¶ … Feminist Theory differs from other traditional and approaches in one major way. Many philosophical and sociological approaches start with the premises that human beings are "physically separate from all other human beings" (West, 1988). In fact, in those theories, that individualism is what defines a human being. This separation thesis is inherently masculine. The fact is that part of being feminine, is a lack of separateness from a fellow human being. During pregnancy, women are anything but separate from the babies within them. "Women are not essentially, necessarily, inevitably, invariably, always, and forever separate from other human beings" (West, 1988). This connectedness is not limited to the actual experience of pregnancy, although it is centered around the idea of pregnancy. Women are connected with other people during pregnancy, penetration, and breast feeding. The root of critical feminist theory is that women are connected to their fellow human beings in a way that men are not.
Critical feminist theory has a unique place in criminology. Because of the assumption that women are connected to other human beings, criminal justice and criminology takes a unique approach to women who commit crime, especially violent crime. Critical feminist theory cuts both ways. On the one hand, people are less likely to believe that women have committed a violent crime. On the other hand, when there is indisputable evidence that a woman has committed a violent crime, she is more likely to get a severe sentence than a man who has committed as similar crime. The most dramatic examples of this occur when parents kill their children. Just about every day in this country a father kills his child. While tragic, those crimes do not register on the national radar. In contrast, when a woman kills her child, it goes against that inherent connectedness to others that women are supposed to have. Therefore, there is a national uproar about those incidents. As a result, women who kill their children receive heavier penalties for their crimes, even though men are much more likely to kill their children.
Works Cited
West, R. Jurisprudence and Gender. (1988). In K. Bartlett (Ed.), Gender and Law: Theory,
Doctrine, Commentary (pp. 590- 592). Boston, MA; Little, Brown, & Company.
