Women and Crime by Heidensohn

Explaining why women commit fewer crimes

In Women and Crime (1985), Frances Heidensohn developed a feminist explanation of why women commit fewer crimes than men. Crime is behaviour that breaks the law. Rather than assuming that women are naturally more law-abiding, Heidensohn examined how their lives are organised and restricted.

Her starting point was patriarchy: a system in which men hold more power and authority than women. She used control theory, which asks what restrains people from offending. Her argument was that patriarchal societies control women more effectively than men, giving women less freedom and fewer opportunities to break the law.

These controls are not simply police surveillance or legal punishment. Expectations about family duties, threats of violence, financial dependence and pressure to protect a reputation can also restrict behaviour. Heidensohn identified three connected settings: the home, public life and the workplace.

Control in the home

Heidensohn argued that women are expected to spend much of their time doing housework and caring for children. These responsibilities keep them occupied and tie them to the home, reducing their freedom to spend time elsewhere and their opportunities to offend. The explanation concerns the restrictions attached to domestic roles, not an assumption that crime cannot happen at home.

Male authority can reinforce these expectations. Women who challenge their expected role may risk male violence used to assert patriarchal power. Where a man is the main or sole breadwinner, his control over household finances can also give him power over his wife’s decisions. Financial dependence may make it harder for her to act independently.

Control begins before adulthood. Heidensohn argued that daughters face closer supervision than sons: they have tighter limits on when they may leave home and are expected to contribute more time to domestic tasks. This gives girls less freedom than boys and helps establish gender differences in opportunities from an early age.

Control in public life

Outside the home, the threat of male sexual violence can restrict women’s movements. Fear of assault may discourage a woman from going out alone or after dark. In this explanation, a threat can control behaviour even when an assault does not occur.

Women also face pressure to preserve their reputation. Behaviour judged inappropriate may be said to bring shame on their families. The possibility of disapproval therefore encourages conformity to expectations of how women should behave.

Heidensohn connected this to the idea of separate spheres: public life is treated as men’s domain, while women are expected to belong in the private world of home and family. Women who raise concerns in public may be ridiculed and told to return to where they supposedly belong. This discourages them from challenging male authority and reinforces restrictions on their participation in public life.

Control at work

Paid employment does not necessarily remove patriarchal control. Heidensohn argued that women can be subordinate within male-dominated workplace hierarchies, where men hold senior positions and authority over employees. Workers’ organisations, including trade unions, may also be male-dominated.

Intimidation and sexual harassment provide further forms of control. They can make it harder for women to challenge those with power or act freely in the workplace. Across all three settings, Heidensohn’s central connection is the same: unequal power restricts women’s independence and opportunities, helping to explain lower offending.

Assessing the explanation and its evidence

A strength of Heidensohn’s approach is that it makes gender and everyday power relationships central to explaining crime. It connects apparently private matters, such as domestic responsibilities, to wider patterns of offending. Whereas Cohen’s explanation emphasises status frustration and delinquent subcultures among working-class boys, Heidensohn asks why controls may prevent women from offending in the first place.

Her work drew on secondary evidence, including official crime statistics and earlier sociological research, alongside interviews with women and girls in custody. Statistics can identify patterns in recorded offending, while interviews can provide insight into experiences of control. However, recorded crime is not a complete measure of all crime, and accounts from people in custody cannot automatically represent all women.

One criticism is that Heidensohn makes generalisations that do not apply to every woman. Experiences of domestic responsibilities, financial independence and male authority can differ by class, ethnicity and age. A theory that treats women as a single group may overlook these differences.

A second criticism is that her claims are not always supported by strong research-based evidence. A plausible account of how control works does not, by itself, establish how widespread each form of control is or how much it explains the difference between women’s and men’s offending. This criticism concerns the strength of the evidence, not a claim that she conducted no research.

A justified conclusion is that Heidensohn offers a useful explanation of how patriarchal control can limit women’s opportunities to offend, but it should not be treated as a complete explanation applying equally to all women.

Heidensohn’s central argument

Women and Crime (1985): feminist use of control theory. Patriarchal societies control women more effectively than men, restricting freedom and opportunities to offend.

Three settings of control

• Home: housework and childcare; risk of male violence when expectations are challenged; financial power of the male breadwinner; closer supervision and more domestic duties for daughters than sons.
• Public: threat of male sexual violence; pressure to avoid reputational damage and family shame; separate spheres and ridicule of women who challenge their assigned place.
• Work: male-dominated management hierarchies and workers’ organisations, including trade unions; intimidation and sexual harassment.

Evaluation

• Strength: connects gender inequality and everyday social control to differences in offending.
• Generalisations: women’s experiences vary by class, ethnicity and age.
• Evidence: some claims lack strong research support; identifying controls does not establish their contribution to offending patterns.
• Judgement: useful explanation, but not universal or complete.

Contrast: Cohen explains delinquency through status frustration; Heidensohn explains lower female offending through stronger controls.