Law Alter Views
Female criminality: Brief theoretical analysis into the causes
Sheikh Hafizur Rahman Karzon
For long in the criminological discourse there was no focus on the causes of female criminality. Most of the criminology theories have tried to look into the matter by assuming man as the only being. The researchers did not enquire into why the male criminality has been so high and why the female criminality remained so low? Global crime situation 
suggests that 80 to 90% criminal activities are being committed by males. Is there any crucial physiological difference behind this huge difference of crime rates between female and male? Should the difference in the process of rearing and socialization be identified to have been operative for the high rate of male delinquency and females being more law-abiding?
Cesare Lombroso on female criminality
Cesare Lombroso, an Italian Criminologist, portrays criminals as primitive in their nature. He argues that white males are the most advanced forms of human and non-white females are the most primitive. Women having more 'atavistic' characteristics would become more criminal than others. Lombroso maintains that all females are less advanced than males. If crime is to be explained in terms of primitive traits, female crime, according to Lombroso, would be greater than male crime, but in real world the female criminality is much more lower than male criminality. He tries to repair the anomaly of his theory by holding that prostitution is female substitute for crime. He attributes the lower female crime rate to the women's proximity to lower life forms. He claims that women are less intelligent and less capable of abstract reasoning because of their small cerebral cortex. This made females more vulnerable to be caught by psychological disturbance and sexual anomalies. He maintains that like domestic animals women are more adaptable and they can survive in any situation. Due to this capability to adapt they tolerate male manipulation and male control. According to Lombroso, criminal women are unnaturally masculine and show signs of atavism. Lombroso concludes that the more passive a woman, the more highly developed she is.
Due to the causes which he attributes to female criminality Lombroso has been criticised as being racist. He stands for patriarchy which erects a role model for women and hold that an ideal woman ought to be very gentle and passive and be confined within their home bound.
Sigmund Freud on female criminality
For Freud, the explanation of female criminality is placed on sexual neurosis. Female develops a sense of inferiority when she understands that she lacks a vital organ (private part of a male.) This scarcity determines her destiny as wife and mother rather than breadwinner. Freud maintains that a female during childhood understands that she has inferior sexual organs and pondering this as a punishment she then becomes envious and revengeful and develops feminine behaviour. They become exhibitionist and narcissistic. To win the love of men the women always try to be well dressed and physically beautiful. Freud argues that the women are passive and masochistic due to physiological difference and their receptive sexual role.
Freud argues that females are more controlled due to their passivity and their strong desire for love and affection of the male. Due to the fear of disapproval and withdrawal of male love and affection, female usually do not break law. Women are self-centred and busy with family matters because of their preoccupation with envy They do not understand justice due to their weak Super Ego. They, therefore, have no role in production and property ownership.
To Freud deviant women are those who refuse to accept their passive role and who are driven by the desire to claim private part of a male. This sort of desire is totally hopeless and they will become 'neurotic'. Such women should be given assistance to cope with their expected sex role.
Limitation of earlier theories
All the earlier theories are more or less similar in the sense that they picture women in stereo-typically. They ascribe to women a socially (particularly by patriarchy) erected sexual model role. In their view women should adhere to their role as wife, mother and home-maker. If any woman violates the socially erected norms (made by the male), that woman is categorised as deviant and criminal. Their theories are reminiscent of the concepts that women always remain a source of evil, causing the downfall of human being from the heaven. The criminality of female are considered more destructive to social fabric and men cannot do more damage to social order which women can do. This fear about female criminality has exposed the apprehension of patriarchy to lose their dominating position. They have tried to maintain the status quo. The early theorists have tried to incarcerate the female within confines of home and family. Obligation of a woman, in their view, is to conform to the role of a law abiding, passive and submissive woman.
Sociological theories
In a fascinating manner sociologists have explained why the male crime rate is much higher than female crime. Sutherland, famous American Sociologist, pointed out that females are socialised in a different way than males. He argues that "females of all classes and ages are socialised into the same sex role: they are taught to be nice rather than egotistical; they are all brought up to behave in a non-criminal fashion which is only true of some men; and they are more closely supervised and controlled."
Sutherland ponders that women are more law-abiding because of their exclusion from dominating male culture. Potentialities of girls and boys are different, so their capabilities and interests are channelled and developed through different training and education. It is the main cause of their differential behaviour. Factors like lack of access to deviant or criminal inputs and the learning which fit them to play their role as wife, mother and home-maker, are mentioned by Sutherland as operating behind the low crime rate of females.
Some sociologists view that maleness gives rise to masculinity and femaleness to femininity. Women become criminal when this natural process breaks down. In human society gender roles are among the strongest learnt social roles.
Talcott Parsons, another American sociologist, depicts two different roles of father and mother. As father is the breadwinner, so he stays outside home and works to meet up expenditure of the family. Mother stays at the residence and busy with upbringing of the children and household matters. Children observe different roles of father and mother. A boy understands that he has to take the role of his father and a girl similarly realises that she has to emulate her mother. Parsons argues that boys understand that the role of mother is less prestigious than that of the breadwinner. They realise that passivity, conformity, and being gentle are characteristic features of female, so they avoid these traits. If they want to become important, they must be very active and assertive. This develop aggressive attitude among the boys which is ultimately expressed as criminal activities. The family environment teaches girls to mature emotionally and give the lesson how they would become feminine, slowly and surely. Social structure is determining the ultimate destiny of a girl to become feminine, and a boy masculine. It also teaches the girls to be conformist and law-abiding.
Female criminality in a changing situation
The static picture of female and male (an active and breadwinner male and passive and home-maker female) has been changing with the females becoming the major or joint breadwinner. Now the females are experiencing the same pressures and strain as the male are. This increased strain causes increased female criminality. Freda Adler argues that with the women liberation they are moving out of traditional homebound social roles and their opportunities of access to outside activities are increasing. Due to this changing reality women are becoming more aggressive and competitive. Adler believes that women are taking the role men and they have started to fight the battles which men had always fought. This social reality causes increased female criminality.
Rita James Simon argues that women have been coming out of their home confines, so they have now more access to outside world, thereby they have now more opportunities to commit crime.
Concluding remarks
Different brains and difference in hormonal interaction between female and male cause the genetic passivity of females. All the experiments so far have been made on animals. A number of tests are made on rats. A rat's brain becomes either male or female soon after its birth. The brain becomes female if there is predominance of female hormones (Oestrogens), the brain becomes male if predominance of male hormones (androgens) has taken place. If a female is injected with androgens in early life, she will be exhibiting male characteristics including enhanced aggressive behaviour and an early castrated male will become more passive like females. Similar tests on monkeys produced the same result and the researchers claimed that the same may be true for human being.
To infer anything from experiments on rats and monkeys and impose it on human is very risky. The continuous works on genetics, biology and sociology again and again brought before us the nature versus nature debate. It is really very difficult to ascertain which, social or biological, factors play greater role in shaping different behaviour of female and male.
The author teaches at Department of Law, University of Dhaka.
