Has the liberation of women after the feminist movement affected the deviousness and criminality of women in society and if not, what has?

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Has the liberation of women after the feminist movement affected the deviousness and criminality of women in society and if not, what has?

This essay is concerned with the liberation of women after the feminist movement and deviancy and criminality of women and specifically whether or not the liberation of women after the feminist movement has affected the deviancy and criminality of women in contemporary society. This essay is also concerned with questioning what has affected the criminality of women if the feminist movement did not.

This essay will have three objectives. The first is to define feminist and to explain the feminist movement and perspective. The second is to discuss the increase in female deviants and female criminality and the third is to offer alternative reasons for the increase in female criminality.

It is first necessary to define the term feminist. A feminist is defined in the dictionary as the theory of political, economic and social equality of the sexes and is the organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests. (Merriam-Webster dictionary). The critique within feminism as an ideology involves the discrimination and injustices suffered by women in existing society. (Leech, 1996, pg 231.) There is no one single feminist perspective. Liberal feminists are a branch of feminists that argue that gender equality can be achieved without challenging men as a group or changing basic economic and political arrangements such as capitalism. (Leech, 1996, pg 223). Other feminists claim that liberal feminism fails to understand women’s true interests and cannot provide a strategy for their liberation ( Eatwell and Wright, 1993, pg 201) there are also Marxist/socialist feminists who unlike the liberal feminists see a contradiction between women and achieving civil and political rights. Socialist feminists understand women to be twice as oppressed (Wilford, 1984, pg.263) not only are they oppressed in the economic and political world but also oppressed within the family and home. Liberal and socialist feminists have different perspectives over the relationship between men and women in society. Liberals believe social change is the consequence of free choice made by the individual whereas socialists believe social pressures outside their control mould men and women. (Leech, 1996, pg 238.) Marxist feminists put forward the idea that the position of women can only be understood in terms of capitalism and class and the exploitation of the industrial working class under capitalism. (Wilson and Montague, 1999). Marxist feminism is very much to do with women and class inequality and focus its attention on the unpaid domestic labor performed by women and the exploitation of women in the labor force. There are also radical feminists. Radical feminists believe men exploit women in what ever they do and use their sexual dominance to oppress them. They are the most extreme of all feminists.

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The first wave of the feminist movement in the united states came about in 1920 with the constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote. The second wave of feminism began in the 1960’s with the new renewed demand for women equality. As a result of the demand for equality for the women by the women more women entered the work force and the political aspect of society and therefore reducing the gap between the sexes in terms of power, pay and social standing. However it is vital to point out that there still today is a gap between ...

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