolutionary logic is all
about passing on genes that proved
useful in the struggle for survival and
reproductive success to future
generations over the eons of time in
which our most human characteristics
were being formed.
Radical Feminist Explanation

45.  Because offspring survival is so important to their
reproductive success, females evolved a propensity to
avoid engaging in behaviors that pose survival risks.
 When females engage in crime they almost always do
so for instrumental reasons, and their crimes rarely
involve risk of physical injury.
Radical Feminist Explanation

46. Evaluation of Critical Theories
 It is often said that Marxist theory has very little that is
unique to add to criminology theory.
 Much of Marxist criminology appears to be in a time
warp in that it assumes that the conditions prevailing in
Marx’s time still exist in the same form today in advanced
capitalist societies.
 Conflict theory does not attempt to explain crime; it
simply identifies social conflict as a basic fact of life and a
source of discriminatory treatment.

47.  Postmodernism offers no viable alternative except to
advance the notion that crime can be abated by
changing the way people think and talk about it.
 Peacemaking criminologists never offer any notion as to
how crime rates can be reduced beyond counseling that
we appreciate criminals’ point of view and not be so
punitive.
Evaluation of Critical Theories

48. According to feminist theory, maleness is without
doubt the best single predictor of criminal behavior.
This leaves feminist theorists without much left to
explain in specific female terms about female
offending.
Evaluation of Critical Theories

49. Policy Prevention: Implications of Critical Theories
The policy implications of Marxism are to overthrow
the capitalist system and crime will be reduced.
Policy recommendations by left realists include
community activities, neighborhood watches,
community policing, dispute resolution centers, and
target hardening.

50. Conflict theorists favor programs such as minimum
wage laws, sharply progressive taxation, a government
controlled comprehensive health care system, maternal
leave, and national policy of family support as a way of
reducing crime.
Feminists argue to reform our patriarchal society as well
as push the plight of victims into the light of day.
Policy Prevention: Implications of Critical Theories